[Editor’s note: With this feature we welcome longtime contributor John Patrick Gatta back to the site, following a health ailment and recovery.]

It’s been five years since COVID instituted a social pause around the world. Once masks were off and test results were no longer needed, humanity made up for lost time, cultivating such an overwhelming lifestyle it made the pandemic seem as if it took place in a galaxy far, far away a long time ago.

Despite this, its aftermath – good and bad — continues.

In the former category arrived as a gift from folk troubadour Todd Snider – 11 free downloads featuring acoustic re-recordings of his solo releases and the Hard Working Americans album of original tunes.

Titled the “Purple Versions,” in reference to the Purple Building, his creative homebase in East Nashville during the 2020 shutdown, they encompass three months of livestream performances that began on Snider’s birthday (Oct. 11) and included his usual mix of sharp songwriting plus revealing and, occasionally, comedic banter about each number…or in Snider’s case, whatever else popped into his mind and out his mouth. 

He then condensed all that music into the personally-selected 6LP vinyl box set, “Best of All My Songs,” which quickly sold out.

While his recent output took a look back, Snider doesn’t sound as if he’s done creating. During our conversation, he discussed writing new material as well as possibly reviving his popular livestream format.

As he considered his next creative move, Snider wades through life as a supportive elder statesman by default. Many of his mentors and longtime friends – John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Kris Kristofferson, comedian Richard Lewis – and his beloved dog, Cowboy Jim passed away over the past five years.

JPG: Your first album came out in ‘94, so that was probably not too far after you started.

TS: I was 28.

JPG: When the first album came out? You were too old to be in a boy band.

TS: (laughs) Just barely. I remember I didn’t even start playing guitar ‘til I was 19.

JPG: You got a late start compared to other musicians who — when you read about their background – were holed up in their room as a teenager practicing.

TS: More like a prop for my grip at first. Then, it became a real passion. It started off as a Jerry Jeff Walker celebrating the busker lifestyle, and I was living that way at that time and fell into it for that reason to begin with.

Who’s not gonna pick up a guy with a guitar? You got a better shot of people letting you crash for a while. (slight laugh)

JPG: I saw on YouTube a clip of your conversation with Otis Gibbs, and you talked about busking and not needing record companies. They need you.

TS: Yeah. I guess Otis was saying that. I don’t know much about that stuff anymore. Record companies. I guess they have them still…I’m sure they still do have all that shit. It seems like all the young people I know just do it themselves.

JPG: Is that why all your albums that you played during the livestreams during COVID you put out as free downloads? Your attitude was, “The heck with working with a record company. Let’s just put ‘em out.”

TS: Oh no. I don’t mind record companies. I’ve always had so much fun. When I was young, record companies were so good to me. I’ll tell you this though. I had total creative control that whole time, too.

I always liked playing with music even though…I learned a ton about it from Dave Schools, an overwhelming amount. Before you called, I was playing drums because that’s what I have to learn to do. I have to start over kind of, but I can play lead now…When those guys [in Hard Working Americans] told me to put my guitar down, Dave, then, showed me how to play music. Starting over. So, I’m glad that they let me do that.

I got to learn music and play around with it and arrange it, talk about the guitars. I wouldn’t know shit. I’d be like, “Crunchier.” Now, I’ve gotten the chance to learn all that because of some people when I was younger just saying, “Fuck it.”

JPG: Do you think it was a learning process for you because it was always Todd Snider, the solo artist, who did what he wanted to do versus being part of band in Hard Working Americans and dealing with other people’s ideas and contributions?

TS: Yeah. That was a really great learning experience for me on every level. Also, that’s what I went into it for. Now, I do feel like I love music. I love to play it and it’s a big passion for me now. I used to mostly just be lyrics.

JPG: Was it at all frustrating for them because you were coming at it from a completely naïve area because you didn’t…

TS: Yeah, well, I didn’t know almost nothing, really. Then, when we start doing our own [songs]…when I make up the lyrics, I become a different person, too, and that was unfortunate.

