Kate Power & Steve Einhorn: Press

Coverage of the adventures of Kate Power & Steve Einhorn brings more into focus than music, it's the stuff of life. Intentional activism for positive social change and a love for harmony brings one story after another from the edge of the trail these two have chosen together. Decades of serving up folk music at Artichoke Music, winning the Music to Life Grand Prize at Kerrville for a song from a lost boy, community work against hunger and setting the Guinness World Record with the world's largest guitar band singing "This Land is Your Land" to fill the pantry at Sisters of the Road Cafe in Portland, playing A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor when he came to Oregon with his road show, letters from a lifetime hero, Pete Seeger telling them how much he loves their music or giving an unknown Zimbabwean boy a great guitar to play after he built his first one out of an oil can, raw wood and stripped bicycle brake cables; there are hundreds of stories to tell. Here are just a few kernels on the ear of corn and this section nibbles on just a few from the adventures and lives of Kate & Steve.

The Oregonian, A&E, Plugged In, five questions: "After Artichoke" by Tom D'Antoni

Calling Artichoke Music a stringed-instrument store is like calling Powell's a bookstore - it is, but it also is much more. During the 25 years that Steve Einhorn owned the Southeast Portland spot (joined by Kate Power...), it was a gathering place as well as a place of business. Fifteen months ago they sold it to a non-profit group, which operates it today.

Throughout the years, the pair maintained a successful career as folk singer-songwriters. Recently at Kung Fu Bakery recording studio, where they were recording their latest album, they talked about the past, present and future.

Q: What do you miss?
Einhorn: I miss the routine. I miss the characters. Like the guy who would show up once a year. He rode freight trains. He'd take a guitar off the wall, sit on a bench and play for five minutes, put it back on the wall and thank me. I wouldn't see him again till the next year. I miss the instruments walking in. The little old lady with the shopping cart with the Gibson L-1 (guitar), wrapped in white plastic, that belonged to her dear husband.
Power: And the other side of that was connecting people with instruments.

Q: What don't you miss?
Power: Money in the conversation. It's not about money now. Getting out of the retail conversation is wonderful. For the first six months I would look at Steve every day and say, "Guess where we're not going to be today?"

Q: What effect has it had on your music?
Power: When we first left, we had a writers residency at Wallowa. We were bursting at the seams. We shed that skin that was containing us, and everything was about life and art. It opened us up.
Einhorn: We're almost full-time musicians now. It's interesting being out here with our musician friends hustling gigs. We're doing our first happy hour ever!

Q: Where is that?
Power: At the Alberta Street Pub. We're doing tunes that we don't get a chance to do. We're woodshedding all our new stuff. We can be with people in a different way. Shoulders are real relaxed and it's fun.
Einhorn: There are scary moments - the uncertainty of it.
Power: You just have to accept being terrified. If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room, right?

Q: What are these things you've brought along?
Einhorn: I made a cello made out of a wine box and a neck from a guitar. It has a door on it.
Power: It should have a couple of collars for your wine glasses.
Einhorn: The strings are Weedwacker wire. I also have this anchovy ukulele made out of an anchovy can - and a cigar box violin.

Get Happy Hour, Monday in April, 6:30-8:30pm, Alberta St. Public House, 1036 NE Alberta St., no cover charge; 503-284-7665

I am from Barcelona, Spain. I don't know you, but I want to tell you a story that happened to me yesterday.

I bought a cd of Tracy Grammer "Book of Sparrows", and when I listened the song of 'Travis John', I felt something special. Mostly by the music, because when I listen a song in English, for the first time I never catch all the meanings...

Then I was looking for your name on internet, and I discovered your website. I printed all the information about the song, and while I was coming back home by train, I started to read it.

The lyrics of the song are very powerful, and also are special to me because it has a relation with the things that I work for. I have been working at the School for a Culture of Peace of Barcelona's Autonomous University for the last four years where I direct the program of Music, Arts and Peace. I do research on artistic initiatives which use artistic language for peace building initiatives, and your song to me is an example of that. A young soldier killed by a landmine, and a song to keep his memory alive!

