The SongCatchers were formed in the late 1980s in Seattle, Washington during an impromptu musical improvisation of the Lara Lavi band and the intertribal Native American singing and drumming group the White Eagle Singers led by Arlie Neskahi, Dine` (Navajo) at the original Crocodile venue. The SongCatchers’ musical sound is a fusion of Native American intertribal singing and drumming with rock, jazz, alternative pop music and spoken word. The group’s sound is one of a kind integrating intertribal vocables into the core of the songs without watering down the impact of their melodies and meaning. The founding members are Lara Lavi, Mark Cardenas, Arlie Neskahi and Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers. Since forming, they have toured the world with Peter Gabriel, The Band, and the Neville Brothers to name a few, won two Native American Grammys, performed at literally every larger Reserve and Reservation in North America, signed to A&M records at one point in their career, bought their masters back, held on to their publishing, took breaks, lost members to cancer and covid and simply continued to find ways to create. The SongCatchers have now re-grouped with three generations of musicians both on the band side and the Native singers side despite decades of challenges. They are considered in Indian Country to be the first band to significantly pave the way for Native American fusion music with popular genres in a way that tribal elders support as music that has proved to be an evolution of a living culture for Native American music and culture. In 2002, the late Robbie Robertson of The Band and his own solo career once told Rolling Stone Magazine “The SongCatchers have transformed the way we Native people think of Indian vocables - they have integrated these ancient songs and sound into hook lines, powerful centerpieces of deeply profound compositions giving all of us a license to explore what is possible in a real cultural conversation between Native Americans and the rest of us.”

Now in 2023 going into 2024-2025 after the loss of Mark Smith, Shoshone, to Covid in 2020, Charles Neville to pancreatic cancer in 2018 and in the wake of a changing world in need of the spiritual musical goodness the SongCatchers’ music offers, the SongCatchers are back with three generations of members – the sons and daughters of some of the founders – and a focused approach to live performance, recording, cultural education and youth engagement.

The SongCatchers is a fiscally sponsored project of the Allied Arts Foundation.

If you'd prefer to donate by check, please make check payable to "Allied Arts Foundation" and indicate "The SongCatchers " in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to:

Allied Arts Foundation
Care of Media Law Group Inc.
999 N Northlake Way, Suite 207
Seattle, WA 98103