Cassidy Snider is used to getting a certain kind of reaction. “People will just stumble over their words,” she says. “They have no idea what to call the music. Is it folk, is it Americana, is it blues? Can it be all of those things?”
Since she arrived in Richmond six years ago, the 30-year-old vocalist and frontwoman has left plenty of people shaking their heads and wondering where they are.
First there’s her raspy voice. Expressive and enunciating – as not to lose the words – Snider’s tonality and phrasing are something strikingly alien, an unclassifiable melting pot of blues, soul and country. Then there’s her physical beauty, a striking African-American with tattoos, close-cut dyed blond hair and piercings, you’d never miss her in a crowd. On stage, when issuing laments about thwarted lovers, hometown gossip and lonesome bars, you can’t keep your eyes and ears off her.
And the music. Thanks to the latest single from Beyoncé, there’s a national debate occuring about Black people performing country music. One wonders what country radio would make of Snider’s more organic take on roots music. “Country is not far away from any African American music,” she maintains. “The Beyonce thing is pop. It’s still country music to line dance to, but that’s not me. Give me the two-step.” To illustrate, on May 10, she and her band will pair up with honky tonkers Ramona and the Holy Smokes for a hillbilly-flavored “two-step showdown” at Gallery 5.
Snider’s point of reference is clearly country and western, and not modern “country.” The songs she writes and performs with her band the Wranglers are rooted in their own special, aggressively-traditional acoustic sound with fiddle, honky-tonk piano and banjo (when there’s a banjo player). She calls it “soulbilly.”
“That’s the easiest way to describe it. It’s soulful, it’s blues, it’s swampy, it’s ragtime… I go to fiddler’s conventions and start singing along to Hank Williams and people are like, oh my goodness you like this music?” She gives out an infectious, throaty laugh. “I mean, do they even know where the banjo came from?”
“I’d say our music is genre fluid,” says keyboardist Ian Atchison, who has been in and out of the Wranglers since the very beginning in 2019. “We have a lot of influences with definitely a roots feel, A friend of mine asked me, ‘is it Americana?’ I told him, I guess so. But I wouldn’t say we’re an Americana band. Maybe I’ll find the word for it someday.”
The music can be raw and personal, whatever the category. “Never Were” is as poignant a song about a one night stand as you’ll ever find, while “Mama Said” is a pleading, affecting monologue from a parent to her wayward child. “Sleeping,” a bouncy ragtime tune set to a chug-a-lug rhythm, is both a joyous celebration of laziness and a damning admonishment of it.
“When she arrived, Cassidy very quickly became a prominent performer on the scene,” says Matt Hansen, the owner of the Camel, the singer’s favorite venue. “She’s so good that in every place I’ve seen her, she leaves with a whole new selection of fans. People who encounter her for the first time are often, like, ‘Where did you come from?’ I’ve overheard people ask her that and she says, ‘I’m from here. Richmond is my home. I play here all the time.”
Because of her sandpaper voice, Snider says, people have some concrete ideas about her influences. “I get a lot of ‘you sound like Macy Gray.’ But for writing it would be Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zandt, and for vocals, I love Connie Francis with her sass and Etta James has so much soul and courage. And Billie Holiday has so much solitude and softness and Tom Waits has grumbles and grit. I guess you’d say I’m old school.”
Cross-country hamboning
Cassidy Snider grew up in Milford, Connecticut and had, as she says, a strict religious upbringing. She spent much of her childhood at nearby St. Paul’s Church of God in Bridgeport, where her uncle was pastor and her aunt was choir leader. “I was there four days a week. I sang high alto in the choir and then sang in the choir in high school.”
She was, admittedly, a bit of a nerd back then. “I wouldn’t go to parties. I’d come home and sit at my computer and I would write out stories and poems and print them out. I did that every single day. I want to go back to that Cassidy, the one who didn’t have a phone, and pushed herself to write three new songs today or three new chapters today. It was a creative time.”
Much of this writing fueled the original songs contained on Cassidy and the Wranglers’ debut 2021 EP, “Losing Lovers,” recorded at Go West Studios, as well as the follow-up, full-length album, “A Good Heartbreak,” captured at Minimum Wage and produced by Trey Hall, who issued both releases digitally on his Vocal Rest label. “All of these songs are my own experiences, it’s me talking about how I was raised, the person who broke my heart or the person that I am. It’s all about me,” she says, laughing.
