Alternative country singer-songwriter Todd Snider dies at 59
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Todd Snider, a singer whose freewheeling, reflective melodies and cosmic stoner songwriting made him a beloved figure in American roots music, has died. He was 59 years old.
His record label said Saturday in a statement posted to its social media accounts that Snider died Friday.
“Where do we find the words for the one who always had the right words, who knew how to distill everything to its essence with words and songs while uttering the most devastating, hilarious and shocking phrases?” the statement said. “Always creating rhymes and meters that immediately seemed like an old friend or a favorite blanket. Someone who could almost always find the humor in this crazy trip across Planet Earth.”
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Snider’s family and friends said in a statement Friday that he had been diagnosed with pneumonia at a hospital in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and that his situation had since become more complicated and he was transferred elsewhere. The diagnosis came on the heels of a tour cancellation after Snider was the victim of a violent assault in the Salt Lake City area, according to a Nov. 3 statement from his management team.
But Salt Lake City police later arrested Snider himself when he initially refused to leave the hospital and then returned and threatened staff, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The canceled tour was in promotion of their most recent album, “High, Lonesome and Then Some,” which was released in October. Snider combined elements of folk, rock and country in a three-decade career. In reviews of his recent albums, The News called him a “singer-songwriter with the personality of a fried folk” and a “stoner troubadour and cosmic comedian.”
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He was inspired by artists such as Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark and John Prine, and at times met and was mentored by them. His songs were recorded by artists such as Jerry Jeff Walker, Billy Joe Shaver and Tom Jones. And he co-wrote a song with Loretta Lynn that appeared on her 2016 album, “Full Circle.”
“She conveyed such tenderness and sensitivity through her songs, and showed many of us how to look at the world through a different lens,” her label’s Saturday statement read. “He would get up every morning and start writing, always working to find his place among the songwriting giants who sat on his record shelves, those same giants who let him into their lives and took him under their wings, whom he studied tirelessly.”
Snider would do his best-known and most acclaimed work for Prine’s independent label, Oh Boy, in the early 2000s. It included the albums “New Connection,” “Near Truths and Hotel Rooms” and “East Nashville Skyline,” a 2004 collection many consider his best.
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Those albums produced his best-known songs, “I Can’t Complain,” “Beer Run” and “Alright Guy.”
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Snider was born and raised in Oregon before settling and developing his musical skills in San Marcos, Texas. He eventually arrived in Nashville, and was unofficially dubbed “Mayor of East Nashville” by some, assuming the title of a friend thus remembered in his “Train Song.” In 2021, Snider said a tornado that ripped through the neighborhood where a vibrant arts scene was located severely damaged his home.
Snider had one of his first fans in Jimmy Buffett, who signed the young artist to his record label, Margaritaville, which released his first two albums, 1994’s “Songs for the Daily Planet” and 1996’s “Step Right Up.”