“I lay a busted harmonica out on Pigpen’s grave/cure my Oakland sadness on the shores of Monterey,” John Craigie sings on “California Sober” from Pagan Church, his new album backed by TK & the Holy Know-Nothings. 

Craigie thus makes his fondness for the Grateful Dead clear on track No. 2 from an album that owes more to Todd Snider than the Dead. Craigie is a West Coast version of the Tennessee troubadour, part songwriting smart-ass, part deep thinker who plays a blend of rock-, blues- and folk-inspired music that pulls equally from such Snider LPs as Songs for the Daily Planet and First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder. 

Musically, the songs stick immediately to the listener and re-appear in the mind even when Pagen Church is not playing. This is due both to Cragie’s melodies and the Know-Nothings’ accompaniment of slide and steel guitars, brass and rhythm section that gives them extra heft. 

Lyrically, Craigie is often genius-level with his craft, such as when he laments a long-dead relationship by singing: “Oh, you look at a painting/you don’t think about what the last stroke was,” on the balladic “Good to You.” 

Craigie ain’t Snider, but the former has clearly studied – and drawn inspiration from – the latter. Snider fans should thus check him out. And Craigie fans who’ve not yet checked out Snider would be wise to do the same.