As I kept on reading, I was even more surprised when I read that you recorded the song at Big Red Studio. It's a long story, but I am a friend of Billy Oskay and I've been there 4 times in a row during the summers. I've been at the same studio that Travis helped to build...

It was a very special moment for me, and I thought that could be nice to share it with you. As you say "We are all connected in the fabric of life".

"Travis John", the song lives...Tracy Grammer's latest album, "Book of Sparrows," is on the melancholy side. It's a reflection of the times..." "Travis John" is the most powerful track from "Sparrows," which is a collection of covers. Portland singer-songwriter Kate Power penned the stirring number, which was inspired by Travis John Bradach-Nall, an American soldier from her neighborhood who was killed in Iraq." " 'Travis John' is just one of the most touching songs I've heard," Grammer said. "I was compelled to record it . It's a fascinating story." Grammer hands out "Travis John" lyric sheets to fans at every show. "This is our one-song peace movement," Grammer said. "I'm going to hand this song out to everyone at my shows until the end of the war. I'll be doing it for quite a while, perhaps for the rest of my career." The soft-spoken Grammer hopes the war ends soon...

Dear Kate & Steve,
Your song for Travis John makes me cry. I LOVE your CD! Playing it OVER & OVER. Thank you SO MUCH for sending it to me - you are terrific. Very TOP QUALITY FOLK. Love, Naomi Nye

Music haven changes owners but not its folk tune
Community - For 35 years, Artichoke has been a home to vivid characters, eclectic instruments and heart
Friday, December 29, 2006
JOHN FOYSTON

The hand-carved guitar from Zimbabwe with the pounded-flat cooking-oil-tin soundboard and the bicycle-brake-cable strings isn't for sale, nor is the cardboard banjo. But many other oddities accumulated during the last quarter century at Artichoke Music are on the block this week.

The folk music store is going through its fourth or fifth iteration since Judith Cook-Tucker opened it in 1971 and named it because artichokes are all heart. She sold to the people whom Steve Einhorn joined and then bought out in 1981. He moved the store from Northwest to Southeast, and his wife and musical partner, Kate Power, joined him in the business in 1994.

They're selling so they can travel, perform music and teach songwriting, but the store will remain a uniquely Portland institution. New owners Richard Colombo and Jim Morris want to continue the tradition, and Artichoke Music (and the new Artichoke Community Music Center) will most likely remain the heart of Portland's acoustic music community, as it has been for 35 years.

Two mothers, two sons, one banjo
Jonathan Nicholas, The Oregonian

Kate Power is doing something kind of silly this afternoon. She's going all the way to Texas to sing one three-minute song.

Yes, it's kind of crazy. But it's not as if Power is missing much back home in Portland. Just the graduation this evening from Grant High School of her son, Ben.

It was Ben who made the call.

Right after they got word that Power's song "Travis John" was a finalist at the renowned Kerrville Folk Festival, there was a family meeting. Ben took one look at the list of judges -- the likes of Tom Chapin, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton and Peter Yarrow -- and said, "Go."


This all started three years back. Power, who, along with husband Steve Einhorn, owns the hallowed Artichoke Music store in Southeast Portland, was teaching a songwriting workshop at Fishtrap, the literary gathering held each summer at Wallowa Lake in Eastern Oregon.

Just days earlier, news had reached Portland of the death of Travis John Bradach-Nall, a young Marine who was among the first Oregonians killed in Iraq. Another Einhorn son, Eli, had been a student at Grant High with Travis John.

Early on the day of Travis John's funeral, Power -- whose heart has a string tying her direct to magic -- found herself sitting out front of her Wallowa cabin, cradling her banjo.

She was just picking at the strings, she says, watching the lakefront deer graze, when she heard herself singing what became the haunting "Travis John."

