Ben Shannon writes and performs folk songs that attempt to speak to the human condition on a personal, global and emotional level. His lyrical range shows a command of melody and phrasing with rich rhythmic and technical detail while managing to sidestep the pitfall of head on predictability. He writes from the ethos of hip hop and poetry as a musical child of Hazel Dickens, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. Ben Shannon is proudly based in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania–a region with more cultural kinship to West Virginia than Washington DC. The power of his songs stem from an acute awareness of the Appalachian region and a first hand experience of the multi-generational effects of a resource extraction economy. Ben Shannon writes from the landscape of these psychological, social, and geological ripple effects with a sense of urgency–as if the region and its people are a harbinger for the rest of the planet. Ben’s songs are spiritually hopeful and come bearing narratives that challenge the devaluation of human life and the life of the planet.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by myself.