RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Singer-Songwriter Slaid Cleaves in Interview and Performance

Slaid Cleaves in the studios of KOOP-FM in Austin, Friday, November 1, 2013. Photos by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Rag Radio podcast:
Acclaimed Austin-based 
singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves

Slaid spins some yarns, tells how his study of philosophy, the inspiration of Woody Guthrie, and his stint as a busker on the streets of Ireland have influenced his music and his life. And he performs live for the Rag Radio audience.

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / November 19, 2013

Singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves was our guest on Rag Radio, Friday, November 1, 2013. He joined us in discussion and performed live on the show.

Rag Radio is a weekly syndicated radio program produced and hosted by long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer and recorded at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.

Listen to or download the podcast of our November 1, 2013, interview with Slaid Cleaves here:


Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio is Austin-based singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves.. A recording artist and full-time touring musician, Cleaves was called "one of the finest songwriters from Texas" by The New York Times.

Slaid was a winner of the prestigious New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival, an award previously given to such artists as Nanci Griffith, Robert Earl Keen, and Steve Earle, and his album Broke Down was a hit on the Americana charts. Slaid Cleaves was born in Washington, D.C., was raised in Maine, and attended Tufts University where he majored in English and philosophy.

Slaid Cleaves, right, with Rag Radio's Thorne Dreyer.

Slaid's latest album, Still Fighting the War, is a collection of songs that have garnered kudos from returning vets and their families. (“Men go off to war for a hundred reasons/ But they all come back with the same demons.”)

He does an annual Thanksgiving eve show at Austin’s Saxon Pub and Slaid, who counts Woody Guthrie as a primary influence, will be featured in Jimmy LaFave’s “Walking Woody’s Road” -- along with LaFave, Eliza Gilkyson, and Sam Baker -- at Austin’s One World Theatre in January.


Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is now also aired on KPFT-HD3 90.1 -- Pacifica radio in Houston -- on Wednesdays at 1 p.m.

The show is streamed live on the web and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Contact Rag Radio at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, November 22, 2013: Sam Daley-Harris, author of Reclaiming our Democracy: Healing the break between people and government. 
Friday, November 29, 2013: Methodist minister, spiritual counselor, and longtime civil rights and anti-war activist Bob Breihan, founder of the New Life Institute.

The Rag Blog