Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 33: Creating a Musical Legacy: Ed Snodderly's Journey with The Down Home Music Venue
What makes Ed Snodderly with The Down Home a good neighbor?
Have you ever wondered what it takes to create a legendary music venue? Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we sit down with Ed Snodderly, a celebrated songwriter and performer who, alongside his friend Joe "Tank" Leach, founded the Down Home music venue in 1976. Ed shares captivating stories of their journey, from hosting music legends like John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon to fostering a welcoming environment for both performers and attendees. This episode celebrates the power of music and the sense of community it brings, reflecting on Ed's own musical roots and the relationships built through the Down Home's intimate setting.
Join us for an inspiring conversation that highlights the importance of word of mouth in sustaining a beloved local venue. We explore Ed's personal journey, from mastering guitar basics with his father to the ongoing passion that fuels his performances and songwriting. This episode emphasizes the significance of community support and collaboration, featuring heartwarming stories of locals discovering and cherishing the Down Home. As we wrap up, we express our gratitude to Ed and encourage listeners to nominate their favorite local businesses for future episodes. Don't miss this enriching dialogue filled with dedication, passion, and the enduring success of a true musical haven.
To learn more about The Down Home go to:
The Down Home
(423) 943-4025
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monning.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Do you love music? Do you love live performances? Do you love music of any kind? Well, if so, today you're in for a real treat. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing your neighbor, Mr Ed Snotterly of the Down Home, who is also a songwriter, singer and performer. So, Ed, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey, glad to be here, skip, thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for being here. We are I know I am, and I'm sure our listeners are very excited to learn all about you and what you do and the Down Home. So, if you don't mind, why don't you just tell us a little bit about both you and the Down Home?
Speaker 3:Well, that sounds good. I'm going to tell you. I will not be revealing everything.
Speaker 2:I understand. That's the same.
Speaker 3:Like you said, everyone's going. Oh, let's hear this. Well, if you've been to the Down Home you know what we do. We present music in a listening, friendly atmosphere and we have been for a good number of years. We established in 1976 I helped a friend of mine, joe leach uh, the nicknamed tank. We said we need a place where we can go listen to music and not have to deal with a bunch of riffraff and loud talking and no one kind of paying attention and um, and I knew those places because I've been playing in some of the places, like in the northeast and be in nashville some. This is this early on, uh.
Speaker 3:But through my music making incorporating tank, he started playing uh harmonica with me in the summer of 74. We were all young and bustling around playing a little barbecue joint for four nights a week called the red pig, and it was fun but it was noisy and uh, then I I moved away and then I came back and tank's going, let's, let's do it. And I said I'll help you. And we did, and from there it's been a pretty interesting journey of lots of different styles of music and lots of people who have gone on to to be pretty influential as John Lee Hooker, willie Dixon, queen Ida, coco, taylor Gate, mouth Brown, all kinds of folks in the blues world, and then in the bluegrass world we have many greats like Tony Rice and Doc Watson. But, like I say, we build a place for people to come and appreciate an intimate atmosphere of seeing quality performers. And hey, knock on wood, we're still going. And you know what's got us there is word of mouth. And what I also like about the Down Home is that the demographic is pretty good. It's young to old and that makes a difference because everyone is coming for the same reason and that's to appreciate, uh, the quality of music and uh, you know, we're not a very commercial kind of place but yet we are presenting a music that a lot of people really like.
Speaker 3:Recently, a guy who's really gone on to really do well and play in big arenas now and he played three or four times at the Down Home His name's Billy Strings. He recently wanted to come back this past winter, in March, and it's like okay, but the cool thing is that Billy has gone on. He just sold out Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, I think, three nights in a row, and so we have that caliber of musician and people are going, billy Strings played at the Down Home. I go, yeah, he did.
