1. Todd Daniel Snider was born on October 11,1966 and is an American singer-songwriter whose music incorporates elements of folk, rock, blues, alt country, and funk.
49 Facts About Todd Snider
1. 2.
Todd Snider only lasted one semester, but while there, he learned to play the harmonica.
3.
Not long after arriving in San Marcos, Todd Snider saw Jerry Jeff Walker perform solo at Gruene Hall, a legendary dance hall in New Braunfels, Texas southwest of Austin.
4.
Todd Snider met Kent Finlay at his very first writer's night, which was at Finlay's San Marcos club, Cheatham Street Warehouse.
5.
Todd Snider was packing small rooms in San Marcos and over the next few years began to draw enthusiastic crowds in Austin, as well.
6.
Todd Snider discovered Memphis songwriter Keith Sykes while living in San Marcos when a friend at the local record store turned him on to a pair of albums Sykes made in the early '70s.
7.
In 1989, Todd Snider's father moved to Memphis and happened to meet Sykes' sister-in-law.
8.
Sykes thought one of the songs had potential, so Todd Snider moved to Memphis to try to work with Sykes.
9.
Not long after he arrived in Memphis, Todd Snider landed a weekly residency at a local club The Daily Planet.
10.
Todd Snider recorded a number of sides in Nashville for the label, but they declined to pick up his option for a full album.
11.
Around the time of the Capitol deal, Todd Snider began performing with a small band backing him which he dubbed the Bootleggers.
12.
Todd Snider had changed the band's name to the Nervous Wrecks.
13.
Not long after label exec Bob Mercer saw Todd Snider perform at an industry showcase in Memphis in April 1993, Todd Snider flew to California to open a show for Buffett.
14.
Todd Snider was backed by Kimbrough on guitar, Mariencheck on bass, Paul Buchignani on drums, and Rick Steff playing keyboards, and the result was a more straight-ahead rock record than his first two.
15.
Todd Snider, who was struggling with drugs at the time, insulted those in attendance early in the set and then left the stage.
16.
Todd Snider's third Oh Boy release was a live album, Near Truths and Hotel Rooms, which was released on May 13,2003.
17.
Todd Snider co-produced the record with his old Nervous Wrecks bandmate Will Kimbrough at engineer Eric McCullough's east Nashville studio.
18.
Notable among the collection's fourteen tracks is the song "East Nashville Skyline" which was intended to be the title track of the album of the same name but Todd Snider did not finish it in time to make the album.
19.
On October 20,2006, Todd Snider made a solo acoustic in-store appearance at Grimey's New and Preloved Records in Nashville, performing material from The Devil You Know.
20.
In 2008, Todd Snider launched his own independent record label, Aimless Records.
21.
On some of the selections, Todd Snider is backed by the jam band Great American Taxi.
22.
The East Nashvillian said Todd Snider was a "one-man Occupy Wall Street" on the record.
23.
In 2013, Todd Snider cofounded the jam band supergroup Hard Working Americans with Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools.
24.
The band's debut, Hard Working Americans, was released by Melvin Records on January 21,2014, and included 11 songs written by songwriters Todd Snider admires, including Randy Newman, Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, Kevn Kinney, Hayes Carll, and Will Kimbrough.
25.
In between his work with Hard Working Americans, Todd Snider finished the album Eastside Bulldog which Aimless released on October 6,2016.
26.
Todd Snider was backed on those sides by Eric McConnell on bass, Jen Gunderman on piano, Mark Horn on drums, and Dennis Taylor on saxophone.
27.
In 2016, Todd Snider cut four more sides to complete the album with backing from Aaron Lee Tasjan on guitar, Keith Christopher on bass, Paul Griffith on drums, Robbie Crowell on sax, and Rorey Carroll on percussion, among others.
28.
Todd Snider produced the record and played most of the instruments on it, including electric bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo and piano.
29.
Todd Snider contributed a cover of "A Boy Named Sue" to the 2010 album, Twistable Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein.
30.
In 2017, Todd Snider covered "It Sure Was Better Back Then" for the tribute album An American Troubadour: The Songs of Steve Forbert which was released on October 6 of that year.
31.
On March 6,1995, Todd Snider performed "Alright Guy" with the Nervous Wrecks on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
32.
Todd Snider returned to O'Brien's show for a performance of "I Am Too" that aired on May 13,1998.
33.
Todd Snider has performed on several music programs during his career.
34.
Also in 1996, Todd Snider performed "Alright Guy" solo acoustic on VH1's Crossroads.
35.
Todd Snider made three appearances in 2010 on Squidbillies during the fifth season of the Adult Swim TV series.
36.
Todd Snider sang the show's theme song in episode seven, "Fatal Distraction," which aired on June 27,2010.
37.
Todd Snider voiced the character Lobster Freak in episode eight, "Clowny Freaks," which aired on July 4,2010.
38.
Todd Snider appeared as himself in the season finale, the half-hour, all-star musical special, "America: Why I Love Her," which aired on July 18,2010, and included Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, among others.
39.
Todd Snider composed the music for their 2010 film, The Locksmith.
40.
The 42-minute film allegedly offering proof that peace queers had kidnapped Todd Snider and made him write the anti-war protest songs that appeared on his Peace Queer EP.
41.
Todd Snider starred in the Barnes brothers' 2013 feature-length, stoner musical mockumentary, East Nashville Tonight, alongside Elizabeth Cook.
42.
In 1997, Todd Snider performed a cover of Steve Goodman's "This Hotel Room" at a tribute concert in Goodman's honor at the Medinah Temple in Chicago.
43.
Todd Snider starred along with his Hard Working Americans bandmates in The First Waltz, director Justin Kreutzmann's documentary that captures the formation of Hard Working Americans and their first performances together in late 2013.
44.
Todd Snider's first cut was by Rick Trevino who recorded Snider's "She Just Left Me Lounge" for his 1994 eponymous release.
45.
Todd Snider collaborated with Jason Ringenberg again on "James Dean's Car," which appeared on Ringenberg's 2002 solo album, All Over Creation.
46.
Billy Joe Shaver recorded two songs he and Todd Snider cowrote: "Deja Blues," which was included on his 2002 album, Freedom's Child, and "The Real Deal," which appeared on his 2005 record of the same name.
47.
Todd Snider recorded two others, "Horseshoe Lake" and "Half a Man," for his 2007 EP Will Kimbrough.
48.
In 2021, Tom Jones released an eclectic cover of Todd Snider's "Talking Reality Television Blues" on his 2021 album Surrounded By Time.
49.
On October 9,2021, Todd Snider was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Aladdin Theater in Portland.