Todd Snider, a driving pressure of the alt-country scene during the last two-plus a long time, has died on the age of 59.
The information of his passing was confirmed by Snider’s label, Aimless Data, which wrote a prolonged publish in honor of their “Vice President of the Abrupt Change Dept.” The publish when on to say that Snider was somebody “who might nearly all the time discover the humor on this loopy experience on Planet Earth,” and that he created “rhyme and meter that instantly felt like an previous good friend or a favourite blanket.”
A reason behind demise was not instantly shared. Nevertheless, previous to his passing, Snider had been receiving in depth remedy for strolling pneumonia that had solely not too long ago been identified.
Todd Daniel Snider was born on October eleventh, 1966 in Portland, Oregon. By the mid-80s, he’d relocated to the San Antonio, Texas area, the place he met his future mentor in songwriting legend Kent Finlay (who additionally based the honored Cheatham Road Warehouse venue). For years, Snider packed golf equipment throughout each San Marcos and Austin, Texas, delighting followers together with his earnest, heartfelt strategy to nation and people.
By the early ’90s, Snider had relocated to Memphis and signed a take care of Capital Data. Although that settlement fizzled out earlier than any music was launched, he did briefly be a part of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band — a stint that led to a separate take care of Buffett’s personal Margaritaville Data. That interval produced Snider’s earliest and most foundational work, together with his 1994 debut, Songs for the Each day Planet (which yielded a modest Billboard hit with “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues”), in addition to 1996’s Step Proper Up.
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By the point he launched 1998’s Viva Satellite tv for pc, Snider launched into one thing of a profession pivot, stepping away from Margaritaville and sharpening his personal distinctive musical voice. That shift led to a take care of John Prine’s Oh Boy Data, the place Snider additional made a reputation for himself with data like 2000’s Completely satisfied To Be Right here and 2002’s New Connection. But it surely was 2004’s East Nashville Skyline the place Snider the place Snider actually got here into his personal, a report now thought to be a cornerstone of Twenty first-century alt-country.
Snider continued to carry out and launch data over the subsequent a number of years, ultimately resulting in the launch of Aimless Data in 2008 to handle this regular stream of music. Although he would work with Aimless for the remainder of his profession, he partnered with Yep Roc for 2009’s The Pleasure Plan. The album was warmly acquired and climbed to No. 6 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. In the meantime, Aimless’ first launch, 2008’s Peace Queer EP, additionally made an impression, incomes sturdy placement on Billboard’s Americana charts.
Into the 2010s, Snider maintained his schedule of standard performances and releases. That included 2011’s Reside: The Storyteller; a pair of albums in 2012 (Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables adopted by the tribute LP Time As We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker); co-founding the supergroup Exhausting Working People (alongside Widespread Panic bassist Dave Faculties); 2016’s Eastside Bulldog (which was extra in step with the ’50s-era rock of Snider’s alter ego, Elmo Buzz); and 2019’s Money Cabin Periods, Vol. 3, the place Snider returned in superb style to his people roots.
Snider’s last official launch was 2023’s Crank It, We’re Doomed. Even so, he remained lively through the years with a wide range of initiatives and aspect ventures exterior of nation and people. He collaborated steadily with filmmakers Brad and Todd Barnes, leading to two mockumentaries: 2009’s Peace Queer: The Film and 2013’s East Nashville Tonight. He additionally appeared in and narrated 2014’s The First Waltz, a documentary chronicling the formation of Exhausting Working People; made a number of cameo appearances on Squidbillies as Lobster Freak; and printed his personal “quasi-memoir,” 2014’s By no means Met a Story I Didn’t Like: Largely True Tall Tales.
It’s price noting that Snider’s demise adopted a stretch of troubling information. Per Rolling Stone, he’d been arrested in Utah in early November for inflicting a disturbance at Salt Lake Metropolis’s Holy Cross Hospital, the place he was reportedly in search of remedy following a “vicious assault” on Halloween night time.
Tributes and eulogies for Snider have already begun popping up on-line. Author/rock critic Steven Hyden known as him “one of many greats,” and an “unheralded songwriters’ songwriter.” Hyden went on to jot down that Snider was a man “not solely influenced by [John] Prine/[Kris] Kristofferson/Jerry Jeff however he appeared to return out of the identical world.”
On a private word, go hearken to “Simply Like Previous Occasions,” which has an ideal line that sums up not solely Snider’s artwork however his singular way of life: “Your objective was all the time the identical as mine/You didn’t wish to throw a fishing line in that previous predominant stream.”