When we were doing covers [on our self-titled debut], I was more able to learn and put my guard down. (Hard Working Americans did originals on its second effort, “Rest in Chaos.”)

Now, I like ummm…Well, I love…what was I gonna say? I smoked a bunch of weed before you called. Sorry.

JPG: That’s okay. You’re making a decent amount of sense. So, we’re good. Last Hard Working Americans question. Is the band totally done? Are you guys on good terms and maybe someday…?

TS: I would do it, for sure. I don’t think anyone’s on terrible terms. I don’t think anyone’s on bad terms. It would be up to Dave. I don’t know, man. I don’t see it happening, not with Neal gone and…(long sigh) that’s been hard.

JPG: Yeah, absolutely. That was such a shock. Such a shock. Well, let’s go to something better. Let’s go to the re-recordings, the Purple Versions of your previously-released albums. You were doing the livestreams from the Purple Building during the COVID break when no one was touring and much of public life stopped. At some point you decided to perform an album from your catalog each week. Around that same time, Taylor Swift started putting out the “Taylor’s Version” of her previously-released albums to reclaim her material.

TS: It’s funny. Now I know why I took my stoner turn. I felt like I was allowed to play with music. I learned about it even though no one’s ever called that my forte.

The thing that I can do, and could do a month after I had the guitar, is these things [writing and playing songs], and I feel like I’ve never taken the natural, God-given, I guess, or cosmically-born with the deal where I can explain my song and then sing it for you either in the back of your car or in your backyard or whoever’s paying.

So, I feel like if you go look for me on Spotify, it’s just going to start with what I’m good at and not with none of the new thing, my new hobby or the new thing I’m working on added to it. This is how come I got to be in the jamband. This is how come I got to have a Nervous Wrecks band. This is what label people saw me do even before that. People just wouldn’t let me go hungry.

JPG: Oher bands re-recorded their material. Was it reclaiming the original?

TS: Yeah. I’ve only, otherwise, seen it in truck stops where it would be somebody like Merle Haggard or something would want to own…they do remakes. I always felt gypped when I grabbed those. “Oh, that’s not it.”

JPG: Squeeze did something like that. They re-recorded their hits…

TS: …and then Taylor Swift is like an anomaly. She’s just a new thing. She did that and they’re popular.

I got a song in her movie, man. Jack Ingram. She’s in the dressing room listening to Jack. I haven’t seen it. My accountant was like, “What’s all this with Taylor Swift?” “I don’t know.” And then Ingram called. “Hey, man. Guess what? A song I made up is in the background just long enough.” She left it in there just long enough, too. Bless her.

JPG: What was the song?

TS: I haven’t heard it.

JPG: You don’t know what song title it is?

TS: Uh-uh. Me and Jack have a bunch. We’ve written about five or six together. It’s Jack singing. They’ve known each other for a long time. She opened for him before she made a record. He called me about her before she made a record.

JPG: Did he recognize that she’s going to be…

TS: He was like, “You won’t believe this shit!”

JPG: …because she was 14 or something, a teenager.

TS: Yeah. He called the first day. “Oh God, this poor girl opens and she’s only 14.” Then he called the next day, and he was like, “Man…it’s Loretta Lynn.” She took over, which is a nice person taking over, which I’ll accept.

I’ve always thought it was cool. I’m not young. I’m not who she’s singing to, but I like it. I like all music.

JPG: What inspired you to put the re-recordings — the Purple Versions — out for free?

TS: I felt like it would be too much to ask people to pay for all that. Mostly, I like Spotify. I’m on there all the time. I feel like I’ve learned so much about music just from that, and I go look at myself, sometimes, to make a setlist.

Now, I look at it and it’s just all of the [Purple Versions] and it’s with the acoustic guitar and I’m talking and I’m playing with my fingers, and it’s like that’s what I was doing when I was 20 years old.