A few weeks later, Power recorded the song at Billy Oskay's Big Red Studio in the Columbia Gorge. Everyone involved in the taping that day says there was something special about the session. Only later did they learn that Travis John had been on the hammer crew that built the studio.

Sunset Magazine - Travel & Culture...

At 8 p.m. on a Friday night, a crowd has assembled in the lofty performance room of Artichoke Music, a shop in Portland's Hawthorne District. Steve Einhorn - owner, songwriter, performer, and raconteur - takes the stage and plays an original composition on his guitar. Soon he's joined by his wife, Kate Power, also a songwriter and co-owner of Artichoke, for a 40-minute set. Two more artists follow in an evening of music that has echoes of the '60s but remains strikingly contemporary.

"I'm a happy man," says the 54-year-old Einhorn, "especially when I'm making music with Kate." It's impossible to distrust the statement.

Now nearly 35 years old (Einhorn has owned it for almost 25 years), Artichoke is a Portland institution. Up front, the retail shop is a wonderland of beautifully made instruments: guitars, banjos, violins, mandolins, dulcimer, Irish wooden flutes, concertinas. Behine that area are teaching studios. And the Backgate Stage offers a busy schedule of performances.

Education is a continuous thread running through the Portland music scene. Obo Addy, a drummer from Ghana who landed in Portland in 1978, is the patriarch of an African music and dance group called Homowo African Arts & Cultures. He and his company not only perform, they teach drumming to adults and African dancing to children. A recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship Award - with a framed letter of congratulation from Bill Clinton hanging in his dining room - Addy plays with other groups too, such as Okropong, which perform traditional Ghanaian music, and Kukrudu, an African jazz band.

On the road frequently and in high demand, Addy and wife Susan could live anywhere in the world. Why do they stay in Portland? "This place grabs you," he says, shaking his fist. "It sits you down and won't let you leave."

An then there's Pink Martini. The band started in 1994 to play at political fundraisers for progressive causes. The music borrows freely of melodies and rhythms from around the world, creating a sophisticated sound that is gin and vermouth with a puff of smoke.

With a music scene so varied, so vibrant - well, as Obo Addy says, it does grab you. Why would you ever want to leave?

Wow. It took many listens to the first track of this release, "Travis John," to not break down crying. A smiling photo of the late 21-year old, who was killed by a land mine in Iraq in July, is included alongside the notes about the song. Singing in the first person as the young soldier, Kate sings of pride in answering a call to be his country's own hero. The banjo is gentle and the lyrics are timely and powerful. "Travis John" creates a life story behind one name in the numerous lives lost due to war. For those fond of macabre connections, Kate learned later that Travis had helped with the construction on the the very building where she recorded the tune.

Following this first song are samples from four previous releases by the couple, creating a sort of "best of" without actually calling it such. Of the 13 tracks they include 11 originals, Jesse Winchesters' "If I Were Free" and the traditional "Castle of Dromore" arranged by Kate. Instrumentally, expect accordion, mandolin and pedal steel here and there. "Nova Scotia" features the late John Cunningham on violin, from the CD which he helped to produce: Dancing in the Kitchen.

Pearls arouses the kind of simple memories that produce grounded love. This release is a winning purchase for any new ear to the unpretentious talents of this couple. I love this CD.

The Power of the Song -

Portland songwriter Kate Power raised a boy who graduated from Grant High School with Travis John Bradach-Nall, the young Marine killed July 2 in Iraq. Power missed the funeral; she was teaching songwriting that week at Fishtrap in Wallowa County. That day, as she sought solace with her banjo, she heard herself singing what became the haunting "Travis John."

Back near the big city August 3, Power, in the ghostlike "voice" of Travis, recorded the song at Billy Oskay's Big Red Studio in the Columbia Gorge. Everyone involved was silenced by the power of the session. Only later did they learn Travis had been on the crew that built the studio.

