Will Ackerman
Will Ackerman is an award winning guitarist/producer as well as the founder of Windham Hill Records. As a young child, growing up in the San Francisco bay area - hotbed of cultural creativity - Will took a great interest in music. He listened to the radio to keep up with current trends and would call into Jim Lange's (Later The Dating Game host) show to request songs. This led to tours of the radio studio. Around the same time, he was an avid Kingston Trio fan and would frequent their rehearsals. At the age of 12, Will began to play the guitar. He would do the normal budding musician thing by forming various high school bands and practice his craft. As his woodshed years progressed, he mustered up enough original material to record an album... with a little monetary help from his friends. By chance, he ran into his neighbor and gave him a copy of his album to hear. Little did he know that this neighbor was involved with Fantasy Records and procured airplay for the record in many cities across America. Will's music career was now underway.
The guitar virtuosity of Will caught the attention of high end record technology executives - and through these connections - Will decided to create Windham Hill Records. His company signed trendsetting musicians such as George Winston, Alex De Grassi and Michael Hedges. Windham Hill records had virtually created a new genre of music... the Windham Hill sound. After years of growth of Windham Hill, the day to day duties of running a corporate company started to become a hindrance to Will's creativity as a guitarist and producer. He sold his stake in the company to BMG and packed up to move to Picturesque Vermont.
This exciting new time in his life, along with the slower pace Vermont lifestyle, brought new creativity to his career as a producer and guitarist. He build a world class studio called Imaginary Road. The atmosphere of the landscape, along with cutting edge technology, makes the recording musician bring out their full artistic potential there. Today, Will manages the fine balance of musician, producer and picturesque property manager. I spoke to Will about his past and current projects.
W.A. - Hey Robert. How are you doing?
R.V.B. - Not to bad Will. How about yourself?
W.A. - I'm in a big traffic jam. I'm taking the thruway up to Albany and going over to Vermont from there. Apparently two tractor trailers collided and we've been sitting here for about an hour and a half. We just started crawling along.
R.V.B. - That's New York for you. There's always traffic.
W.A. - It's a beautiful day and I hope nobody got hurt. I'm up around Kingston and looking at the mountains in the distance. There's a beautiful blue sky. I'm going to go through Troy to Route 9 and head up to Vermont. It's a road that I really, really love.
R.V.B. - My son and I recently went to Green Mountain State Park to hike. It's absolutely beautiful up there. There was a cascading waterfall at our hike destination.
W.A. - That's real close to us. It was quite a change to go to New England from California but I've never regretted it.
R.V.B. - California is now dealing with these wildfires and it's really scary.
W.A. - My cousin, Alex de Grassi, lives in Redwood Valley. The fire came within less than a mile of their house and they were evacuated for 5 days. Fortunately, they suffered no damage, but they know many folks who lost everything.
R.V.B. - They're not catching a break this year, that's for sure. Anyway... the wonderful world of music... What drew you into this world?
W.A. - When I was a really young kid - in elementary school - around 10 years old, my dad bought me a little turquoise transistor radio. None of the other kids had one, but I did and I was listening to it all the time. I loved rock and roll music, pop music... whatever was going on. I was such a crazy fan, that I would sneak the telephone into my room to call Jim Lange. He was well known as the host of The Dating Game television show. Before that, he was a radio DJ at KGO in San Francisco. It was a very popular station in the Bay Area. I would call him up and make a request on whatever track I wanted to hear at the time. I had the tiniest little boy voice.
He started calling me "Tiger." You'd hear him on the air saying "Tiger just called in and he made a request?" Other times he would say "Hey Tiger hasn't called in, in a couple of days. Give me a call?" In a weird way, I was famous as a kid calling in. At some point, my dad did catch me and I would say "I'm on the radio with Jim Lange." He got on the phone to talk to Jim and he invited us up to KGO radio. I got the treatment of some kind of famous kid. I remember him taking us to the back of the studio, and there was all of these promo records. I was like "Wow!!! Promo records." There was something really cool about that. I don't know why it really hit me but it was like looking behind the curtain of the record industry. It made an impression on me. Also around the same time there was The Kingston Trio. I'm trying to paint a picture of a kid where music was always incredibly important. The Kingston Trio were based in Palo Alto. Dave Guard was a student at Stanford University. Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane were students at Menlo College... just down the road. They would rehearse in the old Stanford Union and I would go and hear them. I went there a lot and absolutely adored everything about them. There was a time where they were doing a benefit concert for Mayor Shelly of San Francisco. I think it was for his original time in office. They were giving a concert at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco. There was an opening act... I still have the poster somewhere. The type was really small but I remember she was really good. Her name was Barbra Streisand.