Speaker 3:I said you got gotta pay attention, you gotta keep up, you gotta go to her website, you gotta be on the email list and blah, blah, blah. But you know it's, it's not changed from day one, it's a continual. It's a 10 to a continual job of like saying and letting people know this, how you, how you make it work. You got to show up, come in, give a chance. The music's going to be good, even if you've not heard from them, heard of them, it's going to be good. So, in a nutshell, that's pretty much what we do at the down home and how we got started and through all of that has been my activity of playing music, writing songs and traveling around to different clubs around the country and different parts of the country. So that's that's what we're doing and we're hanging in there and hanging on there, you know.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, some of the names you just mentioned are some of my biggest heroes in music Willie Dixon, Coco, Tony Rice and Doc Watson. Good Lord, why haven't I found you before now? I actually am pretty new to East Tennessee. I moved here from Central North Carolina, so I'm running out of time.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you a quick story. It's been a few years back, not that many. Anyway, a woman started coming in every show we had and one night she goes. Ed, is this what you've been doing all this time ago? Yes, ma'am, she goes. I've been driving by your front door for 32 years. If I'd have known. I said I'm glad you finally learned she celebrated her 80th birthday in here a few years ago. But you know we get a lot of that. People come in and they go. Oh my gosh, this is great, we love it, and why haven't we been here before? But you know, it's all. It's all a journey. It's it's getting new people and they telling someone, the old people saying, oh, we got to go hear this, this act. You know it's, it's. It's all the um components of how things work, you know right, right, yeah, yeah, well, so you, you.
Speaker 2:You told us how you got into how the down home you know backstory started. What's your backstory? How did you get into the music, performing and writing?
Speaker 3:Well, it's an easy story and I'm thankful to my mother because when I was 12 years old, I was carrying a baseball bat and a ball glove as I walked through the living room in the chair that she always sat. She goes would you like to learn to play the guitar? And I walked back to my room and by the time my hand reached the doorknob I said, yeah, I like that idea. And she said well, we'll get that guitar. That's in the attic at your grandparents' house farmhouse. And I'd seen the guitar the attic at your grandparents house farmhouse. And I'd seen the guitar.
Speaker 3:It was a guitar my dad and his brothers bought uh, using the money that they made working tobacco, and this would go back into the 30s. And my grandfather was an old-time fiddle player and he was a farmer. He was a good fiddler and I got that guitar and started learning it. And the best guitar lesson I ever had, because not long after I got that acoustic guitar, I started wanting an electric guitar. And that's when my dad sat me down at the kitchen table. He goes okay, you've got to be able to play g, c and d and you got to be able to change from g to c within a and that was the best guitar lesson because he set me down to go you've got to learn this.
Speaker 3:And if he hadn't have hit that on me, I would have just started wanting electric guitar and then just started wanting something, and it just put it into my hands to go. Things that mean something take a little bit of work and a little bit of you to to give to it. And so from there, family reunions, playing music, old time music, uh, my grandfather one day asked me. He goes okay, what do you look? What are you listening to? What are you, what are you doing? And it's a very great question because it helped me realize that he was interested in what I was listening to. And it happened to be. You know, a lot of things happening with the british invasion and all that great energy of new music coming around and rock and roll and gc and d, which my daddy taught me at my kitchen table. How gc and d changes. Changes has changed the world.
Speaker 3:It's the power of rock and roll absolutely and that's been my journey and I've written songs and I continue to write songs. I made a new record last year called chimney smoke but through that and, like I said, it swirled around knowing what other music venues were doing around the country to kind of bring that to the down home. And one thing which is an obscure little thing but I told Tank. I said this is how they do it at this club in Cambridge, is that this guy. He gets on the side stage and he announces and welcomes everybody, please welcome, so-and-so. And I said the place in Nashville called the exit in. I said what they do is with a low whispering kind of talk over the microphone. They go now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. But we didn't see it's like a person behind the curtain. We chose to kind of be more down home and get up on the stage and kind of intro the act, say hey, how y'all doing, thanks for coming, all that good stuff you know, kind of a little bit more neighborly.
Speaker 3:But those two things music, playing music, making music you have an aesthetic. We always want people to feel good coming to the down home and people get that feeling and people at the down home friendly and just so appreciative that people are coming to the down home to play music and you know it is about music. But it's also a pretty good little place to meet new people. And I tell you what I keep getting people coming up to me and going. You know that's where I met her. Hey, you know I met him there. We've been married now 30 years. A lot, a lot of people meeting.
Speaker 2:You know their special person anyway anyway, wow, well, it sounds like an incredible atmosphere, honestly, and I've got a real quick question on the guitar that was up in the attic that belonged to your dad and his brothers. What model was?
Speaker 3:it. It was a no-name guitar, okay, but I still have the guitar and I had seen the guitar growing up. This was when I was 12 or 13. I got this guitar but it had a senor and a senorita and a palm tree painted on it.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And I sanded it off, but the silhouette is still there, thank goodness. And it took me many, many years to realize that. A fella came through the community painting and my grandfather hired him to paint all kinds of stuff and I think he came around going, hey, I could paint something on that guitar, and he did and it's kind of cool, but it's a good guitar to learn on and you know just glad.