World's Largest Guitar Band Plays "This Land is Your Land" for Longest Time! July 4, 2003

The concept is every horn player's nightmare: hundreds of guitarists playing one folk song in unison -- for an hour. The same three simple chords repeating, ringing through the brain pan until it becomes numb. Attack of the strings, a fright of strummers, controlled cacophony.

But even the most jaded jazzer, the most erudite classical fan, couldn't help but be a bit moved by the communal, albeit bizarre, scene that took over Pioneer Courthouse Square on Sunday. Officially 502 guitarists from all over the Northwest gathered together with their instruments to play and sing Woody Guthrie's 1956 folk anthem, "This Land Is Your Land," to raise money for Sisters of the Road Cafe, and to set a world record.

And set it they did. "Guinness Book of World Records" recognized the gathering that afternoon as The World's Largest Guitar Band.

Organizers Kate Power and Steve Einhorn of local guitar shop Artichoke Music saw the concept attempted last year in Woodstock, N.Y., but they said it was poorly organized and got rained out. Still, the two took the idea and applied it toward a good cause, setting the record and raising money for their "charity of choice," the nonprofit Old Town restaurant that helps feed the poor and homeless. The event raised nearly $10,000 for Sisters of the Road.

"It's really over-the-top fund-raising," said Debbie Fox of Sisters of the Road, who also played drums for the event. "It's really unique and very Portland. We'll have to break it next year."

To make it into the record book, the group had to follow the rigorous Guinness specifications, meaning all who played had to be officially registered, plus, the instruments had to be guitars. So those few who showed up with autoharps, lutes and mandolins weren't part of the number count, though they were allowed to play.

Registration began at 10:30 a.m., and until about 1 p.m. people with their guitars filtered in slowly. There were other activities to keep folks occupied during the countdown: face painting, balloon animals, info booths, food, ice cream and drink stands. But most chose to sit and strum, sharing music and warming up by playing the likes of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, while finding the few shaded spots on a sweltering June day.

Peter Mitchell of Portland, a nursing professional wearing a tie-dyed T and a holding a Conn guitar, had been playing for only a few months but wanted to be a part of the day. "We need to bring music back into life," he said. The Woody Guthrie fan said that the song's lyrics transcend pettiness. "Music binds us."

Guitarists arrived in droves as downbeat grew near, toting everything from new Ovations to battered acoustics, shiny National guitars to old faithfuls covered in bumper stickers.

The crowd ranged from families with children to indie rockers and old folkies.

Sidney White, 8, of Portland brought her tiny guitar and her parents. Her reason for playing was simple. "I wanna have fun," she said with a smile.

Bart Plimmer, 15, arrived from White Salmon, Wash. More a drummer, the spiked mohawk-wearing teen played guitar because he thought it would be cool. "I just decided it would be a pretty big event. I wanted to be active with other musicians."

After a group tuning, the backing band on stage, led by Power and Einhorn, hit the downbeat at 2 p.m. Some in the crowd looked dazed, others struggled to find the chords and some improvised. But for the most part, the whole thing was mostly in tune and on beat.

Each verse rang in at 20 seconds, with roughly 180 verses covered in the hour. It started off rousing, with members of the band adding their own positive lyrics. After 20 minutes, the repetition wore. After a half hour, it was like being on Disney's "It's a Small World" and not being allowed to get off. Hopeful cheers rang out at the 15-minutes-left announcement, and the music built up. At the end, all raised their guitars in unison and cheers.

"You all are as crazy as we are," Einhorn shouted.

"That was a blast," one participant said. "That was 45 minutes more than I needed, but it was a great event," said another, nursing blistered fingers.

Yes, music bound Portland together for a brief afternoon, raised money, awareness and set a record. And the bunch might even have a go at it next year, too. Have to break the record they set.

June 16, 2003

Garrison Keillor, host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," took his show on the road to Bend this weekend, and got in some gentle pokes at Oregon's fastest-growing city.
Keillor described the Bend residents arrayed before him at the Les Schwab Amphitheater as "handsome, skinny people" and said the city "was once a lumbering town -- by that I mean the timber industry, not the way the people walked."