R.V.B. - Interesting.
W.A. - Frank Werber - who at the time was one of the few biggest managers in America - was the manager of the Kingston Trio. He invited me to see them and gave me two tickets to a show at the Masonic Auditorium. That's what a crazy fan I was. I was a kid who just loved music.
R.V.B. - You were lucky to have The Kingston Trio in your city. What a mark they made on America. The set the folk revival in motion.
W.A. - Folk was the re-emergence of acoustic instrumentation. So, that whole thing was happening. When I was 12, I lived next door to the Kilmartin family. Michael Kilmartin was the oldest of the kids. He was the kid you wanted to be when you got older. He was the captain of the football team and he had a 50's kind of band. He had an electric guitar and I remember going to his bedroom and him putting a guitar in my hand... a Gibson Starburst electric. He taught me G and A minor... which are still my two favorite chords. That got me started playing guitar. I had a guitar and had a rock band in high school. It wasn't much good.
R.V.B. - What kind of songs did the band tackle?
W.A. - We were covering the popular groups of the time in 1967. We were pretty good at being able to copy songs. For a little while we had Natalie Cole sing with us. She was at the Northfield school - which was across the river. That was kinda cool when she sat in. If we move forward to 1976, I had just recorded my first record "In Search of the Turtle's Navel." It was being sold in one store in the world - the book store where my wife to be, Ann Robinson worked - Plowshare Bookstore... on University Avenue in Palo Alto. They had a turntable there and they were playing it. It was kind of flying out the door. I never thought I would sell the minimum order of 300, that they made you buy. I was really surprised that anyone was buying it. They were doing like 10 a day. I was like "Wow!!! I might have to re-press this thing?" One day I was walking out of the store and I turned up University Avenue, - I hadn't seen Michael Kilmartin in more than a decade - and there he is. I told him about my record, and reminded him that he was the first guy to ever put a guitar in my hand. I gave him a copy. He took it, and then he called me up and said "Will, this is really good." I said "Thank you... I'm glad you're happy." He said "Can I have 10 of them?" I said "Sure. You're the guy who put a guitar in my hand. You can have whatever you want." I gave 10 records to him and I didn't know what the hell he was going to do with them. He calls me up around five to six days later and says "Will, I've got a confession for you, I'm a radio promo guy at Fantasy Records. At the time, he was promoting Creedence Clearwater Revival... arguably then, the biggest act in the record industry. He had sent my record out to 10 radio stations and eight are playing it in heavy rotation. He said "You need to get on the phone and start talking to these stations." The wildest dream I ever had was selling, maybe 300 records. Now I'm getting heavy airplay. I still remember the stations. KZAM in Seattle... WCAS in Cambridge Mass... KINK in Portland... K Twin in Minneapolis... and so on. That was the beginning of Windham Hill. It was apparently just destined to be. I had a cousin by the name of Alex De Grassi, who was the next guitarist that I signed. I met George Winston. He was a huge fan of what Alex and I did.
R.V.B. - Where did you meet George Winston?
W.A. - He wrote letters to us. We talked about music and what we really liked. Alex and I were doing a show at McCabe's in Santa Monica. I wrote George and told him I got tickets for him... for the show. He said "I'd love it." Afterwards we hung out and he played a little guitar. I went over to George's house. He played some brilliant slide guitar. I said "We should do a record of this." After a while I got tired and rolled out my sleeping bag on the couch. He said "Do you mind if I play a little piano for you?" I said "Oh, you play the piano too?" He started playing transcriptions of mine and Alex's music. Then he did some stuff I didn't recognize. He went into a whole different world. I ended up going to sleep. In the morning I said "What was that last stuff you were doing?" He said "Those are my compositions." I said "The guitar idea is good but I really love the piano things. They're ridiculously beautiful." Piano was important to me. I discovered Erik Satie when I was young. Having listened to Keith Jarrett, I loved piano music. He wanted to do the guitar record first. Half the way to the train station - he was taking me to - he agrees to one side guitar music and one side piano music. When I got out of the car at the train station I said "George, I'm sorry but I really want to do this piano record first." He agreed, and that was the beginning of real greatness.
