a children's album, suitable for adults, and vice- versa, with 14 songs,and a twenty page illustrated booklet with lyrics, activities and more

14 MP3 Songs
KIDS/FAMILY: General Children's Music, FOLK: Modern Folk



Details:
The Making of Here Comes the Band: By Stephen Cohen

In addition to my music for adults, for many years I have also been doing performances, workshops and residencies for children, but until now I have never recorded a âchildrenâs album,â so here it is: Here Comes the Band is for both children and adults, for families listening together as well as for adults listening when children are asleep or nowhere in sight.
A nice thing has happened in the making of Here Comes the Band: there have been several extended families of musicians involved, including my wife Kate on vocals, my brother Jeremy on electric bass, my son Abe (who plays in his own band, Maggieâs Choice) on vocals and electric guitar, and my nephews Jonathan and Jonathon saying Give Me That Toy!. Christopher Shotola-Hardt (who also did the paintings and drawings for the CD) on bouzouki-guitar and Susanne Shotola-Hardt on accordion are a married couple and Bob Shotola on drums is Susanneâs father (the 3 of them play in the band Bug Toast). And my engineer, Dean Baskervilleâs wife Leana plays the recorder on There Goes the Band and his daughter Amiette sings on Sleepy Dreams.

The Engineer: The engineer in a recording studio uses microphones, computers and all kinds of other equipment to make sure all the instruments are recorded so they sound good together. Dean Baskerville is the engineer on all the songs which were recorded here in Portland, Oregon at Dead Aunt Thelmaâs Studio with myself and a core of wonderful Oregon musicians. Some of the additional musicians on this album live in other parts of the United States, so we sent them files of the music we recorded here in Portland, and they sent files back to us with their parts. These long distance contributors include Ritt Henn on string bass from New York City with engineer Dan Weiss, Jeremy Cohen on electric bass from Berkeley, California with engineer Barry Schiffman, and guest band Zebra Junction from Colorado with engineer Micah Lundy. And a few songs from previous projects had to be included, including Baseball, Baseball and Goodnight, Goodnight from my CD Many Hats (the engineer on those two songs is Don Ross of Eugene, Oregon) and Lullaby
(recorded 30 years ago by engineer John Bau in Santa Fe, New Mexico).

The Producer: The producer chooses the songs, finds the musicians to play on the CD, and organizes everything related to the production of the CD. I am the producer of this CD, with assistance from my long time engineer, Dean Baskerville.

The Songwriter: It almost seems like magic when a song comes into the world. Most of the songs I wrote for Here Comes the Band started with musical ideas, emotions and experiences all coming into play as music, melody and words while I was playing and experimenting on the guitar.

The Visual Artist: Christopher Shotoala-Hardt, who is an exhibiting artist at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, Oregon, created the Here Comes the Band and There Goes the Band paintings for the front and back cover, and did all the drawings in the CD booklet. Look for all the animals mentioned in the songs and more in his beautiful, wonderful, detailed artwork.

The Graphic Artist: The graphic artist helps organize and arrange all the text and artwork so it looks good on the CD cover and booklet. Kristin Johnson is the graphic artist for this project.

Search for Stephen: to find out more about my story, my instruments, my other recordings, and links to the other musicians on the CD, do a search on your computer for Stephen Cohen
or go directly to my web site: http://home.earthlink.net/threehandstephen
you can e-mail me at threehandstephen@earthlink.net or send me a letter at my production company: Three Handed Productions, PO Box 3343, Portland, Oregon 97208-3343