True to the Roots (5 page)

Pawless Guitars are treasured for their reputation but not because of any relentless wave of hype. Word of mouth is responsible for where Vince Pawless is today, and it's exactly where he wants to be. He's got all the business he needs—about twenty-five guitars a year make their lonely way from inside these walls to parts widely varied—and he's doing it all his way.

I, too, became aware of Pawless by his reputation. We've never met until now, and yet, knowing I was writing a book about a subject dear to his heart, he has invited me to the center of his modest life just to take a look. He doesn't expect me to write about him. He just thinks I'd like to see some examples of what he does. He's right.

The intricacies of guitar construction elude me. Guitars in general elude me. I play them, but I don't have a clear differentiation in my mind of what separates one style from another. I look at guitars and think, well, this one really looks cool or that one has a wonderful sound to it. Of my two guitars, one built by a young man named Rance White in Lenoir, North Carolina, and the other an Epiphone, bought from a secondhand store in Nashville, my general reflection is that I like each one more after I've been playing the other. I think the high notes sound purer in the Lazy River—White's brand name—and the lower notes sound more resonant in the Epiphone. The Epiphone, to me, sounds a bit more metallic, but what I call "metallic" may evoke another adjective in the thought process of another.

Dozens of guitars sit all around, all referred to lovingly by Pawless, whether he built them himself, traded for them from someone else, or is mulling over what to do with them. One in particular draws my attention, and when I ask about it, Pawless has a story to tell. He has a story to tell about all of them. This one has been designed for an expatriate Texan who now resides in Colorado. It's designed with the blues in mind, and the erstwhile Texan, who pines for home and perhaps his college days at Texas A&M, has stipulated that it be constructed wholly of materials indigenous to Texas. Built mainly from mesquite, it is both gorgeous and unusual. Smallish, its borders resemble the lines of a beautiful woman. It's the waviest guitar I personally have ever seen, but as noted, I'm hardly the expert. I've only been watching guitars closely for about a year. Playing one will do that to a man.

Pawless shows me a miniature guitar, one seemingly fit for the nurturing of a five-year-old, that he discovered was originally constructed by a man in New York City who stopped building them in 1904. The look of a toy is deceiving, he notes, and then shows me how it has been kind of crudely, but ingeniously in its own way, revised during the century that has intervened.

We leave to have dinner at the Chili's out on i-35 in Gainesville, return, and retire to the residence half of Pawless's shop. I play my guitar, and since my host is a kind man, he charitably offers the view that I'm not bad for a novice. He plays beautifully, taking turns on separate guitars, but I can't get him to sing. He doesn't sing, he says. He shows me a banjo he has "doctored," noting that it's a first. He shows me what he's done to it, and that leads to a discussion of what's wrong with the country music business. Pawless recalls a country music awards show, televised while the soundtrack to
O Brother, Where Art Thou
? was selling more than twice as many albums as any other in the genre, in which an other-side-of-traditional artist named Keith Urban performed ostensibly using just a banjo.

"I was looking, right there on TV, and all of a sudden I noticed that this banjo, what Urban is playing, has six strings," Pawless says, laughing. "He's just playing a guitar that's been made to look like a banjo.

"I mean, he could've had the thing for a long time, but what it looked like was, you know, this is their way, Nashville's way, of responding to the
O Brother, Where Art Thou
? craze."

I note that they could've outfitted an entire band with these instruments and that lead, rhythm, and bass guitars could all have been refashioned in the guise of banjos.

The two of us agree that the whole sham is emblematic—perhaps even microcosmic, if that's a word—of Nashville's whole administration of the country music industry.

Pawless shows me "his baby," a 1970 Mustang convertible hidden in a garage at one end of the building. Yes, he acquired it by trading a guitar.