JPG: When you were playing those albums, did you learn something about the songs by revisiting them?

TS: Let’s see. I remember noting how often I was saying, “I don’t like this one,” but I felt I liked the kind of person, whoever wrote them, whoever that was, I liked that person for the most part. And I think, “This guy’s not trying to bullshit.”

JPG: Are you able to look at your past material and rather than critique it just say, “That was a moment in time. Here we are now.”

TS: I can listen to it now, not in my 30s, but only recently I can listen to it. I’m a long way from those people that made those records, so I believed those guys.

JPG: I watched a recent video of you talking about being a different person. You weren’t even wearing your hat!

TS: When was this?

JPG: It was with Otis Gibbs.

TS: He was probably at the house. Oh, we were talking about busking. I didn’t have my hat on?

JPG: Did you retire the hat? You were always wearing that during your livestreams and concerts.

TS: I don’t have it on now either! Been off the road too long.

JPG: You wore it so much, I thought it finally broke up in a million pieces. Disintegrated.

TS: (laughs) Oh, no no no. I need to put that sucker on to walk around. I’ll just go walk around East Nashville with that and somebody will ask me to smoke some weed.

Amanda Shires made that for me. I was their reverend. Those were the flowers she had in her hair when [she and Jason Isbell] got married.

JPG: Going back to the Purple Version recordings, the free downloads of all your albums revisited during the livestreams culminates in the six-LP box set, “Best of All My Songs.” Did that allow you to extend the idea in a different way? How did the box set come about?

TS: Both of them for me were about how to be remembered, I guess, in that way because the vinyl one’s a little different. That’s my songs that I think are my favorites. I can’t remember exactly how I picked it. Sometimes, I have different ways of picking my favorites.

I went through and picked my favorite songs. Then, I thought they’re good performances and then no talking and then…

There’s a story where I took a bunch of LSD before a Hard Working Americans show in Los Angeles. That is on there. There’s another story about how me and Jerry Jeff were walking around in Santa Fe in the middle of the night. Some guy was playing (the Walker-penned) “[Mr.] Bojangles” on the street for no one. It was like magic or something. It was three people out that whole night, the whole town was shutdown. That was like a ghost or something. That story. I like those. Sometimes, those become songs. I told them a bunch and fuck with them.

JPG: I remember the LSD one.

TS: Yeah, that was true. Dave’s dad was in the front row. I wouldn’t sing into the mic and Dave was like, “Sing in the mic” and I’d be like, “They can hear me, I think.” It was a magic show for me but…

JPG: Now comes the deeper stuff. What have you learned and take with you from your inspirations or mentors of the past?

TS: I’m still trying to get up from all that. Recently, there was Richard Lewis and then Jimmy Buffett. Richard was like the closest friend to me. That was a big one. We were really close. I didn’t make decisions without him. He didn’t make them without me. We talked multiple times a day. I don’t know how that happened.

He was the funniest human being on earth. Also, he was such a good…I miss that. That was important to me, and then Jimmy, too. I didn’t see Jimmy as much but I’ve never left that family and still see his niece, Laura, and my friend, Will Kimbrough. You don’t get out of that family. I’m still in music and everybody that helps me came from there. If anybody in my world or what they call “camp” I met them through either Jimmy’s or John’s camp.

It’s all that. So, that’s been really hard. Then, Kris [Kristofferson]…they keep coming.

JPG: That’s one of the bad things with getting older…

TS: Yeah. Kris was gonna be the last one. He was the last one. I don’t really have any older brother’s left or mentors.  

JPG: I understand but, obviously, they’ve left a major impact on you.

TS: Yeah, they made good runs, man.

JPG: The funny thing about Richard Lewis is he was friends with you and, apparently, he was a good friend of Lou Reed.

