1

This is weird to me. For a journeyman singer, barely covered in the media, unknown to most, Todd Snider got some of the most glowing obituaries I’ve ever seen. Lengthy, with not only biographical information, but lyrical quotations…if one was not a fan a reader would think they’d missed out on something.

If only Todd Snider was alive to see them.

I was not the biggest Todd Snider fan. Actually, I was not that much of a fan at all. I was paying attention at the advent, when he released his first album on Jimmy Buffett’s label Mailboat, distributed and promoted by MCA.

You see there was a triumvirate of AOR promotion people at Atlantic. Dedicated, successful and fun, and one, David Fleischman left the New York office for L.A., to work for MCA. Supposedly a soul singer in Memphis before he switched sides (and subsequent histories of Memphis soul have confirmed this), Fleischman was called “Flash,” and he was anything but, flashy that it is. He sold the music in a low-key way. And the first project he worked for MCA was Todd Snider. Who had this track “Alright Guy.”

“You know just the other morning I was hanging around in my house

I had that new book with pictures of Madonna naked, I was checking it out

Just then a friend of mine came through the door

Said she’d never picked me for a scumbag before

She said she didn’t ever want to see me anymore

And I still don’t know why

I think I’m an alright guy

I think I’m an alright guy”

Now if that doesn’t bring you back… When Madonna was surfing the zeitgeist of popular stardom, testing limits all the while. Today pop stars bare their wares on OnlyFans, and Google will show you so much T&A you’ll end up bored.

But that’s kind of my point. Remember how big Madonna was back then?

Nobody’s that big anymore. Never mind today it’s more about money than pushing the envelope. Multiple copies of vinyl albums. Show grosses. What is being sold underneath has the nutritional value of cotton candy.

But not Todd Snider.

And just like Madonna, Snider was the beneficiary of the major label machine, but after a couple of albums that ended and he became indie before you wanted to be. And today EVERYBODY is indie. Seems like only the brain-dead want what the majors purvey, akin to the network television of yore, made for the most people and appealing directly to few.

So what is stardom today?

Now let’s be clear, most acts posting to Spotify don’t deserve stardom, never mind failing to achieve it. But there is a certain level of artist…

2

So it’s not only the over the top obituaries that is weird, but the way Snider passed. In that just before he was involved in this altercation in Salt Lake City… Outside a hotel he got into it…

Well, that was the original story. Which didn’t make complete sense, since the police ended up arresting Snider…

More details have now come out, and you can read them here:

https://tasteofcountry.com/todd-snider-arrest-body-cam-footage-salt-lake/

But the point is this is not the average behavior of a nearly sixty year old troubadour. Who then cancels his tour, goes back home, enters the hospital and promptly dies.

And 59… If you think that’s old, you haven’t reached that threshold. That’s positively young, musicians don’t tend to die before that unless it’s a case of misadventure, and they said that Snider died of…PNEUMONIA?

So it was a double-whammy.

I mean I hadn’t seen a Todd Snider show recently… I’m trying to think, I definitely met him and we interacted momentarily back in the MCA days…but when you’re a singer-songwriter and you’ve never opened for Taylor Swift, you not only don’t play arenas, you end up in tertiary venues where your hard core supports you. Usually you’re not making much more than a living. And you have to work to get paid.

Now at this point…

Just because you had a major label deal once, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to make a living from your music thereafter. But the more you read the obituaries, the more you read the lyrical quotes, you had to admit it to yourself, this guy was GOOD!

This was in the “New York Times,” from the song “Just In Case,” about a prenuptial agreement:

“I can’t love you enough

But I also can’t afford to lose half of my stuff.”

You have to be smart to be funny. A tradition back in the sixties, humor has been excised from today’s material, everything’s so damn SERIOUS! Albeit in many cases laughable.

From that same “Times” obituary:

“‘A lot of this record is about how poor people sometimes cope with pain and hardship,’ Mr. Snider told The Times. ‘A little drugs here, a little sex here, a little denial there.'”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/arts/music/todd-snider-dead.html

There’s more truth there than there is in a month of opinion pieces in major media.

