Todd Snider

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Stacie Huckeba

Todd Snider with lurking guitar.

Todd Snider

There’s a reason Todd Snider was a go-to support act on tour with the late John Prine: Snider has the same high-wattage wit in his lyrics with a large dose of Seattle cynicism mixed in. Even though he’s recorded since the early 1990s Snider says he’s first and foremost a live troubadour. In some ways he’s never left the sofa circuit and continues his zany oral tradition in the vein of Mark Twain, if Mark Twain smoked high-quality weed. Rolling Stone calls him “America’s sharpest musical storyteller.”

$35.

press release: Todd Snider has announced 'Live: Return Of The Storyteller' (out September 23 via Todd's own Aimless Records and Thirty Tigers), a brand new live collection of songs and stories captured during his first performances after venues opened back up last year. With material spanning from his 1994 debut album Songs From The Daily Planet through 2021's First Agnostic Church Of Hope And Wonder, Snider uses much of his storytelling to pay homage to friends gone too soon including John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, Neal Casal and Colonel Bruce Hampton. But typical of a Snider live show, his stage banter also veers into one-of-a-kind road tales like conversing with haunted ghost children in California, raising hell with the inventor of Crocs in Montana and misadventures in the woods behind Johnny Cash's house in Tennessee. 

Fittingly for these topsy-turvy times, Snider was keen to share another new track, "Big Finish" - the humorously self-aware acoustic blues number originally released on 2012's renowned 'Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables.' Before the set-opening "Big Finish" kicks off, we hear the exhilarated eruption of the Fall 2021 audience experiencing live music for the first time in a long time, as Snider beams and triumphantly proclaims "it's good to be back among ya!"

Listen to "Big Finish" here: https://toddsnider.net/bigfinish/

Todd Snider says: "I wanted to put out a live album of a one man band show to remind the people who listen to me that I know I am a troubadour and folk singer. I am a glorified busker first and foremost and always. The reason I get to explore music in the studio is because I can play it alone on the road. It's like an unspoken agreement between myself and 'The Shithouse Choir.' I feel like we have a thirty year inside joke going. It seems like the only thing they are counting on me to do is whatever I want and I wanted to make this album for them. It starts with this song that on one level is directly to them. You can listen to this as the first song of a new show from an old singer to an audience he's lucked into for years through good gigs and bad, and he's back again explaining his side of it. He says 'it always seemed like the right thing at the time' just like being here now does...welcome to the show."

Pre-order 'Live: Return Of The Storyteller' here, and become eligible for a chance to win a harmonica and guitar pick used by Snider on his 2021 tour: toddsnidershop.com

A successor in spirit to Snider's 2011 collection 'Live: The Storyteller' - which found the New Yorker praising him for his "perfect timing, mastery of tiny details and sharply funny, lyrical songs" - the album was recorded between August and December of 2021 on stages across the United States. Musically it finds Snider reimagining a diverse array of his career-spanning material; adapting songs from his output with jam supergroup Hard Working Americans into folk-troubadour style, or channeling recent funk-inspired writing through inspiration from Jimmy Reed. Snider says:

"this album is dedicated to all the people

who come to these shows

whether this last tour was the first one you caught

you've been coming since 94,

or you joined the family somewhere in between

you have my undying gratitude

traveling and singing has been the great joy of my life

and it’s not lost on me who makes it possible

thank you."