A story about a session with Jerry Jeff Walker leads to what becomes my lingering memory of the whole visit. Walker and Pawless, it seems, had agreed to a guitar trade, with one trading a Gibson for the other's Martin. Pawless made the long trek to Austin only to discover that the reliably unpredictable Walker had changed his mind. Instead, Walker spent about four hours with Pawless, telling stories and reflecting on his career.

"That was more valuable than the guitar," recalls Pawless. "Now, I don't know if Jerry Jeff would even recognize me if I walked up right now, but for whatever reason, he was just in a mood to talk, and I wouldn't give anything for it. I don't know whether, deep down, he felt bad for having me drive all the way down there, but it was quite an experience."

I think to myself about how much Vince Pawless reminds me of the subject of Walker's song "Charlie Dunn," which is about a boot maker, not a guitar maker, but Charlie Dunn, in his idealized Capital Saddlery, where he works "out in the back," is not too far distant in my mind's eye from Pawless, retreating from the rat race to a place he will always call home and plying a valuable trade with guitars crafted, like Dunn made boots, with his own two hands.

If ever I desire another guitar—and that's undoubtedly going to happen—then I conclude, to paraphrase Jerry Jeff, that Vince Pawless, he's the man to see.

To Thine Own Self Be True

Austin, Texas I December 2003

Slaid Cleaves lives in a modest wood house not far from downtown Austin. His travels have forced him to become adept at basic automotive repair, and the old van out front matches the image conjured up by some of the stories from the road he has posted on his Web site,
slaid.com
.

Slaid.com. Perfect. A simple web site name for a songwriter who specializes in simplicity.

Cleaves tells stories about simple people with simple problems into which they descended simply. There's sadness inherent in their plight but also a sense of hope. Cleaves's tormented people still have hope.

"That probably started with me being such a Springsteen fan," he says. "I have an affinity for people who are struggling, and that's kind of stayed with me all this time.

"Oh, it's definitely observations," he adds. "Things someone in my family has gone through, or stories I've heard. I'm inspired by movies and other beautiful stories. Most of my
songs are observational. Usually there are one or two songs that are confessional."

His latest compilation,
Wishbones
, includes a song inspired in part by Laura Hillenbrand's book
Seabiscuit
. "Quick as Dreams" is written from the perspective of a young 1930s era jockey who, many years later, in the twilight of life, composes an ode to a fallen colleague.

Cleaves, like predecessor Jerry Jeff Walker, is a transplanted Texan, although he hasn't reinvented himself as a Texan the way Walker has. Walker is a Texan; Cleaves just lives there. But like Walker, he grew up in the Northeast—Walker in New York, Cleaves in Maine and Massachusetts—and like Walker, he found a musical home in Austin after kicking around and living somewhat the gypsy life.

"I never thought of that before," Cleaves says. "I just met [Walker] last week for the first time. He organized a caroling thing and brought a bunch of people over to his house. We all got on a bus and went to the hospice and the children's hospital."

There is an appealing naivete to Cleaves, so much so that there seems to be a disparity between his quiet personality and his song content rife with tempests and inner conflicts.

This interview seems more notable for Cleaves playing off and complimenting my questions than, well,
complementing
them. He is almost painfully nice, and the answers are thoughtful. There just isn't much to them.

I ask about his views on religion, and he replies: "Churches are political organizations. That's what it comes down to."

Continuing on this theme, I offer my own view that people who suffer from aids are kind of the lepers of this age, to which he replies: "Wow, that's perfect, yeah. I agree."

Maybe he plays all his cards in the writing of songs. After all, he makes money off those choice nuggets. He doesn't have to rhyme to stir the soul, though. Cleaves's Web site in cludes commentaries from the road that are masterful, most notably a tale titled "The Perfect Gig," which almost reads like a short story.

"My folks were really into music," he says, finally elaborating a bit. "I lived in Virginia until I was five. My folks, from high school on, were real music buffs. My mom was into folk and jazz and some country. She was into Pete Seeger, Mahalia Jackson. My dad was more of a rockabilly guy: Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and others."