And then, “Variety” quoted from Snider’s HQ Aimless’s post:

“May your hope always outweigh your doubt

Until this old world finally punches you out

May you always play your music

Loud enough to wake up all of your neighbors

Or may you play at least loud enough

To always wake yourself up”

View this post on Instagram

This is not the boomers who sold their souls for the almighty dollar in the eighties. This is not about gated communities and private jets. This is the rock and roll ethos, which has been snuffed out. The other, who doesn’t fit in and knows it, but is unwilling to compromise.

3

Where does Todd Snider end up in history? Will be be like Nick Drake, discovered and kept alive after he dies or…will he just fade away and not radiate.

But one thing is for sure, we live in a weird era… Where nobody gets universal purchase on the public’s attention, never mind the zeitgeist.

But, sans that major label push… You can live your whole live on the outskirts, as part of the sideshow.

Now Todd put out some records on John Prine’s label “Oh Boy,” but don’t confuse his status with that of the label owner. John Prine had SEVEN major label albums before he went independent. And he got a ton of ink when the rock press was alive and thriving. And Bonnie Raitt made one of his songs a standard. And then there’s “Hello In There” which Bette Midler amplified and..

Todd Snider had none of this mindshare.

So today the acts with mindshare are either old, riding on the coattails of their major success decades ago, or the few pushed by the major labels… As for the rest…

It’s the great unwashed. Good luck trying to get ahead.

And, once again, most don’t deserve the notice.

And you put out records and have fans but that does not mean you’re rich, that your problems are solved. Snider got addicted to Oxycontin…

So… Not only do the acts who deserve it not get attention, many acts don’t even get started, or give up early. The road is fraught with obstacles. And the fault is not streaming, that’s a bogeyman, it’s the impossibility of gaining attention, with not only musicians and influencers but news outlets and other sites competing for the eyes and ears of the audience.

Now if Todd Snider had just passed, and hadn’t gotten obituaries in  not only the big three, the NYT, WSJ and the WaPo, but elsewhere, it’d be no big deal. Sad for fans, not even a shrug from the mainstream. But these obits testified, AT LENGTH!

How come we can’t give some of these acts this attention when they’re still alive?

Then again a media push doesn’t mean what it used to. Most of the articles are placed, they read as promotion. But there’s only honesty in an obituary, where everybody agreed Todd Snider was a cut above.

I wish he’d known.

Because he was an ALRIGHT GUY!

Like so many of us… We’re misread, misunderstood, they want us to conform, but inside…

“I know I ain’t perfect, but God knows I try

I think I’m an alright guy!”

Tom has a new book, “Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu.” 

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tom-freston/id1316200737?i=1000738658172

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/cbd6f24f-9fb7-48c0-9c2e-aeeee9b684a8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tom-freston

So I’m sitting here writing about Jimmy Cliff and in my mind I can hear the blowback.

Believe me, I’ve always gotten negative responses, but not with the vociferousness, the put-downs, the holier-than-thou attitudes of correspondents today. Is it about me or is it the nature of the world at large? Or maybe it’s just the nature of the internet.

I mean on one hand I’m cracking up. Wondering who these people think I am. Like I’m some god who must be torn down. No, I’m just a guy with education and opinions who has built an audience based thereon. It’s totally an opt-in list, you’d think I was pushing myself and my pronouncements down their throat, that there was no way to avoid me/sign off from the mailing list. But this is patently untrue.

Now most people don’t respond at all. But today, a bunch of responses bothered me…

If I get one more e-mail hipping me to the fact that Desmond Dekker’s 1969 smash “Israelites” was the first reggae hit, I’m going to tear what little hair I have left out of my head.

No, “Israelites” is SKA!

Listen to the track, does it sound like anything from the Wailers’ Island repertoire? The other icons of reggae?

Ska predated reggae in Jamaica. Furthermore, at the end of the seventies there was a ska renaissance in the U.K., which bled all over the world. With acts like the Specials, Selecter, The “English” Beat… Would you call “Mirror in the Bathroom” reggae? No. I’d say I’m splitting hairs here, but really I am not. Because the evolution from ska into reggae is historically very important.