TS: Yeah, he was. They fought a lot. Oh, man. The people that called or came to my house because of him, I ain’t even gonna say it. The people I got to meet through him…it’s ridiculous. Rock people just love him, and I don’t know how I ended up…I think he just called me one day out of the blue.

JPG: Did he let you get a word in?

TS: Sometimes. But man, making him laugh was like making John Prine laugh. One time he let out this story about mushrooms. He left one story on my machine one night and it was so funny and was trying to do my voice. I wish I had saved that.

Well, Ramblin’ Jack, he’s still around.

JPG: Yeah, he’s still playing live.

TS: I guess, I can still call him! He gets around better than I do. It’s our age.

JPG: I’m around your age. Are you working? I read something that gave the impression that you’re working on the next record. Is that correct?

TS: I’m working. I got a bunch of songs. I would like to make another one. I’m not sure. I keep going back and forth on what it’s gonna sound like. Sometimes, I think I’ve got 10 songs and maybe I’ve just got 10 lyrics. One of my favorite things is working on songs and wondering how they could make an album.

JPG: The idea of songwriting throughout your career came about through meeting people and talking about the importance of songwriting. That seems to be the major lesson for you and for others. It’s not making millions and selling millions but writing a good song.

TS: Yeah. I kind of feel like those guys, there was very much. an element…I haven’t done anything in a couple years, but I’ve got the young singers coming out here and I do talk to a bunch of them.

I was taught not to be jealous of people because they were young. Guy Clark, maybe, spelled it out the most. You have to open your door like the way John Prine…I don’t know if he thought I was as good as or he just could tell I was a lifer. I see young people that are really good but I can tell that they’re not lifers.

I saw Sierra Ferrell play on the street. I brought her here after. I drove her here. I said, “You gotta come down here. You’re the best one here.”

JPG: You mentioned previously Hayes Carll as one of those…

TS: Jack Ingram and me were kind of the same age and Hayes was the first younger person that…well, I’m still jealous of him. I’m always telling him to take a break (slight laugh) but he’s definitely one of those guys if he showed up here, leading the police chase, I’d let him in and we’d get the rifles and handle it. Then, I’d say, “Alright, what happened?” (laughs)

That’s how I feel about all of them, all the people that do this. John Craigie, have you heard of that guy? There’s a bunch of young people that sort of do, I guess, Ramblin’ Jack type troubadour. They can do it by themselves. They could probably make it in New Orleans and get fed if they lost their gig type.

You ever see Chicago Farmer?

JPG: Yeah, I like his stuff a lot.

TS: Yeah, I think it’ll keep going. Always some Texan doing it.

JPG: Anyhow, I hope you’re doing well, feeling well. You looked good talking to Otis.

TS: I’m getting there. I really went through…there’s a thing called stenosis. It’s taking over my life but it’s not that bad. It’s hard to stand up for too long. It’s been coming on for years and years but it’s just painful. Then, it was fucking up my stomach too, and I got to fix that.

I’m sure I’ll be out there on the road. I’m going to get back out and play. I always wanted to walk like Fred Sanford anyway. (slight laugh)

JPG: I managed a local band and they did a funk rock version of the “Sanford & Son” theme. Then, someone would come onstage and improv lyrics.

TS: Oh nice! I used that for my walk on, when the lights go down. I just love that jam. That’s Quincy Jones.Rock ‘n roll’s still great. I know it’s not over. The Crowes are still doing it.

JPG: There’s still a bunch of people still doing it. Do what you do. Come up with your fatback beats for the next album or whatever. Just keep working. Keep busy.

TS: Yeah. I’ve been working on a lot of songs.

JPG: And if you get inspired, lots of people loved the livestreams. Maybe we can see that again.

TS: I think I’m going to do that if I can. In fact, I’m about to go down into town right now and talk to some people about that. I might….oh, I won’t say it. I might jinx it. I might add some other shit because I’ve got that cool…

JPG: You’ve got the Purple Building.

TS: Yeah, I’ve got the building down there. I could be talking other people into doing shows.