I offer my notion that Elvis was overrated.

"Yeah, songwriting wise," he says, "but Elvis was such an icon. He was so beautiful."

Cleaves is almost itinerant in wandering across the country from club to club. Well, not always clubs. His schedule lists appearances at Unitarian churches in New England; the venues are as disparate as they are extensive.

"I was on the road almost constantly for a couple of years, yeah, just because I had gathered up all the things I needed to tour, which I had always wanted to do," he says. "I had a band together, I had a record that was getting some airplay, and I had a booking agent, a little bit of history and a little bit of momentum. When my last record [prior to
Wishbones
],
Broke Down
, came out in 2000, I felt everything was in place for me to tour and take advantage of what I had going.

"That was the album I had been trying to make for ten years. Everything just came together perfectly, and I started playing two hundred shows a year. I loved it. It was fun to see all the new places and to find an audience developing out there."

What
Broke Down
gave Cleaves was a niche. It was an album that declared a sound all his own. It was popular in the folk community, although Cleaves doesn't really see himself as a member.

"I just had all this music playing as a kid, and you know what? It was really Americana music, even though at that time there wasn't such a thing," he says. "Woody Guthrie. Buddy Holly. Buck Owens. Hank Williams. I had a good early start, good early influences.

"Of course, I found myself getting into what everyone else was listening to at school. Through friends I came across Bruce Springsteen and the Clash. Those guys became my heroes: the Clash, Springsteen, Tom Petty, Tom Waits. From reading about them, I found out who their heroes were. I rediscovered Hank and Woody through those guys. I remembered hearing those guys: Hank and Woody, Buddy and Elvis. I came full circle, and I think that's what led me to becoming my own person music wise. 'Lost Highway' is a great song, and 'Long Gone Lonesome Blues' is one of my favorites."

Cleaves went to college in Boston, at Tufts University. One can imagine him sitting with a guitar, playing for tips at some coffeehouse.

"Looking back, you would think—but that's not the way it was with me," he says. "Growing up in a little town in Maine, I wanted to go to the big city. Boston was only an hour from where I grew up. So I moved to Boston and at the time, in the early eighties, I was still into Springsteen and REM, and then into hardcore shows. I wasn't really heavy into that, but that was kind of an exciting thing, kind of bubbling up at that time. I never really heard of a lot of music that I listen to now during my years in college. I was playing on the street corners, in Harvard Square, but I went to hardcore shows all around Cambridge and Boston. As soon as I turned twenty-one, I started going to rock venues and rockabilly shows. I really don't have deep roots in the folk tradition, other than some of the music I was exposed to as a kid. It was really more of a pop and rock and country tradition.

"Yeah, I kind of am a folk singer now, kind of by default. I had a band in Maine, kind of a folk-rock band, an Americana band [the Moxie Men]. An acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. We did some Hank Williams, but we did a lot of wacky covers.

"I moved here alone and got hooked up with the Kerrville [as in the Kerrville, Texas, Folk Festival] folks. It was only after I moved to Texas that I discovered more of the coffeehouse scene. That was my career for a few years."

To Cleaves the irresistible allure of the road is enmeshed in drawing emotion from an audience, no matter the size.

"I think one of the most wonderful things about being an entertainer is making a connection with people," he says. "Other things are secondary—if you're making money at a gig or not, if there are beautiful people at a gig or not—as long as you're making a connection. If it's a small crowd, or at a coffeehouse, or a club crowd, you can tell when you're making that connection. It's a beautiful thing.

"Connecting with people is a two way thing, and that's what we're all after. That's what I'm after, anyway.

"There's a great Springsteen line about not being able to tell the difference between courage and desperation. People who hang on long enough are the people who do well. Stick with it and work harder than everybody else. It's not necessarily the most talented people who succeed. It's the ones who stick to it and persevere. The ones who don't give in to defeat."