As for places online where you see “Israelites” labeled reggae… What you’ve got here is self-anointed experts half a century after the fact, oftentimes people who weren’t even alive in 1969, weighing in. What was that cliché you learned in elementary school? “Don’t believe everything you read”? Or “Everything in the newspaper isn’t true”?

Once again, all you’ve got to do is listen and you can hear the difference, and the difference is important.

And believe me, when I was writing the piece, I THOUGHT about “Israelites,” how it was ska and people would e-mail me that it was reggae, and voila! My dreams came true, ha!

One other pet peeve…

I constantly get e-mail from people tapping me on the shoulder, making me aware of some fact that is evidenced in what I wrote IF ONLY THEY’D READ IT! Did you know that “The Harder They Come” played at the Orson Welles in Boston for years? Yes, I WROTE THAT! But that’s not enough. If you’re going to take the time to correct me, wouldn’t you make sure you’re correct first yourself? No.

And then there are those who wonder why I no longer spell out swear words, i.e. f*ck and sh*t… BECAUSE IF YOU DO YOU CAN’T GET THROUGH SPAM FILTERS!

Once again, people don’t ask, they just put me down, laughingly correct me in their holier-than-thou fashion…if you sent e-mail for a living you would know that it’s almost impossible to reach people. These corporations have triggers that bounce e-mail and…

Then there are the people who castigated me for saying that the American Dream was now more achievable in Canada and parts of the EU.

These honkies who can’t believe the U.S. is not perfect, who are oblivious to facts… Believe me, I knew I’d hear from them when I was writing too.

But of course what I was saying was right.

I can be wrong, of course… But I am reading ALL DAY LONG! I subscribe to four newspapers. I read three of them cover to cover each and every day. You’d be stunned what you learn. And over time there is context. Whereas those blowing back are running on emotion, not facts. As for saying you don’t trust mainstream media, which as I stated above can be wrong, then who can you trust? Nobody?

So I’m reading all day long and I learned the power of analysis at an elite institution but when I say something that doesn’t feel right to you, if I don’t hew to conventional wisdom, rather than checking the facts before you blow back, you fire up your keyboard and insult me and…

Believe me, I can take it. But in this case, I want to set the record straight.

I’ll quote from last week’s “Wall Street Journal.” LAST WEEK! If you were following the news instead of bloviating, if you were willing to pay for news, you might have read it:

“The Economics of Income Mobility – I believe in the American dream, but the data show that some people have an advantage in realizing it.”

Free link: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-economics-of-income-mobility-c0a5bd3e?st=Es5FyA&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Here’s the money quote: 

“Although economic mobility is a core American ideal, the U.S. now ranks below the Nordic countries, Canada and much of Europe in overall mobility, including the classic rags-to-riches story of starting in the bottom and working your way to the top.”

BINGO!

I could cite the numerous articles that state this point that come up in a casual Google search, but to satisfy those who only believe in AI, this is what Google’s AI response is:

“The ‘American Dream’ is often seen as more achievable in Canada and parts of Europe due to greater social mobility, a stronger social safety net, and better access to education and healthcare compared to the United States. 

“While America may offer a more dynamic startup scene and top-tier universities, Canada and European nations are frequently cited for their lower economic inequality and higher rates of upward mobility, where it’s more likely for individuals to improve their economic standing regardless of their background.”

I love a good debate, I love to analyze, argue the nuances, but I HATE, HATE HATE arguing over facts. I mean if we can’t agree on the same facts, how can we have a discussion at all?

And the irony of everything I said above is I’ll still get e-mail from people saying that “Israelites” is reggae and that the American Dream is achievable foremost in America, but both of those are UNTRUE!

Welcome to my world.

DON’T F*CK WITH ME!

If you ever saw “The Harder They Come,” you know this scene. If you haven’t watched the movie, you should.

They started to promote reggae. Only this was in a world with no YouTube, never mind the internet. We weren’t sure how to PRONOUNCE IT! Was it like “Reggie” in the “Richie Rich” comics or was it like “gay” or… You see the way they promoted something back then was via the press. There were articles in “Time” and other magazines, there was a big push, but there was no radio airplay.

