Adjunct professor Ed Snodderly offers songwriting workshop

Local musicians at ETSU have the once in a lifetime opportunity to participate in a songwriting workshop with local country artist and actor Ed Snodderly every Tuesday evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. this month in Brooks Memorial Hall.

Snodderly, who is an adjunct professor for ETSU’s Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies, has been apart of the country music scene since the 1970s when he signed a record deal with Philo Records.

ETSU Bluegrass Old Time Country Music adjunct professor, Ed Snodderly, is offering a songwriting workshop every Tuesday evening in February. Contributed

Snodderly has a variety of talents including playing the piano, guitar and banjo.

He got his love for music from his family. Although they were tobacco and dairy farmers, his grandfather, father and uncles formed a band that played local square dances in the 1930s.

As an East Tennessee native, Snodderly decided to move to Johnson City in 1976, where he and a friend opened up The Down Home. Today, The Down Home is known as one of the region’s longest running music venues.

As for acting, Snodderly is most known for his role as one of the village idiots in the 2001 blockbuster, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Snodderly has also acted for several theater companies in the country such as the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia.

Described by his peers as “down to earth,” Snodderly could not help to be anything but shocked and honored when he found out that a lyric from his song, “The Diamond Stream,” was engraved into a wall at the Country Music Hall of Fame after the museum reopened in 2001.

Snodderly always introduces “The Diamond Stream” by explaining that AP Carter, a founding member of The Carter Family band in the late 1920s, played a role in writing the song. Carter is also known as the uncle to country music legend, June Carter Cash. The band also has Tri-Cities ties. They recorded their first songs in Bristol in 1927.

Today, Snodderly teaches his students the craft of songwriting, continues to co-own The Down Home and plays shows from time to time.

The fee for his songwriting workshop is $119 for four sessions, but as of this publication, the class is full.