R.V.B. - How did you finally wind up playing the style of guitar that you do? Why didn't you go the rock band route, with its big popularity in the 60's? How did you migrate to your style of guitar playing?
W.A. - I was aware of Fahey, and I was aware of Kottke and Peter Lang. When I was a student at Stanford, there was an archway over by the student union... where I used to go see The Kingston Trio. The space had beautiful reverb. They blocked off the end of it but that made it even better. There was a hard surface at the end and there were beautiful arches. I would just go in there and play... just because I Liked the sound. It was kind of out of the way because it was a dead end for foot traffic. I wasn't trying to be heard, I just loved the space for playing. I was playing for purely for fun. Over time, people came to expect me to be there, playing on the weekends. Finally I made the decision to suggest to everyone that maybe I’d go and record a album’s worth of music and asked everyone who wanted one, to throw five dollars in my guitar case with their names. .So a lot of my friends gave me five bucks so I could go into a studio to record the album... and that's what I did. Then there many insane coincidences that happened - that brought about the momentum - that lifted my music and Windham Hill off the ground. Michael... with the airplay and the rest of it. It began without any ambition at all. It was really just doing the music I loved. People seemed to like it. It was very innocent. I think the reason it became popular was that it was reasonably unique... it wasn't Fahey... it wasn't Basho. It was something a little bit different and it worked.
R.V.B. - When you decided to start Windham Hill, did you have a studio location? Where did you record your first album ? How did you go about setting up your own shop?
W.A. - I didn't have a studio for a million years. With the first record, I just literally opened up the Yellow Pages and found this place called Mantra Studios. I Thought "Mantra... that's gotta be good." It was a really drab building with concrete blocks, painted gray. I walked through the door and there was cracked linoleum on the floor, that was peeling. It was just unattractive. I was like "It's just a recording studio... it doesn't have to be pretty." When I rang the bell, somebody starts walking up. I assumed it was Scott Saxon, the engineer. The door opens and he walks through. He looked really familiar to me. I asked the engineer "Was that who I think it was?" He said "Yeah, that was Bing Crosby. He does a little Christmas record here every year for friends and family." I thought "That's pretty good. Bing's walking out and I'm walking in."
R.V.B. - You went to the right studio.
W.A. - I know. I sat down in the chair and started playing. This fellow came over the talkback and said "You're in here for free." "What do you mean I'm in here for free?" He said "I'm producing this record." I said "That's good... I like free." So we make this little record there. Then I signed my cousin Alex De Grassi. One of the big things was my second record took years. Scott was going down to LA to master it. He went to an industry show, and at a dinner, he happened to be sitting next to Stan Ricker, who was doing all the half speed mastering for JVC. He gave Stan a cassette copy of the second album. Stan called us and said "If you're around tomorrow, I want to master this. I'm going to do this for free." Suddenly I had Stan and Bernie Grundman... two of the best half speed mastering technicians in America.
He asked me "Where are you pressing this?" I told him at Monarch." He said "I'm not going to have you press this at Monarch. You're going to work with RTI." I didn't know a lot about record pressing plants but I did know that RTI were the people who produced Sheffield Records... that were selling for 18.98... and did all the radio programming. In those days, they would sent out a record to radio stations to play. Their pressings were so clean. They would have no clicks or pops. I was like "Thanks for that invitation but there's no fucking way I could possibly afford working with RTI." Stan said "Call Bill Bauer. He's expecting your call." So I called Bill and he said. "We just love this record. This is amazing." "I know the stuff you're doing with Sheffield. The pressings that you are doing are crazy." He said "We want to press you from now on." I told him I couldn't afford it. He said "What are you paying at Monarch?" I gave him the price and he gave me a price that was a penny cheaper. I said "How can you do that?" He said " Because I think this is going to be really, really big!" Now I have half speed mastering... I've got RTI pressing. I now have this other avenue. Of course it's still about the music, but now audiophiles are hearing about it. Record stores want to carry it... for the RTI Imprint. We then got this reputation as a really high end record label, which we were. It was nothing that I really intended to do but we were doing incredibly great recordings. Now everybody in the world wants to record me. The first digital processor in America... I'm the third person to use. Barbra Streisand, Ry Cooder and I were the first the first three recordings on the prototype Sony 3324. Now I've got that whole angle too. The first digital recordings. The high end thing that Windham Hill became known for was not a small part of our growth. Initially it was my music and Alex. George Winston just blew the doors off whatever I was doing at radio. It just went completely crazy with Winston. We were now going past form, as it used to be... progressive FM stations. We were now all over the place. We were at four or five different radio formats. The concerts were already big, but then we started playing places like Red Rocks and the Hollywood Bowl... in front of tens of thousands of people. It was all just one big snowball that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
R.V.B. - Can you give me an example of what went on in the live performances of that time?