Most of the push came with the release of the Wailers “Catch a Fire,” their first “rock” album, produced and released by Chris Blackwell. Marley and the group were stranded in London, needing cash, and Blackwell gave it to them in return for this record that he adjusted for white audiences. Which didn’t catch a fire whatsoever, not in the U.S. That didn’t happen for Marley until five albums later, with the release of “Live!,” which percolated in the marketplace during 1976 and is a one listen smash…all you need to hear is the opener, “Trenchtown Rock.” After that…Marley and the Wailers were stars. And it was definitely Bob Marley and the Wailers, he pointed to the emblem on his white BMW and said that was what it stood for.

But before that…

The first reggae hit to break in the U.S. was by an American! Johnny Nash, with his original “I Can See Clearly Now,” a phenomenal track that one can never burn out on. The attendant press said it was reggae, but the success of the track transcended the hype, it was EVERYWHERE! And if you bought the album it was littered with Marley covers, it opened with “Stir It Up,” but no one in the U.S. knew who Marley was.

But before Marley gained traction, there was the 1972 film, “The Harder They Come,” directed by Perry Henzell and masterminded by Chris Blackwell. It was not released in America until 1973, part of the reggae push, but unlike “Catch a Fire,” “The Harder They Come” did ignite, albeit slowly, via word of mouth after continued exhibition, especially in the college student mecca of Boston, where the film had a seven year midnight run at the Orson Welles Cinema.

But it wasn’t only the film, within which Jimmy Cliff starred as Ivan, it was also the SOUNDTRACK! A cornucopia of reggae’s greatest hits featuring first and foremost the work of Cliff, the album caught you immediately with “You Can Get It If You Really Want.”

“But you must try, you must try…”

I never heard this on the radio. But I bought the album and the music was undeniable.

The record also contained the Melodians’ “Rivers of Babylon,” and the Slickers’ “Johnny Too Bad,” and the Maytals’ (soon to be known as “Toots and the Maytals”) “Pressure Drop, but…

As good as those tracks were, and they were great, they were superseded by the work of Jimmy Cliff, the title track and then “Rivers of Babylon” and the piece-de-resistance…”Sitting in Limbo.”

“Sitting here in limbo

But I know it won’t be long

Sitting here in limbo

Like a bird without a song”

You’d never heard something quite like this. It was a giant leap forward. Soft, hooky, ethereal and meaningful, wow!

But as big as the movie and these songs were, “The Harder They Come” was still a cult item. Not a cult item like today, a small vertical, but without mainstream AOR airplay only dedicated music fans and those who’d seen the movie were exposed. And for them…the album was a staple of their collection, that never went out of style.

And Jimmy Cliff was the biggest star in reggae. Eclipsing Bob Marley by far. Whose Island career really didn’t gain any significant traction until “Rastaman Vibration,” four studio albums in.

But when Jimmy’s 1973 Island album “Struggling Man” did such, despite the movie, Jimmy jumped ship. To the major labels. EMI in Europe and Reprise in the U.S. It was like he sold out, in search of stardom, he was not an authentic Jamaican spliff-smoker, he was part of the machine, he was no longer one of the struggling originals. And this perception spread from the island to the mainland, and the small group who were reggae fans shunned Cliff, he was for everybody else, not them.

But Reprise couldn’t break Cliff, not in the traditional way. Meanwhile, Marley was percolating up from the bottom, and when he and his group finally got a toehold, it was not radio that spread the word, but the public, who adored the Wailers like fans adored the Grateful Dead. The Wailers got even less radio airplay. But word was you just had to see them. And people did, and the legend grew.

Jimmy put out “Give Thankx” in 1978, and it received a push from Reprise, I bought it and liked it, but sans Chris Blackwell, sans being part of the Island reggae cult, sans a hit (which even Marley and the Wailers did not have), Jimmy Cliff was just another major label act trolling for radio airplay to rocket them into the stratosphere, and that never happened.

And then Jimmy Cliff converted to Islam, when reggae fans were all over Rastafarianism. And this sealed his outsider status. And reggae fans knew. Jimmy was not a pariah, he was just a sideshow, a very small sideshow… Reggae lifted the boats of everyone playing it except for Jimmy, the wind was no longer in his sails.