In a skit featuring Guy Noir, an old-fashioned private eye who is one of the program's signature characters, Keillor told the story of a Minnesota farmer who fled to Bend "to play golf."


The farmer wasn't hard for Noir to find, however -- he was wearing "barn boots" on the course, Keillor said.


Keillor also poked fun at a Bend ordinance that requires dog owners to pick up their pet's excrement, saying the rule seemed to fly in the face of everything the Old West represented.


"John Wayne did not go after his pooch with a baggie in hand!" Keillor exclaimed.


The Booher Family, a country and gospel group from Tumale; Blue Pass, a bluegrass quartet from La Grande; and the Portland folk duo Kate Power and Steven Einhorn performed.


Keillor, 60, began "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1974 in St. Paul, Minn. He performs with three other cast members every week.

December 6, 2002

Steve Einhorn and Kate Power call it "kitchen music" - the kind that indulged the passions of ordinary people everywhere before the tyranny of "the performer" intruded.
It was second nature, the two say, for people to get together to sing, play instruments and share songs, the vessels for passing stories from one generation to the next.
Reviving the art of kitchen music is a large part of what Einhorn, owner of Artichoke Music, and Power, his wife and business partner, are all about.
Artichoke - given its name by original owner Judith Cook-Tucker three decades ago because "artichokes are all heart" - is as much a nurturing oasis as it is a business.
The rare and vintage acoustic instruments displayed on the maple walls of the Hawthorne District business leave little doubt it's a store.
But the Artichoke School of Music in back and the Backgate Stage beyond - both usually alive with sound - show that Artichoke is far more than a store. It's a place where rank amateurs and big-name folk artists feel equally at home.
The school draws its faculty from a contingent of 40 professional musicians. The intimate and acoustically ideal Backgate Stage, which seats just 50, has hosted performances by musical names that much larger venues would kill for - folk singer and songwriter Tom Paxton, mandolinist David Grisman, folk music legend Odetta, Irish fiddler Kevin Burke and vocalist Rebecca Kilgore, to name a few. Paxton even led a songwriting workshop there.
The business ministers with equal facility to novices chasing a dream and to an array of the country's most renowned folk artists.
Carolyn Sparling, 50, is typical of the novices. Although she was brave enough to beat back breast cancer, she couldn't overcome her fear of singing in front of an audience - until a friend brought her to Artichoke's Saturday Song Circle. Now she's one of the circle's regulars.
"Folks are welcome to sit in and pretend they're invisible until they're comfortable, and then before you know it, they're singing and playing along with everyone else," says Power, who organized the circle a year and a half ago.
For seasoned professionals, Artichoke is a sophisticated resource as well as a place where they can recharge their musical batteries.
The Backgate's intimacy, jazz singer Kilgore says, "creates a camaraderie between the performers and audience."
Einhorn and Power "have created a place where you can find rare instruments, a place to perform, and a place to further your musical development," says Marv Ross of the popular Oregon Trail Band. Ross and his wife, Rindy, led the rock group Quarterflash, whose 1981 megahit "Harden My Heart" went platinum.
"Their impact," Ross says, "is immeasurable - it's something that filters down through the music community in Portland and affects us all."
Says Portland music industry consultant Lisa Lepine: "Being artists themselves, they have created a performance space that ... allows for creative magic."
Their legacy, Lepine says, is Portland's vibrant folk music scene.
Another thing that sets Artichoke apart is Einhorn's ability to find obscure and vintage acoustic instruments - a service that is the core of the business.
Two buyers from Japan show up on Einhorn's doorstep annually with a shipping container to snap up some of his finds. The Artichoke Web site (www.artichokemusic.com) is tapped worldwide for Einhorn's lists of acquisitions.
Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne and Grisman - whom The New York Times has dubbed "the Paganini of the mandolin" - are valued customers.
In an age of mass-market guitar centers, Artichoke is a rarity, Ross says. "It's an oasis for the serious musician who wants more than just the lowest price."
"They're experts at appraisal and research on rare and varied instruments," says bassist Glen Moore of the internationally renowned jazz group Oregon, which shows up on occasion at the Backgate.

