Photo journal of "by hand" album release concert

Our "by hand" album release concert at the Old Church in Portland was a fantastic, fun experience!  All photos in this post are by Portland photographer Julie Keefe. We are so happy she was there to document the proceedings!

Here is Stephen Cohen on acoustic guitar and Rich Hinrichsen on double bass.

The Old Church has such perfect concert hall acoustics that Stephen was able to sing and play his acoustic guitar totally unplugged, and Rich was able to play double bass and piano unplugged as well.

It was a big thrill for Stephen and Rich to have Stephen's brother Jeremy come up from Berkeley, California to sit in with the WALKING WILLOWS on electric bass and clarinet. Jeremy has played bass on songs in Stephen's albums in the past, including Thomas and Grandfather, on Human Voices, (the 2nd album by the Tree People), and Mr. Knickerbocker on Stephen's children's album, Here Comes the Band.  His live musical presence was much appreciated by all!

Jeremy played Stephen's little guitar on "Let's All Root for the Home Team".

Rich on piano. Rich played piano on several songs, including "Mad Waltz", "Thomas" and "Morning Song". 

Rich, after he did a beautiful piano solo piece called "Twins".

Stephen did 3 original solo pieces on cigar box guitar: "Ride the Train", "Red Tailed Hawk" and "Running Falls".

The cigar box guitar has become a great hit with concert audiences for Stephen. Here he is showing his cigar box guitar to longtime family friend Micheal Prager after the show.

Jen Harrison, who played French Horn on 1 hit song and Walking willow tree on the by hand album, was able to get to the Old Church in time, after an earlier performance that evening with the symphony, to help close our concert by playing beautifully on those 2 songs and making wonderful elephant music on The Elephant Walk as well.

Jeremy added clarinet parts to The Elephant Walk and Walking willow tree.

Here we are on our closing song, Walking willow tree, with Kate singing  her "Walking willow, willow tree, walking willow" part from the album. This was a concert that we enjoyed on so many levels. We remember it fondly!

After the show: concert attendees Sue and John, with Kate.

Rich after the show with a contingent of  friends from his high school days, who came all the way from Longview, Washington to attend the concert.

Tony Coulter, who hosts a radio show broadcast by WFMU in New York, was in attendance. Here Stephen is showing him a vinyl single of 2 of his songs that was released by Ethbo Music of London a few years back. Recently Tony played 2 songs from the by hand album and 2 songs from Stephen's real life and fiction album on his show.

Stephen showing off his guitar string bracelet, which was made "by hand" by Portland metal artist Kristin Shiga. Kristin elaborated on the original concept by Stephen to create a real work of art. Kristin was unable to attend the concert because of a bad case of the flu, but her one of kind bracelet was in attendance.

                     

Here is the by hand album cover (photo by Kristin Shiga). We are very happy with the album and very happy with the album release concert! If you were not able to attend the concert and do not have a new album, you can order one from Stephen at threehandstephen@earthlink.net or you can preview and order it on iTunes.