NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Todd Snider, a singer whose thoughtfully freewheeling tunes and cosmic-stoner songwriting made him a beloved determine in American roots music, has died. He was 59.
His file label stated Saturday in a press release posted to his social media accounts that Snider died Friday.
“The place do we discover the phrases for the one who at all times had the suitable phrases, who knew the way to distill all the things all the way down to its essence with phrases and track whereas delivering essentially the most devastating, hilarious, and impactful flip of phrases?” the assertion learn. “All the time creating rhyme and meter that instantly felt like an outdated good friend or a favourite blanket. Somebody who might nearly at all times discover the humor on this loopy journey on Planet Earth.”
Snider’s household and associates had stated in a Friday assertion that he had been recognized with pneumonia at a hospital in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and that his state of affairs had since grown extra difficult and he was transferred elsewhere. The analysis got here on the heels of the cancellation of a tour after Snider had been the sufferer of a violent assault within the Salt Lake Metropolis space, in response to a Nov. 3 assertion from his administration crew.
However Salt Lake Metropolis police later arrested Snider himself when he at first refused to go away a hospital and later returned and threatened staffers, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The scrapped tour was in help of his most up-to-date album, “Excessive, Lonesome and Then Some,” which launched in October. Snider mixed parts of folks, rock and nation in a three-decade profession. In critiques of his latest albums, The Related Press referred to as him a “singer-songwriter with the persona of a fried folkie” and a “stoner troubadour and cosmic comedian.”
He modeled himself on — and at occasions met and was mentored by — artists like Kris Kristofferson, Man Clark and John Prine. His songs have been recorded by artists together with Jerry Jeff Walker, Billy Joe Shaver and Tom Jones. And he co-wrote a track with Loretta Lynn that appeared on her 2016 album, “Full Circle.”
“He relayed a lot tenderness and sensitivity by way of his songs, and confirmed many people how to have a look at the world by way of a unique lens,” the Saturday assertion from his label learn. “He acquired up each morning and began writing, at all times working in direction of discovering his place among the many songwriting giants that sat on his file cabinets, those self same giants who let him into their lives and took him below their wings, who he studied relentlessly.”
Snider would do his best-known and most acclaimed work for Prine’s impartial label Oh Boy within the early 2000s. It included the albums “New Connection,” “Close to Truths and Lodge Rooms” and “East Nashville Skyline,” a 2004 assortment that’s thought-about by many to be his finest.
These albums yielded his finest identified songs, “I Can’t Complain,” “Beer Run” and “Alright Man.”
Snider was born and raised in Oregon earlier than settling and making his musical chops in San Marcos, Texas. He ultimately made his method to Nashville, and was dubbed by some the unofficial “mayor of East Nashville,” assuming the title from a good friend memorialized thusly in his “Practice Music.” In 2021, Snider stated a twister that ripped by way of the neighborhood residence to a vibrant arts scene severely broken his home.
Snider had an early fan in Jimmy Buffett, who signed the younger artist to his file label, Margaritaville, which launched his first two albums, 1994’s “Songs for the Day by day Planet” and 1996’s “Step Proper Up.”
