by Sheldon Birnie
Anyone who follows these Hillbilly Highway pit-stops I keep posting up, or who has maybe consumed a couple road pops with me, knows I’m a big fan of Todd Snider and what the fellow is all about. The East Nashville based dude is one of my favourite songwriters, and a true American original.
When I spoke with Todd Snider almost a year and a half ago, shortly after the release of his album Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables and leading up to his blissfully baked Folk Fest performance, he dropped one ball that I didn’t quite know how to react to. For those of y’all whose memories might be as jumbled as mine, what he told me was
The last record, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables, it felt like the end for me. I’ve said what I’ve got to say. I think I’ve made 12 records, so what is that, roughly 120 songs? That feels like enough, you know? So I figured I’m going to stop this part of my life, the making up songs part, and try to find some other things to do. So I felt like making the Jerry Jeff record was more like a present to myself, you know. I don’t think the world needs new versions of these songs. Jerry Jeff did them best. This was more like a going away party for myself. I’ve had a lot of fun making records. I’m not going to not make records, just maybe not as Todd Snider. I’m not going to do that no more. I’m going to tour and everything as long as I can. But I’ll probably focus more on my side band now. Or maybe try to write something else.
What could he be up to? I wondered. Was he just fried and fucking with me, or opening up wide and dropping some truth? How the fuck was I supposed to know?
About a week ago, word come down the Highway that Snider’s about to release a record, early in 2014, with a new band called the Hard Working Americans. A “super group” of sorts, if you dig that sort of verbiage, with current &/or former members of Widespread Panic, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and Great American Taxi. In other words: some heavy fucking hitters.
What’s particularly interesting about the Hard Working Americans, whose self-titled debut hits stores in January and who have a US tour booked for shortly thereafter, is the material and the approach they’re bringing to it. The debut consists of 11 tracks that Snider has “collected” over his past 20 years on the folk festival / Americana circuit, imagined by the band as a soundtrack to the life of Joe Hard Workin’ ‘Merican (or something like that). The line-up includes tunes from Hayes Carll, the Bottle Rockets, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and many more.
Take a peak at this little “preview” of the band, and start getting hyped. I know I am, though to see these sons of guns in the flesh I may have to make a trek down to the good US of A. Any excuse is a good one, though, no?