Good Medicine Presents: Todd Snider

TODD SNIDER: Pickin’. Grin­nin’. Tellin’ Sto­ries. Takin’ Requests tour
Fri­day May 13th — 6pm — all ages
$27 advance $30 at the door

You don’t often hear about an artist rein­vent­ing their sound twen­ty albums into a cel­e­brat­ed career. But for Todd Snider, his lat­est release, First Agnos­tic Church of Hope and Won­der (2021), isn’t so much a sud­den change in direc­tion as an arrival after years of searching.

Since debut­ing in 1994, Snider has gone through his own incar­na­tions. His first sin­gle ​“Talk­ing Seat­tle Blues” was a head fake that might’ve point­ed to goofy nov­el­ty songs. But he quick­ly showed that his artis­tic quiver was much deep­er and more inter­est­ing. A sto­ry­teller who works a sim­i­lar cre­ative soil to John Prine and Shel Sil­ver­stein, Snider’s best songs are both sad and fun­ny, polit­i­cal and enter­tain­ing, and always writ­ten with a poet’s eye and a stand-up comedian’s sen­si­bil­i­ty about the fol­lies of human condition.

While he’s made twen­ty fine albums, it’s on stage where Snider is even more potent, with between-song ban­ter that weaves sub­tle emo­tion­al threads through his sets. A road dog who loves the road, Snider has toured with Emmy­lou Har­ris, John Prine, Jim­my Buf­fett, and appeared at fes­ti­vals like Farm Aid, New­port Folk Fest, Lockn’ and Tel­luride Blue­grass Festival.