William Ackerman

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William "Will" Ackerman

Background information
Genre(s) Fingerstyle Acoustic, New Age, Chamber jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instrument(s) Guitar
Years active 1976 –present
Label(s) Windham Hill, Imaginary Road
Website Official Site

William Ackerman is a Grammy winning guitarist and composer of acoustic-based instrumental music. He founded and ran for many years the influential new age record label Windham Hill Records.

Contents

[edit] Career

William Ackerman was born in West Germany but adopted by a couple who lived in Palo Alto, California. A self-professed poet and musician who briefly studied guitar with Robbie Basho, Ackerman grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School and Stanford University. Before finishing his studies at Stanford, Ackerman dropped out to become a carpenter. Ackerman had composed some pieces of music for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Stanford. In 1975, without having played a "paying gig"

(a) group of friends and informal fans got together and collected about $300 in five dollar bills to send me into a recording studio. I picked a studio out of the phone book named Mantra Studios (it was the 70s after all!). I walked into that room and made a record I called The Search for the Turtle's Navel in two afternoons. (William Ackerman, liner notes for Returning, 2005).

Initially William Ackerman kept up his job as a builder but recording music took up more of his time until he was working on music full time. Ackerman ran his music label (Windham Hill Records) for years. He did just about everything from picking cover art to producing the records. Early albums featured himself (It Takes a Year) and his cousin, fellow guitarist Alex de Grassi Turning: Turning Back 1978. Although in later years critics would single out Ackerman's records (especially Childhood and Memory) and De Grassi's first record, the album that gained Windham Hill Records notice was the 1980 recording by George Winston Autumn. This record was well reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine and, as a result of this national exposure the record began selling in large numbers. For many years it was the best selling album in the Windham Hill Catalog.

Ackerman found that life as a record label executive was, in his own words, "making him crazy." His marriage ended in divorce and he eventually moved out of the Bay Area and across the country back to his old residence near Brattleboro, Vermont in Windham County. In 1992 he sold half of his stake in Windham Hill Records to BMG and stopped recording and producing. Life in Vermont away from the record business proved enjoyable and so Ackerman sold the remainder of his stake in Windham Hill Records in 1996. He currently lives in Brattleboro and produces music from his nearby studio Imaginary Road.

William Ackerman's musical influences are Erik Satie, John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Leo Kottke. William Ackerman has told an anecdote about his musical debt to John Fahey. One of his early pieces of music sounded a great deal like a Fahey composition titled The Last Steam Engine Train and so he visited Fahey, asked him if he thought the music was too similar, and played him the tune. Fahey said "You can have it!". The tune in question is The Rediscovery of Big Bug Creek, Arizona (from It Takes a Year).

On guitar tunings, William Ackerman has said that none of his songs use the standard guitar tuning. He also says that only two songs share the same tuning (at least as of 2000). Ackerman's love of non-standard tunings (coupled with the use of a capo) allows him to play melodies where many of the notes can be played without fretting them allowing the strings to "ring free". He shared his love of non-standard tunings with Michael Hedges.

Since selling his share of Windham Hill, Ackerman has released four new albums, Sound of Wind Driven Rain' 1998, Hearing Voices 2001 (both were nominated for a Grammy), an albumn re-working some great signature songs - Returning 2004 (which won a Grammy award), and PURE 2006, again with some previous materials, but with some new work as well.

In addition to discovering George Winston, William Ackerman's other great discovery was Michael Hedges. Ackerman has often told the story of how he heard Hedges performing in a Palo Alto cafe and immediately wrote a recording contract for him on a paper napkin. Hedges and Ackerman performed concerts together for several years in the early 1980s and played together on one of William Ackerman's albums. Some other notable artists he produced: Liz Story and Shadowfax. He has recorded many artists in his personal recording studio, Imaginary Road Studios in Vermont. An airlock door at the studios bears the names of at least 84 artists that have recorded in the studio, including but not limited to, Michael Manring, Philip Aaberg, Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, Michael Hedges, Preston Reed, Eugene Friesen, Happy Rhodes, Samite, Tom Bodett, Jeff Pearce, Jeff Oster, Dana Cunningham, Zade Dirani, Martin Sexton and Karen Hesse.

Of late, William Ackerman focuses on producing other musicians and performing in select, few concerts. On June 1 and 2, 2007, at Bruce Willis's theater, The Liberty Theatre in Hailey, Idaho, Ackerman joined Jeff Pearce, Jeff Oster and Patrick Gorman for debut concerts showcasing some of the wide variety of musical styles he works with.

[edit] Discography (partial list)

  • The Search for the Turtle's Navel (later renamed: In Search of the Turtle's Navel) (1976) - Solo guitar.
  • It Takes a Year (1977) - Solo guitar.
  • Childhood and Memory (1979) - Mostly solo guitar, a few duets.
  • Passage (1981) - Re-recordings of older pieces as duets (including one with George Winston), a few solo guitar pieces.
  • Past Light (1983) - Mostly duets (including one with Michael Hedges).
  • Conferring with the Moon (1986) - Mostly duets and some trios.
  • Imaginary Roads (1988) - Mostly duets and trios.
  • The Opening of Doors (1992) - Mostly duets and trios, several pieces with electric guitar and electric keyboard.
  • A Windham Hill Retrospective: William Ackerman (1993) - A package of previously recorded tracks.
  • Sound of Wind Driven Rain (1998) - Half solo guitar, half duets or trios, most songs were new.
  • Hearing Voices (2001) - All songs feature the human voice, many different singers were used.
  • Returning (2004) - Re-recordings of older pieces, nearly all as solo guitar tracks. Won the 2004 Grammy Award in the Best New Age Album category.
  • Pure Will Ackerman (2006) - A package of previously recorded tracks.

[edit] Trivia

  • Before starting his own record label, William Ackerman sent a copy of the music for his first album to several other record labels, including John Fahey's Takoma Records. He was rejected by all of them. Several years later John Fahey wrote back a short letter saying "Dear Will, I've reconsidered..." (anecdote told by Ackerman at the Windham Hill 30th Anniversary Concert).

[edit] External links

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