Rooted In The Old Ways

Ed Snodderly comes from musical mountain stock

Ed Snodderly laughs when asked if he ever tried to pull free of his musical roots. Yes -- and no, he answers.

Raised in Johnson City, Tenn., Snodderly wanted to "get away from the life" of the Blue Ridge Mountains and, when he was 21, moved to Boston "just for a total change of cultures. In retrospect," he adds, "I wish I hadn't. But I did."

FAQ

Eureka House Concerts:

Ed Snodderly

WHEN — Doors open at 5 p.m. Sunday; music at 6 p.m.

WHERE — Unitarian Church, 17 Elk St. in Eureka Springs

COST — $15 donation or $60 for the seven-concert series

INFO — 244-0123 or eurekahouseconcerts…

The time in Massachusetts produced an album, as did a sojourn in California, but the music of his youth, he says, kept pulling him home. His grandfather was a fiddler; his father played guitar; and his uncles played piano and banjo. In fact, his family's band played for the same square dances back in the 1930s that the then young Roy Acuff played on alternate weekends.

"I lost my dad about a year ago," Snodderly says quietly. "He lived to be 98 -- and we were still delivering to his old Fuller Brush customers."

His mother, he adds, is about to turn 90, and is still canning. "The people on my mother's side live to be 100," he says. "I hope to keep her around."

That might explain why Snodderly has no interest in retiring himself. His songs have also been recorded by artists such as Missy Raines, former New Grass Revival's John Cowan and Sam Bush as well as Jerry Douglas; he's been an actor throughout his life, most famously in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," where his fiddling took center stage in the character of the "Village Idiot." And when Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled its new building in 2001, he was permanently honored with his song lyrics inscribed into the wall.

"I still like getting out and playing and singing the songs I've created," he says. "I've got a new record coming out in another month, 'Record Shop.' That's the beauty of playing music -- you get to keep learning and getting better and discovering stuff."

Snodderly says when he plays house concerts like the one Sunday in Eureka Springs, the audience "will be in 2016. But I'm going to remind you that it's important to me to go back and remember."

And, he adds, even though "a lot of my stuff is very contemporary," the lighting might seem a little different, and the smell of wood smoke might seem to curl into the room. "And in that remembering, I think it helps me and the listener to kind of deal with 2016 and beyond."

-- Becca Martin-Brown

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NAN What's Up on 10/21/2016

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