Turntable Tuesday! Todd Snider’s Brand New Album “First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder”

It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! It is time to fire up the turntable and crank up some great tunes! This week it’s all about the brand new release from Todd Snider that came from the pandemic year. More on that in a moment. In the meantime crank up your local speaker with your favorite tunes and let’s celebrate another Tuesday!

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Todd Snider. I have been a fan for decades. I have seen Todd perform in rooms that were tiny with friends like Nashville singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman opening for him. I have seen Todd play solo at Farm Aid to thousands in a sold-out amphitheater on his trusty black J-200 Epiphone guitar mostly tuned either in standard tuning or open-B. I have seen Todd perform solo to sold-out theaters from the Carolinas to Key West. I have seen Todd perform with the amazing Americana super-group “Hard Working Americans” several times and at most all of the shows I was standing only a few feet from the stage. I don’t say all of this to elaborate on my quest to see live music, I say it to say that each one of those experiences was different from show to show but yet there is a common thread. Todd is not only a song-writing mega-talent he is also very creative and funny from the stage. Todd is a one of a kind writer who sees things in life and tells the story in his own way. Much of that background translates to this new album.

Back in the early days well before the turn of the century say the mid-1980’s Todd was living in Memphis when Keith Sykes who was playing with Jimmy Buffett at the time helped Todd through introductions to Keith’s friends John Prine and Jerry Jeff Walker. Todd had already seen Jerry Jeff perform as a teenager in Texas. Todd recorded for Margaritaville Records which was associated with Island Records and later went to MCA. I believe Todd was the first artist signed for this label along with Marshall Chapman and others such as the Iguanas. By the end of the 1990’s Margaritaville Records was changed to Mailboat Records…I remember walking into the office of Margaritaville Records back in the 1990’s and having some conversations. Later I walked out with some interesting marketing material. “Nuff said. Soon Todd was making music as a gypsy troubadour traveling all over the country. Those were the days when we were singing Todd’s songs like “Beer Run”, “Double Wide Blues”, and one of my favorites “Statistician’s Blues.” I can’t leave out the “Ballad of the Kingsmen.” The hits just kept coming as the years went by. I bought all of the music all this network of people produced across the years whether it was Keith Sykes, John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, or Todd Snider. It was like a big extended family. I eventually met all of these people in my passionate musical journey, some for a few minutes and some many times.

Todd’s new album was inspired by the loss of many of his friends in a short time span. I feel like I lived this experience with him. I knew what these people meant to him from his history and listening to all the music of this group of artists for all these decades. First it was losing Neal Casal before the pandemic. I can testify with many fans who know that Hard Working Americans was an incredible band in the studio and on the stage. These guys were all special in their own talents and this band was amazing to see live. They seemed to all be having a great time on stage and the songs they were cranking out were just awesome. I think I have everything this band ever created whether vinyl or digital and it is still very enjoyable to listen to these tracks. Great music, go check them out if you haven’t already.

By March of 2020 we were in the beginnings of a world-wide pandemic and most of us were locked-down in our homes in isolation. Suddenly our favorite musicians were coming to us via Facebook and You Tube. Todd showed up online and I found out about it through my connections. I started watching on Sunday right after lunch each week. I was there as Todd played and responded to the live chat stream. He started playing his albums in full and talking about the tracks week to week. He was also telling stories about all the players on the records like Will Kimbrough who traveled on tour with Todd for years and was on many of his recordings even co-producing the “East Nashville Skyline” album back in 2004 as well as the one from 2006 called “The Devils You Know.” Todd was doing a lot of story-telling and all of these shows were so different it became a “I can’t miss this” kind of thing. In the course of just six months three of his close song-writing friends died. John Prine, Billy Joe Shaver, and Jerry Jeff Walker. I too was a major fan of these artists. I started listening to them in the late 1970’s and had seen them perform so many times. I can only imagine how hard it was for Todd to lose all of these guys so close together. I saw some of that in the live streams and it was sad for me too. Watching this unfold through a pandemic year only made a bad thing worse. I still remember the last conversations I had with these guys. I will never forget those days.

Todd wrote “Handsome John” about John Prine. It’s a sad piano hymn where he describes his relationship with his late friend, from the time he was hired to be John’s driver in the Eighties to watching John exit a concert stage in his signature way just before he died. “In the last year of his life, he ended the shows with a song called ‘Lake Marie,’ and instead of walking off, he danced off, and I don’t mean mildly,” Snider wrote in the liner notes for the album. “I mean like a teenager. Or a swan. Or a hippie. To this day I see it as his last poem. Beyond words. Wisdom beyond words.”

My take on the title is the “Handsome” comes from John Prine’s favorite drink the “Handsome Johnny.” Let’s take a moment to toast John Prine. John is always quoted as saying he used red label Smirnoff vodka, not blue label. “If you get too good of vodka, it kills the bubbles,” The brand of ginger ale doesn’t matter, but it should be a diet version. Not only is normal ginger ale too sweet, according to John, but “you don’t want to get diabetes from drinking.” After that, the recipe is pretty straightforward: I recommend pouring two ounces of vodka in a highball glass filled with ice. Top with four to six ounces of ginger ale, depending on how strong you like it. The last step is important. If it’s winter time, garnish the drink with a lime. In the summer, use a lemon. But do not squeeze it. “Just drop it in from about six inches above,” Prine advised.

There is so much to discover in this album for a new or even hard-core Todd Snider fan. I suggest you get the vinyl and read all the contents as you listen. This album is a real nice addition to any collection whether analog or digital. I’ll talk to you on the companion podcast.

Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.