Category Archives: alt.country

Hey Todd Snider fans, good new coming by way of Upstage: (Nashville, TN) — Though singer/songwriter Todd Snider released his last album on Universal Records, he built up a strong and loyal following during his five-year tenure with Nashville based Oh Boy Records. Oh Boy Records sifted through their archives – and with Snider’s help – compiled a collection of rarities, B-sides and demos appropriately titled Peace, Love and Anarchy (Rarities, B-sides and Demos, Vol. 1). The album, which streets on April 3, is an invitation for us to peer in and watch a gypsy whittle, and for us to whistle along while he works.

Snider, praised as a next-in-line luminary by folks such as John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Billy Joe Shaver, appears onstage as a barefoot tipsy gypsy, looking for all the world like he’s stumbling into brilliance, eloquence and gut-busting humor. It’s a great act, and this is not to say that he’s not himself out there. He is, and it’s his best self. It has landed him in hallowed performance halls, on the Jay Leno and David Letterman shows and in the good graces of his heroes.

What people don’t see, though, is the fellow who wakes early each morning, picks up a guitar and works on his poems. He writes them out by hand, and at first a Snider song is something like a big block of good wood. Then the knife comes out, the wood is shaped over days and weeks and sometimes years, and he shows it to people once he’s done with it. His recordings, too, blend the inspiration of a moment with a thousand afterthoughts. They wind up on finished recordings because they are… well, finished. Even the jagged stuff is there on for a purpose.

All of which makes Peace, Love and Anarchy (Rarities, B-Sides and Demos, Vol. 1) something of a revelation. Here are Snider’s songs at first blush. Some of these compositions – among them, “Nashville,” “Feels Like I’m Falling In Love” (for co-writer Jack Ingram), “Deja Blues” (for co-writer Shaver) and “Feel Like Missing You” – grew up to become master recordings, while “Nashville” was whittled down some more before appearing on the East Nashville Skyline album. The title song of the latter album never made the album in question, and it appears here for the first time, complete with resplendent harmonica/steel guitar interplay between Snider and the legendary Lloyd Green.

“Cheatham Street Warehouse” is a full-on rock ‘n’ roll tribute to a favorite Texas haunt, with Snider’s tough-as-the-blues electric guitar duel with Tommy Womack in the middle and Green’s searing steel solo dominating at song’s end. “Combover Blues” is a slice of poignant wit, and Snider can’t recall precisely why it was left off his original Oh Boy recordings. “I Will Not Go Hungry” is a weather-beaten spiritual reach, while the “Dinner Plans” haiku is all red wine reality.

“Stoney” is taken from the much-bootlegged but never-issued Todd Sings Jerry Jeff album that he recorded over a few nights in East Nashville as an aural thank-you note to one of his inspirers. He sat in a chair with eyes closed and played the songs from memory: Todd Snider knows Jerry Jeff Walker songs as well as he knows anything in the world, including but not limited to rolling paper techniques, lighter fluid methodology and San Francisco Giants baseball. “Some Things Are” is another openhearted endeavor, as is “From A Rooftop,” Snider’s postcard from the right side of town.

Peace, Love and Anarchy is not a post-contract, drag-the-lake affair. It is a carefully constructed collection, and a testament to the potency of a catalogue built during Snider’s five-year tenure with the small-but-stout Oh Boy Records family.

Todd Snider – Austin City Limits- This Land Is Your Land