Bio

Folk singer-songwriter and guitarist Merlin Snider was born in Joliet, Illinois and raised in Southern California. His songs blend all sorts of American roots music from folk and blues to rock, gospel and jazz. Bob Stane of the Coffee Gallery Backstage said Merlin “does all the right things on stage and is the genuine article when it comes to wit and humor . . . In other words, he delivers the real goods,”

“Merlin Snider is a craftsman,” wrote Wildy’s World,  “about as fine a songwriter and story teller as you’re likely to find.” One listener wrote that “his spiritual consciousness and diversity are embedded in everything he writes. To attend one of his concerts is to spend an evening running the gamut of emotions.  He makes us look at human comedy and human tragedy, confront the elephants in the room.” 

Merlin was a Premiere Showcase Artist at the Folk Alliance Region West 2009 Conference. His latest album, One Light Many Windows, was the No. 2 Album on the FOLKDJ chart, April 2017.

Other “past lives” as a carpenter, home-builder, teacher, and free lance writer and near brushes with scholarship (MA, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1978; PhD in Social Ethics, School of Religion, University of Southern California, 1988) have informed his writing. Merlin Snider lives in Ventura County, California with his wife and singing partner, Deborah Snider.

Songs from three albums are available on CDBaby.com, Apple Music, and Spotify, I have been told.