On Friday, September 6. the me&thee kicks off the fall season with a show featuring Slaid Cleaves. Slaid’s sparse story: grew up in Maine; lives in Texas; writes songs; makes records; travels around; tries to be good. Twenty years into his career, the celebrated songwriter’s latest release Still Fighting the War spotlights an artist in peak form. Maine’s Putnam Smith, who opens the show is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and a do-it-yourselfer to the core, even prints his own CD cases on a century-old letterpress obtained and refurbished for that very purpose. Doors open at 7:30 PM for this 8:00 PM show at the me&thee coffeehouse which is located at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead at 28 Mugford Street.
The music of Austin-based Slaid Cleaves is rooted in country and traditional folk songs, but it is unusual enough to have held interest in a sea of singer-songwriters across the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. It isn’t everyone who can claim to have Stephen King as a fan. King once wrote the line notes for a Slaid CD: “I’m glad I found Slaid Cleaves, because my life would have been poorer without him. You’ll feel the same, I think, when you listen to this beautifully crafted album. Listen, go to one of Slaid’s shows, take a friend, and pass on the news: not all the good guys wear hats.” Slaid Cleaves spins stories with a novelist’s eye and a poet’s heart. Dress William Faulkner with faded jeans and a worn six-string for a good idea. “Slaid’s a craftsman,” says Terri Hendrix, who sings harmony on “Texas Love Song.” “He goes about his songs like a woodworker.”
While Slaid released a handful of recordings during the early '90s, he gained significant notice with No Angel Knows, which was released on Rounder's Philo subsidiary in 1997. The album rode high into the charts at Americana-formatted radio stations around the U.S. and Canada.. The release set the tone for the rest of his career. Prior to entering the music industry, Cleaves majored in English and philosophy at Tufts University in his native New England, and began playing music in garage rock bands while still in high school. While in college, he learned guitar, and later spent a summer in Ireland. He began busking on the streets in Cork, and that was the turning point when he decided to become a folksinger. After many years in Portland, Maine, he sought new mountains to climb, and found some of them after moving to Austin, Texas, in 1992. In 1995, he recorded an independent album entitled Life's Other Side. During the following decade, Cleaves released Broke Down (2000) and Wishbones (2004) prior to switching to Rounder proper for Unsung (2006). After signing with Music Road label, he issued Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away (2009, featuring the aforementioned liner notes from Stephen King), the two-disc Sorrow & Smoke: Live at the Horseshoe Lounge (2011), and Still Fighting the War (2013). The title song of the latter album was inspired by Craig F. Walker's Pulitzer-winning photo essay regarding a soldier's postwar civilian life.
Putnam Smith, who hails from Portland, Maine, could be an old-world troubadour fresh from the 19th Century. After all, he lives in a log cabin, plays his Grandfather's banjo, and has printed up the jackets of his new CD on a 1901 Pearl Letterpress. Yet this rootsy multi-instrumentalist songwriter (he also writes and performs on guitar, mandolin, fretless banjo, and piano), steeped as he is in old-time Appalachian traditions, is very much a storyteller for the modern age. As the Portland Phoenix notes about Smith: “(He is) especially adept at arranging a variety of acoustic instruments and backing singers into songs that capture the escapist zeitgeist of a time seeming to run parallel to the present day.” Putnam first came to national attention with his 2009 release, Goldrush, which went to #5 on the national Folk & Bluegrass DJ Charts (and made it on 6 "Favorite Albums of 2009" lists). His second release, We Could Be Beekeepers, shot right up to #2 the month it was released, charting 3 songs in the top ten. Selected as an "Emerging Artist" at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (2011), and noted as "One To Watch" (Rob Reinhart, Acoustic Cafe), Putnam has begun to establish himself as an acoustic tour-de-force not only in his hometown of Portland, but as a nationally touring musician as well. As Maine's indie newspaper the Maine Edge says: "He's that rare breed of musician that manages to sound like a throwback without ever coming off as dated."
Tickets for the performance by Slaid Cleaves with Putnam Smith are $20 in advance and $23 at the door. Tickets are available online at www.meanthee.org and can be purchased in person in Marblehead at either the Spirit of ’76 Bookstore or the Arnould Gallery As at all me & thee coffeehouse events, refreshments are available, including homemade pastries, coffee, and teas. The me & thee has a handicapped-accessible entrance and an accessible bathroom, is a smoke-free environment, and is easily reached by MBTA bus. The me & thee is the oldest continually running acoustic coffeehouse in New England, and probably the country. The me & thee has been and will always be a volunteer, non-profit organization sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead. For information and directions, call 781-631-8987 or check the website www.meandthee.org.
Next concert: September 13, 2013 – Loudon Wainwright III – Sarah Blacker opens
