Barb Ryman – singer songwriter, cultural critic, love junkie - is a native tall Texan who has lived most of her life in the Twin Cities as a short person. Inspired by a too early midlife crisis, Barb first took the stage as a songwriter at the age of 40. With that debut performance she found herself a finalist in the nationally endorsed Fine Line Songwriter Competition. Since then Barb has been nominated for nine Minnesota Music Awards including Songwriter Of the Year, Folk Artist of the Year, Recording Of the Year, Song Of the Year, and Female Vocalist. To top it off, Ryman won the 2002 McKnight Composer Fellowship with the American Composer Forum.

Barb lays her insightful, witty lyrics into a rich mosaic of contemporary folk, gentle rock, and country blues, delivering it all with a clear, compelling voice. Her fingerstyle guitar is sweet, complimenting the compassionate underpinnings of her songs. Committed to living life authentically, Barb’s music is passionate, spiritual, tender and rebellious, capable of distilling and undercutting the myths of our times. Her love songs detour from sentimental cliché and speak directly to the risks and vulnerabilities. Her masterful storytelling gives life and power to the lost and forgotten voices of our culture. Drawing from a deep emotional well, she takes her listeners through an intriguing subterranean landscape, but with such uplifting hope, one feels energized and transformed. Barb balances this propensity for depth with her whimsical sense of humor, keeping fans laughing with satires like “Ode to Low Self-Esteem” and “Playing For Two”. She gently charms every audience she meets with her sincerity and playful stage banter.

Always attracted to music, Barb started to compose when she could play her first two chords and feel two conflicting emotions simultaneously. Inspired by the 60’s folk revival, she was playing Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and traditional folk covers in the coffeehouses by high school and college, but keeping original compositions to herself. Succumbing to societal pressures to get a *real job* Barb’s music went into the closet, literally. After marriage, two above average children, and a successful career as a speech pathologist, Barb could no longer ignore the feeling that something was missing. She pulled her guitar out of the closet and started composing. It was her musical coming out. Barb describes it as exploding out, You can’t repress 20 years of your musical soul and expect it to trickle out. I was writing song after song after song, says Ryman.

Barb is now touring nationally, performing at concert series, folk festivals, house concerts, and radio shows around the U.S. She has shared the stage with Cheryl Wheeler, Robin & Linda Williams, and Les Sampou, to name a few. Her songs have aired on folk programs across the United States, Europe and Australia. She has four recordings, Winds of Good Fortune (1993), Lay Me Open (1995), Like A Tree (1998), and her new release, Falling Down To Heaven (2002), produced by percussionist, Marc Anderson, and featuring a cast of top-notch guest musicians including Dean Magraw, Peter Ostroushko, and Celtic virtuoso, John Williams.