Todd Snider, a singer and songwriter beloved within the Americana music scene for his humorous but empathetic portraits of individuals struggling to outlive an uncaring world, died Friday. He was 59.
His dying was introduced in a put up on his Instagram account, which didn’t state a trigger or say the place he died. An earlier put up signed by “Todd’s Buddies & Household” stated that he’d been admitted to a hospital in Hendersonville, Tenn., after experiencing respiration issues and that he’d been identified with pneumonia; earlier than that, he known as off a tour this month after telling followers that he’d been injured in a “violent assault” exterior a lodge in Salt Lake Metropolis.
Continuously in comparison with the likes of John Prine and Kris Kristofferson — each of whom mentored him at numerous factors — Snider wrote about “how poor folks typically deal with ache and hardship,” he instructed the New York Instances in 2009. “Somewhat medication right here, a little bit intercourse right here, a little bit denial there.”
In a prolific recording profession that stretched three many years, Snider made albums for labels owned by Prine and by Jimmy Buffett and for his personal firm, Aimless Information. But to many he was finest skilled onstage, the place he’d thread his songs right into a sort of operating monologue about his rough-and-tumble life.
Amongst his best-known tunes had been the rollicking “Beer Run”; “Can’t Complain,” a few man with “nothing to lose ’trigger there’s nothing to realize”; and “Alright Man,” which opens with a scene through which a buddy catches him leafing by “that new guide with footage of Madonna bare.”
“Mentioned she’d by no means pegged me for a scumbag earlier than,” he sings, “She stated she didn’t ever need to see me anymore / And I nonetheless don’t know why.”
In his 2014 memoir, Snider instructed a shaggy-dog story in regards to the time Garth Brooks summoned him to a studio to assist him document a canopy of “Alright Man” within the guise of his alter ego, Chris Gaines.
“I used to be already starstruck earlier than Garth walked up and launched himself,” Snider wrote. “He stated, ‘I assumed you had purple hair,’ as a result of he’d seen me on the ‘Austin Metropolis Limits’ tv present, and I’d dyed my hair purple for that present. It wasn’t presupposed to be purple. It was presupposed to be darkish brown. My plan was to appear like John Fogerty, however as an alternative I ended up trying just like the man from the film ‘Dumb and Dumber.’” (Brooks didn’t launch the quilt, although Snider stated the nation famous person despatched him a test for $10,000 anyway.)
Todd Daniel Snider was born Oct. 11, 1966, and grew up in Oregon earlier than making his solution to Texas after which Nashville. His debut album, “Songs for the Day by day Planet,” got here out in 1994 by way of Buffett’s Margaritaville label; it closed with a motor-mouthed acoustic ditty known as “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” through which he lovingly lampooned the period’s different rock growth:
Now, to slot in quick, we put on flannel shirts
We flip our amps up till it hurts
We acquired unhealthy attitudes, and what’s extra
After we play, we stare straight down on the flooring
A critics’ fave from the get-go, Snider earned rave evaluations with 2004’s “East Nashville Skyline,” whose highlights embrace a characteristically wordy depiction of the tradition wars then roiling America within the wake of 9/11 — “Conservative, Christian, Proper Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males,” it’s known as — and “The Ballad of the Kingsmen,” through which he contemplates the that means of the lyrics to “Louie Louie.”
Among the many many different LPs he went on to launch had been 2009’s “The Pleasure Plan,” which was produced by Don Was, and a 2012 assortment of songs by Jerry Jeff Walker, the country-folk songwriter who’d served as a vital affect on him. Snider’s most up-to-date document, “Excessive, Lonesome and Then Some,” got here out in October.
Snider spoke brazenly all through his life about his struggles with medication and with persistent ache associated to spinal stenosis. “I do lots of issues to attempt to assist it, however I’ve to make peace with it, too,” he stated of the situation in an interview final month with Rolling Stone. “Which hasn’t been straightforward.” Details about Snider’s survivors wasn’t instantly out there.