The hippie thing

Einhorn, 52, a singer, songwriter, guitar player and recording artist in his own right, bought Artichoke in 1981 after knocking around the Northwest for a few years doing his "hippie thing."

He was raised in Teaneck, N.J., and his father gave him his first guitar when he was 13. To pick up lessons, he used to hang out at music shops in New York City's Greenwich Village. Much of his vision for Artichoke evolved from those experiences.
It doesn't hurt that he was born into an entertainment-oriented family. His parents, Anne and Marvin Einhorn, - now 79 and 82 - still work as New York stage actors. For a couple of decades into the early '80s, Marvin Einhorn was a director of NBC's "Today" show.
When Einhorn first came to Portland, he worked as a carpenter building stage sets for KOIN (6) and wrangled a side job working at Artichoke, which at the time was on Northwest 21st Avenue.
In those days, the place was run by three partners who didn't exactly see eye to eye. Einhorn bought into the business in 1981 and eventually made an offer that the last partner standing couldn't refuse. The store was moved to a site at Southeast 35th Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard in 1985 and to its current location, 3130 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., in 1997.

Musical chairs

If Einhorn is the heart of the business, Power, 51, is the soul.
She has been the impetus behind Artichoke's musical offerings, which include the monthly First Friday Variety Revue, the music school, and a wide range of workshops and concerts.
A Boston native who grew up harmonizing with seven musically inclined siblings - four brothers and three sisters - she has played and recorded with the Northwest Irish band Wildgeese, and her credits include several successful CD releases, among them "Dancing in the Kitchen."
Two new collaborations with Einhorn, "Now & Then" and "Tales From Puddletown," have just been released.
Power arrived in Oregon in 1977 knowing little more about the state than what she'd learned from some Oregonians she had met at a peace rally in Washington, D.C., in the late '60s.
"I saved my money for a year, packed my van, and my brother Steve and I caravanned across the country without ever looking back," she says.
Soon after she arrived she went in search of a set of hammers for a hammered dulcimer, which is how she discovered Artichoke - and Einhorn.
She and Einhorn were married, and Power joined the Artichoke staff full time in 1994.
"Kate came along at exactly the right time," says a smiling Einhorn.
She still has the dulcimer hammers - which she uses to toss pasta.
Giving back to the community is important to Einhorn and Power.
Which is why they do things like organizing an annual raffle for Sisters of the Road Cafe. This year they hope their donation of a 1971 Martin D-35 guitar valued at $2,000 will raise as much as $10,000 for the cafe, which ministers to street people.
They also open the Backgate to community gatherings, reason enough, perhaps, for Einhorn's tongue-in-cheek honorific: "the mayor of Hawthorne."
The one lament Artichoke's owners have is that they are so busy - the store is open seven days a week - that they don't have as much time as they would like to cultivate their own musical talents.
"We play in between everything else we do," Power says.
In the end, Artichoke is a labor of love.
"It's not really about money, it really is about people and music," Power says.
And that's the point. "Artichoke is successful," Einhorn concludes, "because of the human connection."

PORTLAND to ZIMBABWE, with Strings Attached by Margie Boule - January 17, 2002

Musicians make music. It's what they do - discovering truths in progressions and phrases, curling up in the spaces between the notes.

But Crispin Mungure was so driven to catch the melodies in his mind that he did more than make music. He made his own guitar.

It's likely you've never seen a musical instrument as crude as Crispin's handmade guitar. In his tiny village of Weya in rural Zimbabwe, 17-year old Crispin lives with his father and younger siblings in a mud hut on communal land, land with marginal agricultural promise that was given to native Zimbabweans when white colonists came to their part of Africa. The economy in Zimbabwe is near collapse; in the village of Weya, known for its women artists, there is no money to buy musical instruments.

