It’s Christmas time and we’re thinking about this past year.
We were saddened to lose Mojo Nixon in 2024.
Mojo was something of a hillbilly mutant dynamo that delivered happy foot-stomping goofball music with such songs like “Burn Down the Malls”, “Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My 2-Headed Love Child”, “Elvis Is Everywhere” among others.
I saw a lot of great tributes to Mojo Nixon… as it should be… He was awesome.
We were honored to do a little interview with Mojo for the LOUIE LOUIE documentary around the time that he had just created a special Christmas song that blatantly borrowed from Richard Berry’s most famous composition.
This past year, we also discovered that we lost our friend Glenn Howard – a passionate record collector, the founder of the American Musical Heritage Foundation, and a big supporter of the LOUIE LOUIE documentary project. (We’re still working on assembling a proper tribute for Glenn on this webpage)
On the flipside, Todd Snider is still with us, making music, and making a lot of people very happy…. especially as this past year, as he’s provided a massive gift for his fans.
Over the course of three decades, Todd Snider is a great singer-songwriter who’s created some magnificent music that’s often embedded with funny stories as part of the song.
I first heard about Todd around 20 years ago when he released his “East Nashville Skyline” album which included “”Ballad of The Kingsmen” – a song that’s based on his personal thoughts on the band from his hometown that wound up with a controversial hit record, which was of course, LOUIE LOUIE.
Here’s a little video clip of Todd performing that song, courtesy of plumtv.
I’ve never met him yet, but I’ve certainly enjoyed Todd’s music for many years, seeing him at various shows in the San Francisco Bay Area..
The massive gift that Todd is sharing with his fans is a series of re-recorded albums from his musical legacy, absolutely free for anyone to download. What began as a pandemic lockdown project transformed into a great way for Todd to reflect on his life and career. Each album in his discography has been meticulously re-recorded on acoustic guitar, accompanied by Todd’s commentary and stories that offer a fresh & updated perspective on these catchy compositions. These new recordings, known as the “Purple Versions” (captured live at the “Purple building”) will be free for everyone to download and enjoy.
The new Purple version of the “East Nashville Skyline” album with the new recording of “Ballad of The Kingsmen” is definitely a keeper. The other songs are also superb!
When you download the free music from Todd’s official website (ToddSniderShop.com), you can also order cool swag like t-shirts, mugs, koozies, guitar picks and other assorted stuff. While other musicians often revisit, and re-record their earlier recordings as a means to re-package their music as new deluxe editions, I really appreciate how Todd is actually bucking the system by simply giving his music away.
Anyways, as this is the season, I thought I’d share a few other videos of Christmas songs that I happened to recently witness. El Vez (the man, the legend) is sort of like Santa Claus, showing up once a year to share some holiday joy. I’ve never heard him do any versions of LOUIE LOUIE, but I absolutely love his inspired musical reinterpretations.
EL VEZ – Sympathy For Santa (2024 Bottom of the Hill, SF)
EL VEZ – Feliz Navidad (2024 Bottom of the Hill, SF)
Happy Holidays y’all!
ERIC PREDOEHL of LouieLouie.net .
REFERENCE LINKS
ToddSnider.net
Rolling Stone – Todd Snider Re-Recorded All of His Albums and Is Releasing Them for Free