‘Pick Up a Twelver On the Way Over’

How Todd Snider seized creative control of his music and put his neighborhood on the national map

Todd Snider prepares to record a vocal track during a September 2008 session at Eric McConnell’s studio, the same studio where Snider recorded his 2004 breakout album, East Nashville Skyline. (Photo by Stacie Huckeba)

By Daryl Sanders

On July 20, 2004, Oh Boy Records released East Nashville Skyline, Todd Snider’s sixth studio album. It was a pivotal record, arguably the most important of Snider’s career. On it, he not only asserted his right to control his art, the barefoot hippie folksinger also launched his beloved East Nashville onto the national stage.