So Crispin took a single plank of rough wood and carved it in the shape of a guitar, hollowing out the body until it looked like an empty bowl. Across the top he affixed a piece of flattened metal cut from a colorful vegetable oil can, with a hole in the middle. He fastened it to the body with handmade nails fashioned from scrap copper. He scratched fret marks across the neck with a knife and fashioned rough pegs from wooden sticks. Now all he needed were guitar strings; he removed brake cables from old bicycles in his village, stripped off their plastic sheaths, unwound the wire and affixed it to his guitar.

The tone was tinny and faint. But Crispin had his guitar.

"The person who works with me in Zimbabwe, named John, said to me, 'There's this guy in Weya who's a really talented musician. He's composing music as well as playing and singing. You have to hear him,'" recalls Dick Adams. After years as a professor at Lewis & Clark College, Dick left in 1999 to create the nonprofit Zimbabwe Artists Project, to help the women of Weya become self-sufficient by marketing their art in America. Last fall Dick was in Zimbabwe and heard Crispin play his homemade guitar.

Dick was so taken by Crispin's talent that the next time he phone Portland he suggested that his wife, Wendy Rankin, stop by Artichoke Music in Portland and pick up some real guitar strings for Crispin's guitar. Dick's brother was about to visit Zimbabwe and could deliver the strings.

So Wendy went to see Steve Einhorn, who owns Artichoke Music with his wife, Kate Power.

For the uninitiated, Artichoke Music is a retail store that sells musical instruments. "But it's also about the music," says Steve. "We need the retail business to pay for the teaching we do and for the performance space in the back. It's very important that we continue making music."

Wendy described Crispin's guitar and asked about guitar strings. Steve Einhorn responded, "Sure, we have guitar strings. But would he rather have a real guitar?"

A new shipment of Godin guitars had just arrived. "Their guitars are our bread and butter," says Steve. "We sell hundreds of them...and they're beautiful."

Wendy called Dick in Zimbabwe, and he talked to his Zimbabwean associate, John. Would it cause a problem in the community if Crispin had a nice guitar? Would it get stolen? John thought it was a good idea.

Steve picked out a beautiful blue acoustic guitar, put it in a case and tossed in guitar strings, and Dick's brother carried them to Africa.

"We drove down these ravines and tracks ... to Crispin's homestead," say Dick. "John said to him some wonderful and wise words" about the need for Crispin to obey his father, continue his commitment to his studies and care for his younger siblings.

Then they opened the case and handed Crispin his new guitar. "He was stunned," says Dick. "It was just the most wonderful thing. Crispin started playing. His friend, Tatenda, took out sticks and started using the guitar case as a drum." Crispin put on an Artichoke Music T-shirt; Dick took pictures of him with his new guitar.

And then Dick asked if Crispin would consider giving his handmade guitar to Steve Einhorn in gratitude. "You could see in his eyes there was no question," say Dick. "He was delighted to have this guitar and delighted to give up the other one."

So that's how Crispin Mungure's guitar ended up on the wall at Artichoke Music, in Portland's Hawthorne district. "We deal with a lot of gearheads who have a lot of money, and they've been on the Internet and have learned everything there is to know about everything there is to know," says Steve. "How to emphasize this, how to get rid of feedback - and they're not playing music."

"This kid wanted to play music and he's very poor, so he made himself a guitar." Steve's customers ask about the rusted, rough-looking contraption: "Everyone is so moved by it, so taken by it." Steve says the guitar "is a symbol of what it's really all about; making and performing music. It's a reminder. It's a charm."

Making Space for Music -

Artichoke Music's performance room aims to be true to store's folksy roots...
Oregonian Living Section by John Foyston, 1997

The Backgate, Artichoke Music's new stage, opens Saturday night to a schedule that's already crowded and an importance that belies the room's capacity...

Yes, the bathrooms at the Rose Garden arena probably seat more ... but the new performance space nonethless fills an important place in Portland's music scene.

