Americana troubadour Todd Snider, alt-country singer-songwriter, dies at 59

Todd Snider performs at the To Nashville, With Love Benefit Concert at Marathon Music Works on Monday, March 9, 2020, in Nashville, TN. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Todd Snider, a singer whose thoughtfully freewheeling tunes and cosmic-stoner songwriting made him a beloved figure in American roots music, has died. He was 59.

His record label said Saturday in a statement posted to his 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 down to its essence with words and song while delivering the most devastating, hilarious, and impactful turn of phrases?” the statement read. “Always creating rhyme and meter that immediately felt like an old friend or a favorite blanket. Someone who could almost always find the humour in this crazy ride on Planet Earth.”

Snider’s family and friends had said in a Friday statement that he had been diagnosed with pneumonia at a hospital in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and that his situation had since grown more complicated and he was transferred elsewhere. The diagnosis came on the heels of the cancellation of a tour after Snider had been 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 at first refused to leave a hospital and later returned and threatened staffers, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The scrapped tour was in support of his most recent album, “High, Lonesome and Then Some,” which released in October. Snider combined elements of folk, rock and country in a three-decade career. In reviews of his recent albums, The Associated Press called him a “singer-songwriter with the persona of a fried folkie” and a “stoner troubadour and cosmic comic.”

He modelled himself on — and at times met and was mentored by — artists like Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark and John Prine. His songs were recorded by artists including 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.”

“He relayed so much tenderness and sensitivity through his songs, and showed many of us how to look at the world through a different lens,” the Saturday statement from his label read. “He got up every morning and started writing, always working towards finding his place among the songwriting giants that sat on his record shelves, those same giants who let him into their lives and took him under their wings, who he studied relentlessly.”

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 that’s considered by many to be his best.

Those albums yielded his best known songs, “I Can’t Complain,” “Beer Run” and “Alright Guy.”

Snider was born and raised in Oregon before settling and making his musical chops in San Marcos, Texas. He eventually made his way to Nashville, and was dubbed by some the unofficial “mayor of East Nashville,” assuming the title from a friend memorialized thusly in his “Train Song.” In 2021, Snider said a tornado that ripped through the neighbourhood home to a vibrant arts scene severely damaged his house.

Snider had an early fan 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.”

The Associated Press