About

Fort Worth native, Christine Hand, has been performing her soulful folk-rock in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for over twenty years. Standing on the Shoulders is her second full-length studio album, in follow-up to her 2018 album The Book of the World and her 2011 EP, "Girl on a String." 

 

Standing on the Shoulders was produced by Milo and Scarlett Deering, and recorded in Charley Pride's old studio in Dallas, TX. The album is a tribute to family, in all its messy beauty, and it intertwines real-life family stories with meditations on loyalty, loss, and love. The album wraps its intimate story-telling in a combination of bluegrass instrumentation, lush strings and ethereal vocals. 

 

​Christine lives in Dallas but calls Fort Worth home. She has a PhD in literary studies from the University of Texas at Dallas, which she earned largely by writing about the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan. When she’s not making music, she teaches university writing and literature courses, listens to old records with her husband Adam, and hangs out with her cats, usually while getting lost in a good book.

Christine Hand has been performing her soulful folk-rock in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for twenty years. Her first full-length studio album, The Book of the World, released on May 7, 2018, after a year-long roll-out of singles. In follow-up to her 2011 EP, "Girl on a String," The Book of the World appeals to fans of her acoustic folk-rock sound, but takes her music to a new level of maturity and vocal ingenuity. Rather than the typical country sound of Nashville or the twangy blues of the south, Christine brings a fusion of gospel, country, and folk that lets us imbibe a little Texas. 

 

The songs on The Book of the World celebrate everyday inspiration found in coffee cups and bluebonnet fields, imagining all creation as a book of revelation. Two of the tracks from the that album earned Christine a spot as a finalist in the 2018 Al Johnson Performing Songwriter Competition at the Wildflower Arts and Music Festival. 

Born in Fort Worth, Christine has been singing, playing, and recording music since 1998. In the early days of Do-It-Yourself recording, she recorded and released three albums, sometimes burning CDs at home and putting the CD packages together in the car on the way to gigs at coffeehouses and churches across DFW. In 2011, she recorded her first studio project, the EP, Girl on a String.

Girl on a String was the first project recorded entirely by the trio that performs in her live shows: Christine on vocals and acoustic guitar alongside multi-instrumentalists Ed Hand and Adam Jones. The trio's exciting live performances are often characterized by joyful acoustic renditions of Led Zeppelin and Beatles classics, and this EP reflects that influence, with its folksy guitars, soulful-sweet vocals, and sixties-inspired organ tones. "Girl on a String" chronicles the ups and downs of love, but without rehashing tired themes. The literary and biblical allusions, the feel-good classic rock tones, and Christine’s ethereal and bluesy voice form a blend as comforting and energizing as your morning coffee.

Christine made her way to Dallas where she earned a PhD in literary studies. “I wanted to do my dissertation on something that would bridge my academic world and my music world,” Christine says, “so I focused on Bob Dylan.” One can find Dylan’s influence in the way Christine weaves imagery into her lyrics that is as much poetry as it is music. "Dylan invented the singer-songwriter as we know it," says Christine. "Without him, none of us who write and perform would have a model to follow." The Dylan model can be an intimidating one, but Christine embraces the challenge: "The number one thing I learned from Dylan is to be myself and trust myself as an artist. Dylan met his own expectations first no matter how they differed from the expectations of fans or critics."

Christine’s blend of music and literature extends beyond her interest in Bob Dylan. She has written for the stage, including original songs for local musical theater and musical settings for Shakespeare’s lyrics for productions by The Stolen Shakespeare Guild in Fort Worth. And most recently, Christine collaborated with Kenady Sean on a new musical adaptation of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. 

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