Standing up for the little guys. And doing some DIY
Anyone with even a passing interest in singer-songwriter stuff from the American heartland knows the name Slaid Cleaves.
For a couple of decades now, he’s been making classy – and classic – world weary little vignettes about the downtrodden, the forgotten and the lost and if, rather like Stephen Fearing and the ilk, that has never quite brought him the mainstream recognition his wonderful music might deserve, then that suits him just fine.
There is a paragraph on the press release that came with “Ghost On The Car Radio” that summed his outlook perfectly: “ Slaid Cleaves lives with his wife of 21 years, Karen Cleaves, in the Hill Country outside Austin, Texas. While Karen books the shows, the flights, the hotels, and the rental cars; designs, orders and sells the CDs and T-shirts, pays the band, updates the web site, answers fan questions, does the taxes and makes dinner, Slaid writes his little songs (and fixes things around the house).”
What he’s too modest to say, so we will instead, is that those “little songs” are brilliant.
At his absolute best, like on “Little Guys” here, there are very few that can match Cleaves. The tale of a garage owner who is struggling with his business “each day there’s a little less I recognise in my hometown, its hard watching the little guys going down,” opines the character, and in so doing becomes a perfect metaphor for the globalisation of the corporate world.
The pace of change seems to be a concern to Cleaves throughout. “Take Home Pay” is worthy of Drive By Truckers, and there is a stoicism about the line: “If I have to I’ll hit the blood bank, I’m bone dry but I can always bleed.” and the old time country strains of “The Old Guard” are wrapped around a tale about getting older.
It’s his lightness of touch that sets Cleaves apart. Right from the stomping opener “Already Gone” – which chugs like Steve Earle at his best – it is clear that this is a very special album.
One with plenty of twists, turns and surprises too. “Drunken Barbers Hand” has an almost Latin feel, “If I Had A Heart” is a gorgeous ballad with a dark heart, and with superb use of harmony vocals, “Primer Gray” uses the car as the driving force for the story (as all the best US songwriters do it seems). The even better “Hickory” uses the trees of the Tennessee mountains to do the same thing, but there is a real sadness about the lyrics, and its hook line “call it progress or a shame, but you can’t stop the train, “symbolises the whole of “Ghost On The Car Radio.”
Most of the 12 tracks here are just about three minutes long and the brevity allows for no extra fat, “To Be Held” for example, is as simple as it gets, but makes its point perfectly, “Still Be Mine” is mid-paced but happy in its own skin, and the closing “Junkyard” – just Cleaves and his guitar – is as fragile as it is heartbreaking.
It is a fine end to an album that frequently verges on incredible. “Ghost On The Car Radio” probably won’t sell millions, but Slaid Cleaves will be happy with that. After all, you couldn’t make this type of understated brilliance in the glare of the spotlight. That was never the point, and anyway, Cleaves only has to answer to the missus.
Rating 9/10