W.A. - Part of the reason that I remember Red Rocks so well is, that it was videotaped in very high end and broadcasted in a lot of different places. It went all around the world. Michael Hedges, myself and Shadowfax... that was a very memorable night. It happened to be a full moon that night. At one point I said to the audience "Wouldn't it be cool if we could turn off the lights." Everybody was like "Yeah." Some guys came down to the stage and said that they legally had to keep the lights on by the stairs, but said they could shut off most of the lights. So we ended up doing the show under the full moon. Another memorable time was playing Carnegie Hall for the first time... it was just huge. Playing the Montreux Jazz festival. The Greek theater Berkeley... Ravinia. We were playing opera houses and symphony hall's. It was just amazing. It happened so fast that you couldn't quite appreciate it. It just was what was happening. I loved it and had a great time but I couldn't quite absorb the magnitude of it. Everything happened very quickly... just holding on for dear life.
R.V.B. - Interesting. I understand that you use different tunings on your guitar.
W.A. - Yes... exclusively. Every song that I have written has been in different tuning. Nobody in the history of the world has used as many different tunings as I have. Unfortunately, I lost about 80 Percent of them through the years. I'm trying to re-learn one particular piece and I'm trying to figure out what the tuning was. Some fans actually have information that I don't have. I'll put something on line like "Hey does anybody know what tuning I used for "blank"?" I'll get seven emails - five of which agree and two have a different idea. I do that often. "How the hell did I play that... what was the tuning?" On the internet, there are fans that know more than you do on your own music. That's a fairly extreme thing, that nearly every song is in a different tuning. I never objectify that but at a certain point, I just started thinking about it. "What the hell??? Why are you doing this???" Other guys use open D for half of their life. All of a sudden I realized "Oh yeah, with a new tuning, I'm lost. I don't know where I am. I can't go to a G Chord. I can't go to an A Minor chord. I'm lost. All I've got is emotions to guide me." That's the true story of who I am as a guitarist. My stock in trade is emotion. I don't want the frontal lobes involved. I do not want thought. I do not want preconception. I'm not chasing an idea, I am following a feeling. That's the revelation! You wanted to remove thought entirely from the process. You wanted a straight line to the heart. That's why you've done this. That's why you brought this trick on yourself for your entire musical life... to take the brain out.
R.V.B. - That's an interesting way to write music. You started your recording career from 1977 on. Did you notice a maturation process in your writing as you continue to pump out albums?
W.A. - Not Really. I don't think so. I started using some other players. I hear your question as "Has your music evolved over the years?" and the answer is "It hasn't." I don't need it to evolve. This is what I do. I haven't cared about evolution. If there are changes, it might be because there are some influences that crept into my mind. I might have been searching for a feeling that was given to me. I never objectified the process.
R.V.B. - You eventually let Windham Hill go. Was it an offer you couldn't refuse?
W.A. - I wouldn't have gotten the offer I couldn't refuse if I hadn't known it was time to go. The offer was very nice for sure. We had become for better or worse, a corporation. I don't know how many people we had employed at the end... maybe 40 to 50? A lot of folks... offices around the country. We had Windham Hill... Windham Hill Jazz - High Street Records for singer songwriters, like John Gorka and Patty Larkin. That was something I spearheaded. I've always loved singer songwriters. I had great people like Bob Duskis and Dawn Atkinson also working with me in A&R. It had become quite corporate. I remember one time walking into the office at Windham Hill in Los Angeles and there was a new receptionist in the front. I was just walking past her desk and she says "Excuse me... do you have an appointment?" I said "No I don't, really." She said "Who do you want to see?" I said "Sam Sutherland." She yells "Sam... Will's out here waiting for you." (Laughing) Sam comes out and says "This is the owner of the company." I wasn't trying to bust her at all but it was funny. So here I am at an office of Windham Hill, and she doesn't know me... i think it was a measure on how big and corporate we had become. That wouldn't have happened 10 years before. Everybody knew everybody. You didn't have a receptionist desk. Somewhere in there, it just stopped being fun and it was time for me to go. It wasn't the money that was offered that brought about the change. The change was going to happen one way or another. The money certainly cemented it but it was an emotional need on my part to move on.
