Todd Snider Tributes Pour In From Billy Strings, Trey Anastasio, Dave Schools, More [Videos]

As the music world mourns the loss of troubadour legend Todd Snider, tributes continue pouring in from across the sonic spectrum. A wide variety of artists have shared posts, videos, and memories of the folk singer-songwriter, who passed away on Friday at the age of 59 following several years of battling various health issues.

News of Snider’s death broke on Saturday morning, and that evening, bluegrass artists Billy Strings, Greensky Bluegrass, and Kitchen Dwellers all separately paid tribute to Todd with performances of “Play A Train Song” across the country (Dwellers doubled up with an additional cover of “Side Show Blues”). In addition to opening the show with his debut of “Train Song”, Strings shared a memory about the time he lost a favorite denim coat to Snider backstage at a festival.

Billy Strings — “Play A Train Song” (Todd Snider) — Newark, NJ — 11/15/25

A Todd Snider story from Billy Strings
byu/RowdyBubba inToddSnider

Greensky Bluegrass — “Play A Train Song” (Todd Snider) — Miami Beach, FL — 11/15/25

[Video: Max Berde]

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Fellow bluegrass act Yonder Mountain String Band also mourned Todd on social media, sharing a video of Snider sitting in with the band at Horning’s Hideout in 2011. Snider was close friends with late YMSB co-founding mandolinist Jeff Austin, collaborating with him many times over the years. Following Austin’s sudden passing in 2019, Snider eulogized him in song with “Sail On, My Friend” on 2021’s First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder.

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Of course, many compatriots from the folk music community shared tributes to Todd Snider. Folksinging forefather Robert Earl Keen remembered Todd with a video of Snider sitting in on “Play A Train Song” from New Braunfels, TX, in 2011. Many of his close colleagues also memorialized him, including Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Steve Poltz, Hayes Carll, Amanda Shires, John Craigie, Jack Johnson, and lots more.

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Snider’s former record label, Oh Boy Records, also shared some words about him. John Prine founded the label in 1984, and Snider was the first new artist the company ever signed, allowing “us to become a ‘real’ record label,” as the company wrote on social media. In the late ’80s, Snider got a job as Prine’s driver, and eight years later, John signed him to his record label.

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One of Snider’s closest friends, music historian and fellow singer-songwriter Otis Gibbs, shared a lengthy video reflecting on the loss. The 16-minute testimonial finds Gibbs talking about the death of his friend, who he remarked “had the best damn smile ever.” Cutting through the melancholy, one of the neighbor’s stray roosters periodically crows in the background, something Gibbs says Snider would have found hilarious.

“Just like Todd, nothing goes as planned,” he said. “This feels very fitting, honestly, ’cause it seems a lot like a Todd production where nothing really goes like you [Cockadoodledoo!] like you plan it and you just have to simply roll with it.”

Gibbs gets into some of the more nitty-gritty details of Snider’s final days, leaving Salt Lake City after an alleged assault and arrest, then later going to a Tennessee hospital where he was diagnosed with walking pneumonia. Gibbs saw Snider on Saturday and told him to go to the hospital, and as far as Otis knows, Todd did, before he passed away on Friday.

These aren’t salacious details, but rather some medical background on the medications Todd was prescribed and the conditions that seemed to arise in his final week. Gibbs’ recounting goes all the way through his last hug from Todd and Snider’s last words to him: “I love you, Otis.”

Gibbs wrote in the video’s description,

There’s a lot that I meant to say, but forgot to mention. I’ll blame the rooster. Todd was so damn fun to be around and he had the best laugh ever. He would also get really depressed and cry in front of me. He cried when Amy and I were at his house and five minutes later he was laughing. He was dealing with more pain than people realize. Physical and emotional.

Never forget that all of the greats loved him. Kris, Prine, Billy Joe, Guy and a bunch of others knew he was the real deal. Don’t ever forget that.

I have a lot of video of him that we never published. I’ll try to make some of that public as the days go by. Thanks for caring about Todd and all of the misfits that occupy this weird little subculture of ours.
Much love to you,
-Otis

We’ve Lost Todd Snider

[Video: Otis Gibbs]

In addition to musicians from the bluegrass/roots/Americana fields, a cadre of jam band artists have also come out with memories of Todd. Snider did not confine himself to just folk songs about the trees, and throughout his 30+ year career experimented with a range of styles including garage rock, blues, a style he coined called “fatback,” and jam rock.

Todd was an avowed fan of Widespread Panic, name-checking them in his classic song, “Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males” and joining the band for an extended sit-in at the Ryman Auditorium in his adopted hometown of Nashville in 2019. In 2013, he recruited WSP bassist Dave Schools and drummer Duane Trucks to form the supergroup Hard Working Americans with guitarist Neal Casal and keyboardist Chad Staehly (Great American Taxi), later adding lap steel guitarist Jesse Aycock. The band combined the jammed-out Southern rock of Widespread Panic with Snider’s penchant for storytelling, releasing a self-titled studio debut in 2014 and following it up with Rest in Chaos in 2016.

Schools and Trucks both posted in remembrance of Todd, as did Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann‘s son Justin Kreutzmann, who directed the HWA concert film The First Waltz. Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio also remembered Todd online, revealing that the two had an ongoing email correspondence through the years, and that Snider’s missives lit up Trey’s day.