Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. We are part of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located in Washington, D.C. 

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Shannon McNally

For those who have followed McNally’s nearly twenty year career the thing that most sticks with the listener about her, is the timeless effortlessness that she brings to all she does. With a long catalog and longer list of peers with whom she has written, recorded and toured, McNally continues to turn out great music that defies blatant genre-fication.

At home across the American (Americana) music spectrum, the Grammy nominee who’s live music career began on the jam band circuit of the 1990’s with bands like Robert Randolph and Derek Trucks, writes as well as she interprets the songs of others, has a top tier musicality to her craft, a soul stirring voice that immediately grabs one by the heart strings and a troubadour’s wanderlust, not to mention as it turns out, she is also an excellent electric guitar player.

Like her anti-hero heroes J.J. Cale, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan. Dr. John, and Jim Dickinson, McNally knows who she serves. She serves the song. Her quiet but steady plodding through the many layers of the business of music, hasn’t ever been rewarded with massive fame and fortune but in time that slow burn has become the treasure in and of itself.

She has performed on Late Night with David Letterman, Tonight with Jay Leno, and The Conan O'Brien Show.

Ryan Bingham's music defies classification with folk, blues, country, and rock 'n roll all part of the recipe. It's authentic and powerful and the songs are rooted in real life - in survival and sacrifice and, yes, sometimes just having a damn good time. Nobody making music today has a voice like Bingham’s, one that has the worn and weary character of an old fighter more than twice his age but the power of a young man. It’s an intoxicating mixture that reaches new levels with the support of his talented band. Bingham is a singer-songwriter, not a product, and his latest studio album American Love Song movingly shows how the overarching theme of the personal and communal American existence can encompass triumph and tragedy from one moment to the next.

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