R.V.B. - What Brought you to the east coast?
W.A. - It's a long story. My mother committed suicide when I was 12. I was the one who found her hanging in the shower. I ended up going to a school out east because my parents were going to live in Europe for a while. I was not happy at all with anything at that time of my life. I had a girlfriend who said "I know where we can get a room for the weekend." In those days it was a happy thing to hear. We hitchhiked up to a place on the West River in Vermont - which is where I live now. We went to a place called Windham Hill Farm. It was a country inn run by Hugh and Mary Fulsome. Hugh said "You and Kate can have the north room. Kate, you're waiting on tables and Will, you're washing dishes." That became home. I was a boy very much in need of a home and I found it at a place called Windham hill Farm - in West Townsend Vermont.
I knew after that, that a part of my heart was always going to be there. I had already bought property in Vermont, but having sold Windham Hill and pretty much leaving all the forms of my life. I was living what's called "the poodle existence" in California. I got up in my very nice house... and got in my very nice car... and went to my very nice office... with very nice people... that made very nice music... went out to dinner to very nice restaurants... with my very nice friends. They were good friends, don't get me wrong. I had a great life, but it was Mercedes cars, and wine lists that were too expensive... I was just over it. There's no room for that in Vermont. Nobody gives a shit. I had been in quite a depression for a while. I went to Vermont and drove my old 72 Ford contractor's truck across the country with my toolboxes. I set about learning how to run a chainsaw and fall trees. I began building my home and just thrived on it. Eventually I sold everything in California and moved to Vermont. I've never looked back. I'm in a 12 step program for building addition. If you come to Vermont, a drive into our place looks like a little village. I have something like 20 structures on the property. I just can't stop because I love building so much. I'm going to have to burn some of them down because the taxes are getting too high. It's a very tangible life we lead. I'm busy as I've ever been in the studio. For 3/4 of the year, I'm producing with my engineer Tom Eaton. I'm still very much involved with music. I'm still loving music but I'm doing it in an environment that is very sane. I have a huge tractor and I do logging for people. My wife has an organic garden on around acre and a quarter of land. She raises chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys organically. It's very back to the land... it's very real... it's very tangible... it's very balanced.
R.V.B. - You've got me sitting here in a very jealous state. (Haha) It sounds beautiful. Was the studio an early project in your building process?
W.A. - It was fairly early on. My accountant said I had to put my money into something, after I sold Windham Hill to BMG. He said I would get killed in taxes, if I just left it in the bank. I said "Well maybe I'll build this studio for myself." I had a two year non-compete when I sold the label. I couldn't do a record for two years. I think the studio is the only place in the world where a studio sits above a woodshop... with noisy shop tools downstairs. The ones that want to cut your fingers off. But because I had the money, I didn't cut any corners. My mic locker has matched pairs of vintage Neumann microphones rebuilt by Klaus Heyne at German Masterworks. It's one of the only studios with a 16 track Hemmingeway preamps. I'm told that Peter Gabriel has 12 tracks. The place is a dream. I hated studios where the air was stale and there was no natural light. I never felt good in a place like that. On the east and west sides of the building, there's nothing but glass. When the window is open, there is fresh air. People just love working there, whether I'm working or not. Although most of the business is my producing. It's an incredible studio in every respect. Physically, in terms of its equipment also. Currently it's being run by Tom Eaton. He's my co-producer on everything I do. He is absolutely the most brilliant engineer I have every worked with, in any facility, anywhere in the world. Tom has giving me a new lease on life. I don't have to work quite as hard as I did. As a partner, I can look at him and he'll know that I heard a click somewhere in the room. He'll nod "Yep". He knows if we hear a double note on the piano. He and I will both write 2:03. We have developed a thing that we call maps. It's a method of recording in which all decisions are made in real time. It's like charts for the ignorant... because I don't read music. In other words, it might be intro A - A answer, B - B Answer - A2. It's mapped out. While I am listening, I am grading a performance by an artist, in real time. "This block was really good on this take. On take three, the C section chorus was amazing." So I'm marking this and will go "We got the intro on take four, we've got the first two A sections in take five. The chorus was amazing on take two." I'll hand Tom a master map, and if ever there was an Olympic event for editing, Tom would win the gold medal. He'll take a map like that and edit it flawlessly, in 20 minutes.
