Todd Snider is a subversive Steve Goodman, a guy who writes fine songs and tells entertaining stories on stage. That’s nicely captured on Todd Snider Live: The Storyteller, a two-CD collection that’s deep in engaging songs and stories. Sometimes they’re one and the same.
Snider talks of his high school years and the mushroom-related incident that set him on his life’s path before breaking into “Conservative Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight White American Males.”
Snider tells of having to lie low in a country cover band for a few months while his solo career was being launched. Somehow it all leads to one raucous evening, an unconscious lead singer, and Snider’s performance of Rusty Wier’s “Don’t You Wanna Dance,” which he reprises on this CD. It’s very funny, and he does the song in appropriately ragged fashion.
Dave Marsh wrote an authoritative book on “Louie Louie” and the FBI investigation of the song; Snider condenses the saga to a matter of minutes in his “Ballad of the Kingsmen” and makes a broader point about the folly of music censorship.
Live: The Storyteller documents what Todd Snider does so well on stage, and offers a terrific overview of his recent work as well.