Snider left home ten years ago and, instead of studying criminal law in college, which was the plan (she gave up a prestigious law internship), she began performing and eventually ended up in New Orleans. “I traveled a lot because I was cooking at music festivals, and just kind of going from the West Coast to East Coast,” she recalls. “New Orleans is cheap if you travel a lot.”
She made her way to Richmond in 2018 and decided to put down roots. “That surprised a lot of people. They were, like, how could you leave New Orleans? New Orleans is its own place, its own story. But we have the river here. I mean, to be able to get up and walk to the James and go find the biggest rock in the water or sit there and write a song …” She smiles. “It sounds very corny but that kind of ‘slow down’ mentality is what has kept me here.”
Cassidy first showcased her musical talents at Cary Street Cafe’s open-mic night. “It was just me singing and hamboning. My first ever real set was just me and Stu Kindle playing a three hour-set at Baker’s Crust, where I used to work. Stu was on the ukulele with a loop pedal and he learned and arranged like 15 of my songs.” By the next year, she had assembled a band after jamming at a Halloween party with keyboardist Ian Atchison and bassist Justin Doyle. Kindle was on ukulele and drums. “We had our first show as a band in January 2020 and then everything shut down,” she remembers.
“I first saw her at Cary Street Cafe,” recalls Atchison. “She would perform solo by hamboning, creating her own rhythm with her hands, beating her chest and clapping. My first reaction was just, ‘Whoa.’ This is something unique that I have not come across before.” (“He’s been with me since the start,” Snider says of Atchison. “He’s like my spine, he keeps me focused.”)
Snider doesn’t play an instrument, so how does she communicate her songs to the band? “She’ll come with a song already written out,” the keyboardist says. “They start off as poetry for her. Once it comes to us, she has a put-together but loose idea of what she wants”
“I have a pretty good ear. I sing it to them and they just have to listen,” she explains. “I have the lyrics and I have the song and I have the tempo and I just sing it to them with a hambone clap. When I bring it to them, it always has structure but it needs more from them.”
Upcoming performances
The Wranglers’ repertoire is well-known throughout the local music scene as many players, from Andrew Carper of Southern Belles to jazz pianists Macon Mann and Ayinde Williams, have been enlisted as temporary Wranglers. “There are so many musicians in town who know the music to my songs, it’s beautiful and humbling. And the people who started the band are still in the back pocket in case they are needed.”
That includes Kindle, the first to arrange her tunes, ex-bassists Gavin Maxwell and Justin Doyle, as well as fiddle and banjo player Aaron Stapel. The current Wranglers lineup consists of Atchison, fiddler Spencer Conroy, drummer Johnny Wicker and bassist Seth Morrissey.
Richmonders will have plenty of opportunities to hear Snider and the band in the coming months. They perform every Fourth Friday at the Savory Grain, and are slated to play the Camel with Pharaoh Sistare and Lady Moon and the Eclipse on March 29, as well as the Ember Music Hall with Catie Lausten on April 11. The group will also provide the live soundtrack to a vintage silent film at the Silent Music Revival on April 14 at Studio Two Three, part of the 30th annual James River Film Festival.
The group has also been wrangling with new material, slated for release later this year. The new songs, to be recorded at Minimum Wage, will contain more saxophone and banjo, and won’t cull from Cassidy’s earlier writing. “Anything we put out this year will be completely new,” Snider says. “I want to have more dancing tunes. There will probably be no ballads this year.” One new anthem, “Spent,” has developed into a live showstopper. “The crowd has started to pick it up. Hearing people shout the part back to us is incredible. We feed off of them.”
As a solo act, Snider will join Deau Eyes (Ali Thibodeux) and Charles Owen for a May 25 episode of “Legends on Grace: River City Spotlight” at Dominion’s Rhythm Hall. “It will be like a cabaret showplace with Ali accompanying me on guitar and Charles on sax. She and I will be going back and forth doing our own songs, round robin, explaining and talking to the audience about what our songs mean. It will be very intimate.”
And then there’s Snider’s third annual Juneteenth event at the Camel, slated for June 19. The one-night festival features different types of acts, from hip-hop to hardcore, most of them featuring African Americans. “She picks the performers and programs it all,” says Hansen. “This is her thing and the Camel is proud to host it.”
“Putting the Juneteenth show together is really important,” Snider says. “It’s to show everybody that you don’t need to fit into any type of box. You can do it all.”