R.V.B. - It's interesting how the technology changed from the analog years.
W.A. - Well this technique is for digital. I also love analog. People can come in and be more productive than they've ever imagined. People come because they know my sensibilities as a musician and a producer. But increasingly, they come, because we've got a system that can't be beat anywhere in the world. Tom and I work magic. We're joined at the hip. I may have retired by now if it wasn't for that young energy and that partnership. He's been a lifesaver for me.
R.V.B. - Was he at the recent Carnegie Hall show that you did with "Flow"?
W.A. - Yes. He did a played bass.
R.V.B. - Yeah, I remember him. That was a very nice evening. It had a lot of variety and spontaneity. It seemed to have worked out real well.
W.A. - That was the second concert that we ever played. I think we did pretty damn well. I think we'll be a lot better and broader as we get some more dates. We're talking about doing another Flow recording. It was an experiment and it really worked. I was just blown out by how beautiful it came out.
R.V.B. - There's a lot of talent on it for sure. Can you paint me a word picture on the view out of your studio windows?
W.A. - It's not a long view because we're near the West River Valley, which is kind of narrow. In the fall, you can kind of catch a view of the West River itself. There's Black Mountain, which is geologically like Granite Dome in Yosemite. You're just basically looking out into the Vermont woods. You don't see any buildings, it's just nature.
R.V.B. - Do the artists that come to record there, stay on the grounds?
W.A. - That was the case before Tom showed up. The apartment that was usually for the artists, is now Tom's. He still lives in Newburyport Massachusetts. He's got kids so he's back and forth on the weekends. He also has his own studio in Newburyport. When we're not doing something, he's always busy. He does mastering there also. There is one other apartment which is self sufficient. It doesn't have a shower. It has a bathroom but no shower. The next thing I'm going to do is put a shower in there so we can have people stay there as well.
R.V.B. - When you and Tom produce artists, do you ever change your production style to accommodate the different artists that come in there? Or is it just business as usual by making the artist feel comfortable in doing what they do?
W.A. - Every artist is different. As a producer, the first thing that I have to learn is how hard I can push. About an hour ago a woman inquired about my services... I told her. "I will express my opinions in no uncertain terms. With that said, ultimately, you are the arbiter of how this thing is going to sound." I got to the point where I can say in all honesty that ego has absolutely left the process. There's no male ego involved. But on the other hand, if everything I say is ignored, then there's no reason for me to be there. The first thing that I've got to figure out is, how hard can I push this person. I want to push them. I want to push them past their comfort zone. I want raw emotion. I don't want easy'. Getting these people in and getting to know them... figuring out what their limits are. They're all wonderfully talented people. Some are going to have more skills than others. I have to know what I'm aiming for in terms of the ideal recording for that person. There's a lot that goes into it. This isn't cookie cutter. The methodology is cookie cutter, but how to get the best performances out of these people is incredibly individual.
R.V.B. - When you do good work - whether it's on the production side or on the performance side - awards come your way. One of them was a Grammy. Did you think that the Grammy winning album was better than the other albums that you made?
W.A. - I would not say more Grammy worthy, but I would say that there was no recording that could have been a better encapsulation of my talent as a guitarist, and my capacity as a guitarist. The goal of that record was to take songs like "The Bricklayers beautiful daughter" and "The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit" and play with the knowledge I have of those pieces now... as was the case in 2004. Some of those pieces were recorded with Scott Saxon. I had three takes to do it. Yeah, I did some nice songs but it didn't have delicacy, it didn't have hesitation, it didn't have space. So the opportunity to go back in and get these pieces in a way that reflects something as close to a platonic ideal of how things should be imagined. That was very meaningful to me. That was a recognition of my composition and an acknowledgement of my evolution as a player. I couldn't have been happier about that choice.
R.V.B. - Did you go to the Grammy ceremony to find out you won?
W.A. - I was having dinner with my wife in Montreal at our favorite restaurant "Laloux."
R.V.B. - You found out about it there?
W.A. - Yeah.
R.V.B. - You must have got a good bottle of wine after that.