"It's an intriguing idea," music promoter Lisa Lepine said. "I see them as filling that vital niche that's been empty since the East Avenue Tavern closed last summer. It should be a really exciting piece of the local music scene."

The room is part of the new Artichoke Music store at 3130-A SE Hawthorne Blvd, and it's already booked through Thanksgiving with musicians who would've fit right into the lively acoustic music scene of the late, great East Avenue.

Store owner Steve Einhorn and partner Kate Power headline the opening show Saturday along with Pete Krebs and Kevin Richey, the Chamberpot Quartet and Sheila Wilcoxson, the stirring singer who used to front Back Porch Blues.

The idea of the performance space meshes perfectly with the store that Artichoke Music has become during the last 25 years. Though the new digs are upscale, with walls of new guitars and ... individual teaching rooms, Artichoke remains true to its folkie, folksy roots. It's still the sort of cheerfully eclectic place where you can buy bagpipe chanter reeds almost as readily as you can buy a Hohner Marine Band harmonica or a new hammer dulcimer.

"We're creating a place for hands-on music-making," said Power, "It'll also be a place for community meetings, theater, teaching seminars. We want to keep it as flexible as possible and see what the community makes of it."

The idea of such a space isn't new - McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, Calif., is well-known in some circles for its concert space. But Portland's counterpart has been just a fond dream until this weekend.

"I'm calling it the McCabe's of the Northwest," concert promoter Michael Kearsey said.

"It's an idea that Steve and I have talked about for years - we've needed a room that was classy but small. I've put on lots of shows that were great musically but died on the vine because we couldn't attract enough people to fill the Clinton Street Theatre."

"Also, the new room is all-ages and smoke-free, which is the way I like to do concerts. I think it's going to be a really classy stage."

The stage isn't the only classy part. There's also a cafe adjoining the performance space. It will have a vintage back bar, coffee, snacks, and floor-to-ceiling Portland rock'n roll posters from the collection of landlord and next-door neighbor Dave Clingan. He runs Crossroads Music, that haven for pop-music collectibles, and he sees his new neighbors as a good catch indeed.

"I'm glad they've been able to upgrade their retail and teaching space," Clingan said. "From my standpoint, it's just fantastic because they've nudged me into doing upgrades to bring the building up to their standards. They've brought a real sense of quality, and we've been able to make improvements together that wouldn't have happened alone."

Some of those improvements will be finished just hours before the first show as workers ready the performance stage, but Einhorn and Power already are looking to the future.

"I'm so glad we were able to do this," said Power, "I can't wait to walk in a year from now when people are playing music in different places in the store, people are having an espresso in the cafe and talking - it'll be like an Irish pub without the pub."

"Linda & I were transported by your music on A Prairie Home Companion. Congratulations! You reached out of our radio and just grabbed us ... 'waltzing in the kitchen' ... thanks for your music." - Robin Williams

Pete Seeger wrote, "I finally got to listen to your CD Pearls. It's wonderful!" and purchased a bunch to give to his friends. (August, 2004)

"Hearing Kate & Steve sing is like having two friends in your backyard when it's grown too dark to see but not to listen and they're singing songs you've loved for years. Then they sing some songs you've never heard and you know you'll want to hear them, too, for years to come." - Tom Paxton

"Steve & Kate, you two are the best. Like for real, the absolute best. It is an honor and a privilege to know you both." - Dave Carter

"Yours is the most played music in our house!" - Robin Lane, Do Jump

"Kate Power is the deal; truly one of the great voices of our time." -Bill Margeson, Chicago Irish-American News, liveireland.com

"When I hear Kate & Steve, I hear them as one; they go hand-in-hand. It is the coming together of two hearts that share life's ups and downs. This comes through in the warm original music they make together; love of music, love of life is the key." - Triona NiDhomhnaill, Bothy Band/Nightnoise

"Exquisite!" - Eric Andersen

"Nice harmony!" - Arlo Guthrie