This is my second post about my friend George Winston, pianist, fan, and philanthropist, who died on June 4.
Around the time I first met George – 1981 – my little finger was a mess, but I was trying hard to push my playing technique anyway. I wanted to write complex solo guitar pieces that made the whole box sing and mesmerized the listener with interweaving lines like Celtic rope work.
Looking back, I don’t feel I had much native musical talent. I wish I had worked harder to master theory and harmony, learned to feel a rhythmic groove better. But at the time, I wanted to dazzle. It was a phase that I look back at with some discomfort.
Phase or not, it brings me to a difficult confession: I didn’t much like George’s music at first. To be clear, I listened to a lot of piano music: Bach and Beethoven, Scott Joplin and his fellows, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarret. In this context, I was somewhat let down the first time I heard George’s Autumn album.
George would set up a basic, spacious chord progression, then put a simple but heartfelt melody over the top. His pieces reminded me of Pachelbel’s then-ubiquitous “Canon in D” – the first minute of it, anyway, before the more elaborate melodic variations began. Listening to Autumn, I found myself craving more development, more complexity.
The first time I met George in person – probably in Santa Cruz, where my brother lived — I didn’t connect this mellow yet somehow over-eager guy, dressed in flannel shirt and jeans, to the weirdo fan whose letters I’d gotten. I recall him being effusive in his praise, with a detailed, almost obsessional recall of my compositions.
Due to the long time it took to produce Autumn (WH 1011), it hit the shelves and radio stations not long before my Willow album, WH 1013. By then, I had started touring with Alex de Grassi, playing up and down the West Coast, a few Midwest gigs, and some East Coast concerts.
Alex’s Turning, Turning Back album had been out for two years, and already he had recorded a second, the superlative Slow Circle. Ever entrepreneurial, Will Ackerman had sold our albums to some European labels – Ondes Records in France, Pastels in Germany, and a tiny label called Old Tennis Shoes in Italy, run by Maurizio Angeletti, a wonderful person and a fine guitarist (photo below).
The upshot was that Alex and I undertook a European tour, playing dozens of shows in Germany and Italy. We were thrilled by the sense of our careers taking off and the adventure of travelling in Europe. We both learned a smattering of German and Italian, packed up our guitars, and flew off to Frankfurt. Between concerts, car travel between venues, and radio shows, we kept very busy.
We always brought our albums for the radio stations, along with others from the Windham Hill catalogue, including Autumn. We’d hand them to our host, go in for some live playing and talk; we’d tout our next gig and maybe take a few calls from listeners.
Was it in Frankfurt? Hamburg? I can’t recall. Alex and I arrived at the radio station, said hello and handed out albums, then went into the studio. We played and got interviewed; after the segment, the DJ put on a platter as we chatted and packed out. As we were leaving, we passed the station’s call center – where the switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree, sparkling with lights from callers.
“Wow,” our DJ said, “people must have really liked your playing!”
We felt like pretty hot stuff – until the operator came out.
“We’re swamped!” he told the DJ excitedly. “What was that album you put on after the show — that solo piano music? People are crazy for it! Where can they buy it?”
Alex and I looked at each other, taken down a notch or two.
That was my first glimpse of the astonishing appeal of George’s music. Until then, I had thought his nascent popularity was a uniquely West Coast thing. Sure, new agey Marin County folks, seeking the mellowest music for their yoga sessions, liked it. But it wouldn’t have traveling power.
Yet here we were in a big German city, and people were going bonkers after hearing a few minutes of those spare, crystalline tunes. Similar scenes took place throughout our tour.
Clearly, I needed to examine this magical effect. What was the source of its power?
Alex and I went on to some fun times, fine concerts, and terrific meals on that tour, and we returned home tired and gratified.
We had been party to the launch of George’s Autumn album, which rose like a rocket to huge success world-wide, bringing the fortunes of Windham Hill Records with it. And George’s naming me as one of his musical influences, on album liner notes and concert programs, no doubt did more to sell my Willow album than anything I ever did!
Next: George Winston III: From Shenandoah to Shanghai