Speaker 1:I didn't get a electric guitar until later still got it.
Speaker 2:Well, what outside of work, ed? What do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Hey, this is fun. And I never stopped. My mother said you're a worm in hot ashes.
Speaker 3:You know, as I do a little guitar teaching, and so I do that and you know it's just my journey. I play, I write music. I'm getting ready to make a new record in November and my music can be found which I'm not a real big fan of Spotify, that's more of a data measuring algorithm kind of thing but my music's out there streamed. But the best way to get my music is to pay a little bit for a download off of Bandcamp. But, like I say, I enjoy what I do, being a musician. I'm thankful for the question that my mother asked me Would you like to play the guitar? I'm thankful for the journey that that mother asked me would you like to play the guitar? Uh, I'm thankful for the journey that that set me on and I'm I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for a lot of things of being able to be in johnson city and not have to deal with uh, too much um traffic business and I like being here but I like getting away.
Speaker 3:Recently I played up in up in Wyoming at a music camp teaching Dobro at a thing called Grand Targhee Music Camp. You know I'm playing Bristol Rhythm and Roots Festival. They've hired me every year. I'm playing the Blue Highway Fest playing the station in Nashville. A few other good gigs for the rest of the year. Did Mountain Stage out of Charleston, West Virginia, earlier this year. It's all word of mouth. It's just trying to get your songs out there and you make a song where people go I like that. That's what my goal is, and when someone says I like that, then it's like all the fun was worth it. Awesome, Awesome.
Speaker 3:How do you like?
Speaker 2:that I like it. I like it, and tell us what's one thing. If there's one thing that you would want people to remember about the down home, and or you, what would that be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the number one place is is that we're coming from a real place. My music is. Music is real. My music is a sense of place. My music you can dance to it, you can listen to it, you can reflect on it, but it's coming from a place that means something and I protect what I care about and I sing about what I want to make sure that people are thinking about. I'm not preaching anything, I'm just. I'm just singing first verse of one of my songs called slow.
Speaker 3:My girl around is you can't be sewing buttons on a flower sack. You can't be called sleeping in something like that. Pull the nail out of the wall, order what you need from the catalog and then it goes, goes on and on the down home, you know I, I introduced people and I go hey, if you've never been here before, this is how it's always looked, and if you have been here before you're probably going to go. It looks the same as the last time I was here. I say that's not easy to do to keep something looking the same, that's right.
Speaker 3:So I think that's the message and that's a deep message, if you want to use it in a deep way. So I like what we give back to this fast-paced, progressing world. I think we're kind of just kind of being a little bit old school but in a way we're right there with the modern world. I think we're kind of kind of just kind of being a little bit old school but in a way we're we're right there with the modern world, but I like what we're doing. I like what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds comforting actually. Things being the same it's rare for things to remain the same, you know.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:you know, it is it is, and how can our listeners learn more about the Down Home and about you?
Speaker 3:If they would like to write down the website. That's the straight connection to what we have each week, each month and that is at thedownhomecom. If people have enjoyed a little bit of what I'm talking about and maybe a song, lyric or two, my website is edsnotterlymusiccom and uh, and like I say, I'm on all the streaming worlds but I just listen, make sure the listener knows that the streaming world is everything is free and you know I, you gotta, you gotta give a little bit to get something good sometimes. So my music's available through my website or through Bandcamp. You can download a record for like $7.99. But that helps the artist Absolutely. So that's the connection, because you want to keep it coming.
Speaker 2:That's what, okay, okay. I said you said you need to get a little something back to help the musician. I said we got to keep the music coming, man. I said I said we got. You said you need to get a little something back to help the musician. I said we got to keep the music coming, man. I know and I'm not talking.
Speaker 3:I think most musicians will degree. You know, it certainly helps to order a CD or a vinyl record and and it certainly helps to come to the down home and trust that I've never heard of these people. But I want to get out of the house, let's go do something, and then you come and you go. Holy cow, that was great. You know what I mean. That's the beauty of all this, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, Ed, I can't tell you how much I know your time is precious and we appreciate you giving us what you have and I really appreciate you being on the show and we wish you and the down home only the best moving forward, and I hope we can have you back on the show sometime?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'd love to, and to your listeners and to you. Thank you for your time, you know. So let's just keep working together and have some fun. All right, yes, sir, yes sir, all right, yes sir.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, all right, yes, sir, thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.