W.A. - The guy who owns the place is a good friend. I had just talked to Chris Roberts - who was head of Universal Classic Jazz - an old friend of mine. I called Chris and said "What's going on?" He said "You won." (Chuckling) I went back in with tears in his eyes." I sat down... John - the owner - knows us pretty well. He came up and saw tears in my eyes and said "Will... What's wrong?" Suzy told him I won a Grammy. John went to tell everybody in the room that I had won this Grammy. He ended up opening champagne for everybody in the restaurant. He said "My friend has just won a Grammy." He didn't say who and it was really lovely.
R.V.B. - Very nice. You're doing a winter solstice series of shows this season?
W.A. - It's an interesting thing, of being asked if I wanted to be part of a Windham Hill Tour. Yes... this is a Windham Hill - Winter Solstice tour. It starts out in Denver and there's a bunch of stuff in the Bay Area... three venues. Central Valley, then off to Arizona. There's a lot of two show nights. I have two days off during the whole thing. So it's going to be kinda grueling. It's with Alex De Grasi and Barbara Higbie... Todd Boston... which is the guy I produce. I'll become part of the ensemble. Ellen is a cellist. We've been doing it for three years now, It's like going home. It's real nice.
R.V.B. - So much for retiring. You have music in you and it's hard to stop performing when it's part of your soul.
W.A. - I back off when I need too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm filthy rich. I was for a little while but not anymore. I'm mature enough so that... nobody's got a gun to my head. I really can do what I want to do, and sometimes it's working too much. That's what I want. I want to go there. Then I get to go surfing in Mexico for a month. I like excess. I don't find a gentle balance between things... that's not me. It's always a little too much of everything. Once upon a time I drank way too much but I never really got into drugs. I never killed myself with stuff but I've always liked excess. I've always liked too much. I just wrote something recently about that. When I leave here, I want to know that I just gobbled up as much of this life as I could. Forget that "Keep everything in moderation." A dear friend of mine... therapist said "Will... your idea of balance is in excess of all things." I thought that was actually wonderful (Haha) I don't want to paint myself as somebody who has a needle up my arm. I'm not running seven marathons in a week or anything like that. I really like too much of everything. I don't want to get to the end and leave me thinking "Oh God, You should of done this. You should of seen that." No... I got to go there... I got to do that... and I just love that. That's still who I am and I hope I die doing it.
R.V.B. - What are you proud about of your place in music?
W.A. - I've been asked that question in different ways but I don't think I've been ever been asked that question as directly as that? That's interesting. Let me hear that again!
R.V.B. - What are you proud about of your place in music?
W.A. - I'm proud of the fact that I created a space in which a group of artists could be utterly themselves. Can be appreciated for it and be rewarded for it. Liz Story didn't have to become a jazz player... although she was quite capable of doing that. George Winston - though there wasn't even a word for what he was doing - found a home. Michael Hedges could approach us with something that was earth shattering... in terms of the guitar. He very possibly wouldn't have found a home anywhere else. I think that we created an environment in which we allowed people to do remarkable things - and that they felt secure there and that they had a home there. We created something that was so distinctive, that the words Windham Hill became a generic term. I fought inclusion into the term New Age. I was just very happy with us being Windham Hill. I think ultimately, that's the legacy I'm proud of. We did something unique. We did something that was artist owned and artist driven. Great freedom was given for everyone to create, so it was a family. I get letters every week from people... "We were married to Windham Hill music. I grew up listening to your music. Our babies were born listening to your music. My husband died listening to your music." I'm actually getting verklempt. It touches me so much that we had been in people's lives like that. I guess the answer is the structure of Windham Hill that enabled that to happen and secondarily that we touched lives like we did. That it meant so much to so many people and still does. That's two parts but they're both real.
R.V.B. - That's very touching. You have a very nice story to share. I appreciate you taking this time with me with your honest and lengthy answers. I enjoyed it.
W.A. - There's no good interview without a good interviewer. You always had an angle. You always had something you were looking for. It didn't feel to me that I had to sleepwalk through it. I can sleepwalk through an interview. I felt that you were willing to hear more than the sleepwalk. I appreciate that. You can't play good tennis if the other guy isn't good also.
R.V.B. - Thank you very much for your time and we'll talk soon.
W.A. - OK man.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
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For more information on Will Ackerman visit his website or visit Flow at www.flowthegroup.com/
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