kethrai's Diaryland Diary

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The Slaid Cleaves Community Concert

Last night, I went to a community concert.

When I was a little girl, we went to community concerts a lot. My mother is musical, and considering we lived in a small town and money was short, we went to a lot of the "free-in-the-park" type things, and so I saw free musicals, free Shakespeare (I still have an unholy love for The Music Man), free puppet shows, and free concerts. This being New England, the Home of the Kitchen Musicians, most of them were pretty darned good--if you have a bunch of folks cooped up all winter with nothing to do but practice, than eventually they get there.

One of my favorite Kitchen Musicians of all time is a guy named Slaid Cleaves. He's a local boy, raised in South Berwick, Maine, who a few years ago now moved south and won the Best New Artist at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and has turned out a number of truly lovely CD's and songs. Check out his music--he plays like Johnny Cash (and does a damnded fine version of the Folsom Prison Song) and sings like a whiskey angel, and is the spiritual inheritor of Hank Williams Senior and some of those old coots they dig out of the hills who look like ragbags and pick like they've got robotic fingers set on "spazz". Even if you don't LIKE folk or blues or country, Slaid is worth a listen, and if you get to see him live (and up here, he's usually playing with a pickup band composed of old neighbors and relatives) it's worth quite a trip. He's also one of the last few who can actually do old time country yodeling, and I don't LIKE yodeling and I like Slaid.

So a few times a year, Slaid trucks back home and this year he was playing a community concert in South Berwick, Maine, in front of the Central Middle School (yes, it really is that) on a little old bandstand and people sat out in old ratty beach chairs and on blankets. There are two of the happiest looking trees you've ever seen on the lawn there, and during the whole evening they were full of children and music, which was probably why they looked so happy.

Have you ever been to a community concert? You really should go. I sat towards the back in a folding chair, and watched one of the kid-trees surge and flow with children. A bunch of little girls raced up in front of the stage and were dancing to the old-time country music. There was a lovely family right in front of me --mom, dad, grandmom, and two toddlery kids-- who were eating sushi and the little boy was trying his first time with chopsticks. They sent out ten year olds to pass the hat for the concert committee and I dug out every scrap of change I had on me. A couple of parents had brought the kiddos already bundled into pajamas, clearly to take them home and shovel them into bed directly after the concert.

And there was Slaid, with the whiskey voice and the pickup band and twining out strings of old, old music.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Slaid for a moment. I got my introduction to his music about 12 or more years ago-- I was in a tiny little used-record and bead store and heard something on their tape player and said "Hey, is that for sale?" and they said no, but the guy on the tape is playing down at the grange hall in town tonight, and tickets are four dollars.

I was young and broke, and I had never been able to sport my parents to a concert, but judging from the sort of folky sound to the music, I figured my dad would like it (he's a old, OLD country and rock fan--if you ask him, he'll tell you the Beatles ruined rock and roll) and so I called up my parents and for the princely sum of twelve dollars we went to the concert.

And yes, I hooked my parents on Slaid Cleaves.

I've had a bit of a proprietary interest in him ever since--about one or two times out of three that he comes up this way, I get to a concert and am reminded again of how much I like his music and his voice, and while the Texas influence is audible, he still has a peculiarly New-Englandish hand with the lyrics that tickles my sense of irony and amusement.

So, full circle. Back to community concert, Slaid Cleaves, a tree swarming with children, and yes, he has a new cd out, and if you can't make a community concert as good as Slaid's, played in front of hometown folks and his cousins as friends, go and see something similar--maybe climb one of the happy-looking trees yourself--

...and go buy some CD's. Encourage the man to keep playing. Get them here, and buy a t-shirt too. The price of gas is going up, and we want him travelling. And singing.

And no, the man doesn't know me from a hole in the ground, mentioning my name gets you no discounts or freebies and I get no kickback from sales. But if you've got spare change to throw into the case of a street musician, consider that I just walked you over to his corner. Stand and listen a bit, and then heave in the change and buy him lunch.