Jimmy even switched to Columbia, worked with the Stones’ producer Chris Kimsey, but the reggae cult shrugged its shoulders.

Meanwhile, Bob Marley had died of cancer, and it’s impossible to compete with a dead man. Marley was seen as the epicenter of reggae, true believers considered him the god, and Jimmy Cliff was just a guy who starred in a movie. But he wasn’t!

But in music back then, commercial success was everything. And you couldn’t sell many tickets without it. Furthermore, tickets were still cheap.

So…

Jimmy Cliff continued to live, he made records, but he was now seen as separate from Jamaica.

Now the last time I saw Jimmy Cliff was in 2012, at Coachella, on the main stage, in the afternoon, when not only are there few in attendance, there are not many in front of the main stage. And neither was I… But I heard this voice… I remember immediately looking to the sky. Who is this? And I turned around and…

It was Jimmy Cliff. Who was promoting a new album, “Rebirth,” but you didn’t have to know the record to get the performance.

It was the kind you never forget. Sans big production, in the sun, which is not conducive to impact, Jimmy seemed to hover twenty or thirty feet above the stage, that’s how powerful his voice and music were. It was astounding.

And now he’s dead.

Coda:

The news is everywhere. Boomers and Gen-X’ers know his name. Youngsters? I’ve never heard one of them reference “The Harder They Come,” even though Jimmy Cliff was more than that, much more…

There was “Vietnam,” released in ’68, but most people did not catch on until after the war was over. There was no internet to provide alternative airplay, sans the radio…you were dead in the water, or close to it.

And then there was “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” in ’69… Another track that didn’t really gain traction until later, in the seventies.

As for “You Can Get It If You Really Want.” This used to be the ethos of America, the so-called “American Dream,” which today is more achievable in Canada and certain European nations than the U.S. But it was even harder to move up the ladder in Jamaica…but at the time…as many tickets as today’s musical acts sell, as many streams as they have, acts were much bigger fifty years ago. Music was beyond entertainment, it was laden with  meaning, it drove the culture, music was IT! And the best way to go from nowhere to somewhere was to have a hit, not be on a reality TV show or concoct some scam in Silicon Valley.

As for the movie’s title track…

“Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky

Waiting for me when I die

But between the day you’re born and when you die

They never seem to hear you even cry”

There’s more truth in that verse than you find in today’s Spotify Top 50. An honest appraisal of the human condition. Today they’re selling fantasy, back then reality triumphed.

And in the song Jimmy ultimately did:

“So as sure as the sun will shine

I”m gonna get my share now, what’s mine

And then the harder they come

The harder they fall, one and all”

This is not the false braggadocio of a rap record, this is not the trappings, this is the essence…through sheer will I’m going to lift myself up, all by lonesome, because no one is helping me, and as far as those who held me back…F*CK THEM!

“Many Rivers to Cross”?

“Many rivers to cross

And it’s only my will that keeps me alive”

Live long enough and you struggle. You think you’re flying high, then you lose your job, your spouse…it’s not clear sailing for anybody, ANYBODY! And it’s hard to put one foot in front of another. It’s only sheer will that keeps you alive.

“And this loneliness won’t leave me alone

It’s such a drag to be on your own”

When you’ve got nothing, nobody wants to be your friend, no one wants to date you, you’re alone, in the wilderness, and staying upright and functioning is extremely difficult, not that you’ll learn about this in today’s music…where too many are complaining they’re not yet rich or famous, or from internet influencers, who believe by laying themselves bare and talking about how screwed they are that this resonates…even though what they’re really looking for is attention…and money.

And then there’s “Sitting in Limbo,” alone with your thoughts on the beach.

“Well they’re putting up resistance

But I know that my faith will lead me on”

Faith in yourself. That’s how you break through.

“Sitting here in limbo

Waiting for the tide to flow

Sitting here in limbo

Knowing that I have to go”

To succeed you must take action. You must confront your issues, your problems, your naysayers. You cannot cower, you must hold your head high.

Like Jimmy Cliff.