Everything about singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves’ new album, from the title and cover art to the lyrics and melodies, gushes with pending tragedy. Released in April, “Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away” suggests the infirmity and transience of the fleeting things we take for granted. Cleaves tried to make that theme inhabit every aspect of his record.

“I just learned early on that in order to make an impression on people, in order for people to remember my songs, I had to really strike them in the heart and really move them,” he said. And striking the heart means stoking the tragic.

Cleaves spoke to The Wire by phone while driving to Pittsburgh for the first leg of a tour that will keep him on the road for five months. The tour swings through his hometown of South Berwick, Maine, on Thursday, July 2, kicking off the 10th annual Hot Summer Nights concert series.

The show will take place on the lawn of the Central School on Main Street—the same brick building where Cleaves received his primary schooling. Now based in Austin, Texas, he has appeared in Hot Summer Nights several times before, and the hometown performances always offer a few surprises.

“It’s a little tricky because every year somebody comes out of the crowd who I haven’t seen in 20 or 30 years,” Cleaves said. “It’s also strange because when I’m onstage I don’t know who from my past is out there. Could be a school teacher from third grade, or, who knows, an old sweetheart from junior high.”

The 1982 graduate of Marshwood High School launched his musical career when he was a teenager growing up in rural Maine. His Web site includes a number of nostalgic stories from the archives of his life. In one of those stories, Cleaves describes his dedication to his first band when he was 17. He recalls driving his rusty car through eight inches of snow to Rochester for band practice in his friend’s parents’ basement. 

That first band, which also included Cleaves’ lifelong friend and collaborator Rod Picott, mostly stuck to rock covers of idols like Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen. The group often played at parties that were shut down early because of complaints from neighbors. “It wasn’t because we were loud but because we were really bad. Actually, a combination of the two,” Cleaves said. “I don’t think we ever had a paid gig.”

After high school, Cleaves joined another cover band with some older musicians from Rochester. Called The Classifieds, the band mainly played gigs at bowling alleys and lounges in the Dover area.

Cleaves has come a long way since then. He moved to Texas the day after Thanksgiving in 1991 and settled in Austin, where he has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the top artists in the city’s teeming folk-country scene. But Cleaves has not forgotten his roots. He said both Austin and South Berwick, though separated by some 2,000 miles, helped shape him as a songwriter.

“I’ve always tried to write about people in my community, local themes and local details. … Both places have affected my writing,” he said. “The move to Texas affected my writing in a qualitative way where I sort of found myself up against a very, very competitive crowd and really had to bring my game up a couple of levels.”

Cleaves has been making records for about a decade and a half, but the album that put him on the national map, “Broke Down,” came out in 2000. He followed it up to still greater acclaim with “Wishbones” in 2004. Two years later, he released “Unsung,” a collection of covers written mostly by obscure influences.

“Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away” represents Cleaves’ first recording of original songs in five years. The title is taken from a line in the album’s opening song, “Cry,” a stirring Americana tune bound to become a Cleaves classic. His grazed voice, windblown with a hint of Texas dust, elicits wistful emotions as he sings, “Every man is a myth, every woman a dream. Watch your little heart get crushed when the truth gets in between.”

Cleaves said the album’s melancholic tone stems from a recent assessment of his life. Now over 40, he considers himself fortunate to have a supportive family with a loving wife, a dog and a house. But he has been forced to confront the reality that all his good fortune will eventually pass.

“Being 43 years old and starting to deal with health issues and stuff, it just occurred to me that this is probably as good as it’s gonna get, and all these wonderful things I have will all slowly be taken away from me,” he said.

Cleaves often picks up his ideas from snippets of stories or phrases pulled from journal entries or books, “ideas that come at you when you least expect it,” he said. With a single nugget of narrative as the seed, he crafts an entire story in song. He co-wrote several of the compositions with friends, including his old pal Rod Picott, now a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, Tenn.

At least two of the songs on the new album, “Beyond Love” and “Temporary,” came to Cleaves in dreams. “A few dozen times a year I might wake up with a melody in my head. Usually they fade away, but a couple times a year, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to reach for a little tape recorder by my bedside and maybe jot down an idea or sing an idea. And then I’ll go back to sleep,” he said.

Another song, “Tumbleweed Stew,” was inspired by lines from a phone message from his friend Wranglin’ Ron Coy. The lyrics describe a man trying to have some fun and stay out of trouble. “Where can a good man go crazy? Where can a cowboy get stoned?” Cleaves sings.

Although fans will recognize Cleaves’ 1965 Gibson guitar and tender voice, he took a slightly different approach to the new album. Instead of strictly following the traditional folk-country formula, he decided to honor some of his other musical icons.

“I wanted to draw on some of my influences who hadn’t been so influential on my previous records,” he said, noting that he grew up listening to radio pop like The Beatles, Tom Petty and U2. “I wanted to draw on some of those more modern melodic themes, but also more mysterious, personal and emotional kind of themes.”

The CD’s cover art will look familiar to Seacoast music fans. A colorful drawing depicts a bearded man lying on his back and gazing forlornly into the starlit sky. The drawing was done by fellow South Berwick native Dan Blakeslee, a prolific artist and anchor of the local folk scene.

“I became a fan of his art a few years ago,” Cleaves said. “I just wanted something different or interesting instead of the same old cover art with a picture of my face on it.”

Blakeslee will open for Cleaves at the South Berwick Central School on July 2 during the first installment of the 2009 Hot Summer Nights series. The free show begins at 6:30 p.m., and the series continues every Thursday through Aug. 20. For more information, visit www.hotsummernightssobo.com.

Cleaves has played in the Hot Summer series each of the last two or three years, and five or six times over the last 10 years. It’s an opportunity for locals to catch a homebred hero performing in his element. Cleaves said he looks forward to performing in South Berwick during his annual tours. “It is special,” he said.