When Todd Daniel Snider died on November 14th at the age of 59, it left a huge, gaping void in the songwriting community that won’t soon be filled, if ever. Though some impromptu gatherings and benefits have happened in the wake of his passing, one the size of Texas will happen on Friday, March 20th.
Scheduled to transpire at Willie Nelson’s Luck, Texas just outside of Austin, the “Todd Snider Rules!” tribute will see some 25+ artists take the stage to pay homage to a songwriting patron saint as part of the greater festivities surrounding SXSW. The tribute will happen the day after Willie Nelson’s annual Luck Reunion, both of which will take advantage of the superb talent in town.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere in music if I hadn’t stumbled onto Todd when I was a teenager. The coolest, the funniest, the wittiest. There’s a hole in my family’s heart without him here,” says Cody Canada, who is scheduled to perform, and hasn’t taken a stage since Todd’s passing without singing one of his songs in tribute.
“The impact the loss of Todd Snider has had on the music community and on me personally cannot be overstated,” says East Nashville poet laureate Aaron Lee Tasjan. “For over 20 years he was my friend, mentor and one of my closest and most trusted allies, and so the opportunity to come together with Todd’s friends and fans to honor him at Luck is something I feel so fortunate to be doing this year. I know it will help us all to process and navigate the way his absence continues to affect us all.”
Scheduled to perform are Cody Canada, Jason Boland, Amanda Shires, John Craigie, Kevn Kinney, Dalton Domino, Shelby Stone, Jack Ingram, Ashleigh Flynn, Kat Hasty, Pedal Steel Noah, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Tommy Prine, Levi Snider, Hayes Carll, Garrett Boys, Emma Ogier, Caleb Martin, Dallas Burrow, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, Briscoe, Travis Roberts, Sterling Finlay, and more to be announced.
Though Todd Snider might be most synonymous with the East Nashville songwriting community that he helped found in large part, his musical journey started in Texas. That’s why some many of the state’s musical scribes were quite to lend their name to the tribute.
Though Snider was born in Portland, Oregon and was raised in nearby Beaverton, Snider ended up in San Marcos, TX in the late ’80s. This is where Snider saw Jerry Jeff Walker perform at the legendary Gruene Hall in nearby New Braunfels. With little or no music experience, Todd Snider decided he’d been placed on this earth to be a songwriter.
Todd bought a guitar, and started writing songs the very next day. He later met Kent Finlay, the legendary proprietor of the Cheatham Street Warehouse. It was Finlay who introduced Todd to songwriters like Guy Clark and John Prine. Soon Snider was drawing his own crowds in the San Marcos songwriting rooms, and started driving up to Austin to perform.
Tickets are on sale now at luckpresents.com. The event will open at 2:00 pm.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source savingcountrymusic.com ’
