George Winston
Encyclopedia
George Winston is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pianist who was born in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, and grew up mainly in Miles City
Miles City, Montana
Miles City is a city in and the county seat of Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 8,123 at the 2010 census.- History :...

, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

 as well as Mississippi and Florida. He attended Stetson University
Stetson University
Stetson University is a private university with four colleges and schools located across the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. The primary undergraduate campus is located in DeLand, Florida, USA. In the 2012 U.S...

 in Deland, Florida
DeLand, Florida
DeLand is the county seat of Volusia County, Florida. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 24,375. It is part of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 436,575 in 2006...

 and lives in Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

Background

George Winston was first recorded by John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...

 for Fahey's Takoma Records
Takoma Records
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by John Fahey in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.-History:...

. The album Ballads and Blues
Ballads and Blues
Ballads and Blues is the debut album of American pianist George Winston. It features his first compositions and covers. American guitarist John Fahey co-produced the album with Doug Decker. First released in 1972 on Takoma Records, it was re-released in 1994 by Winston's Dancing Cat label, and was...

disappeared without much notice, although it was later reissued on Winston's Dancing Cat Records
Dancing Cat Records
Dancing Cat Records was a record label founded in 1983 by pianist George Winston to publish both his music and music in the Hawaiian slack-key guitar style. Its mission later expanded to cover other Hawaiian musicians. The label has a distribution deal, but is not owned by Windham Hill Records or...

. However, in 1979, William Ackerman
William Ackerman
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.- Career :...

 talked with Winston about having Winston record for Ackerman's new record label, Windham Hill Records
Windham Hill Records
Windham Hill Records is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment specializing in Acoustic, New Age and Folk music. Originally founded in 1976 as an Independent record label by guitarist and carpenter William Ackerman and his then-wife Anne Robinson, Windham Hill was a successful and well-respected...

. At first Winston played some guitar pieces he liked and then he played some of his nighttime music on the piano, which became the basis for the record Autumn
Autumn (album)
Autumn is the second solo piano album by pianist George Winston, released in 1980. It was re-issued in 2001 with a bonus track "Too Much Between Us" on the Dancing Cat label.- Track listing :All music by George Winston.-In other media:...

, which Ackerman produced. Autumn soon became the best-selling record in the Windham Hill catalog, and his albums December and Winter into Spring
Winter into Spring
Winter into Spring is the third solo album of pianist George Winston, released in 1982. It was inspired by the transition of the seasons and was the follow-up to his 1980 album, Autumn. It was reissued on Winston's Dancing Cat label.-Track listing:...

both went platinum (million-plus sales in the United States). He has recorded 7 more solo piano albums, and he is one of the best known performers playing contemporary instrumental music.

Winston was 16 when Charles Schulz's A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas is the first prime-time animated TV special based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was produced and directed by former Warner Bros. and UPA animator Bill Melendez, who also supplied the voice for the character of Snoopy...

premiered in 1965, and he ran out and bought the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 the next day. He eagerly awaited each new Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...

special
Television special
A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...

 to hear Guaraldi's newest music. In 1996, Winston released Linus and Lucy – The Music of Vince Guaraldi. Much of the album is devoted to the theme music Guaraldi wrote for the Peanuts cartoons: 15 television specials and one feature film from 1965 until Guaraldi’s death in 1976. "I love his melodies and his chord progressions," Winston said of Guaraldi. "He has a really personal way of doing voicings." Winston recorded a follow-up album, Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2
Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2
Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2 is the 16th album by pianist George Winston and 12th solo piano album, released on February 2, 2010...

, released in February 2010.

Winston's 2002 album Night Divides the Day – The Music of the Doors took the music of the 1960s band The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

 and transformed it into solo pianos. The title of Winston's album is a lyric from "Break on Through (To the Other Side)
Break on Through (To the Other Side)
"Break on Through " is a song by The Doors from their debut album, The Doors. It was the first single released by the band and was unsuccessful compared to later hits, reaching only #126 in the United States...

", the first track of the Doors' self-titled first album
The Doors (album)
The Doors is the debut album by the American rock band The Doors, recorded in August 1966 and released in January 1967. It was originally released in significantly different stereo and mono mixes...

.

Concerts

Winston dresses unassumingly for his shows, playing in stocking feet, stating that it quiets his "hard beat pounding" left foot. For years, the balding, bearded Winston would walk out on stage in a flannel
Flannel
Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of various fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fibre. Flannel may be brushed to create extra softness or remain unbrushed. The brushing process is a mechanical process...

 shirt and jeans
Jeans
Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...

, and the audience would think he was a technician, coming to tune the 9-foot Steinways
Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...

 that are his piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 of choice. As The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

reported in 1986, “Much of his playing is introspective, mood-setting and, frequently, tranquilizing. Casting my gaze about the auditorium, I observed members of the audience with their attention fixed upon the pianist and others absorbing the music with eyes closed. Winston is not a self-indulgent performer who protracts his renditions to the point where he dangerously tiptoes between a yawn and a snore. Instead, he keeps his presentations pithy and free of excess and his audience awake.”

On April 19, 2010 he appeared as the sole guest on show 575 of the multimedia WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. Twenty minutes into the program he describes an unusual method of playing the piano he developed that was inspired by watching blues guitar players. He can be seen reaching into the piano with his left hand muting the strings while he is playing with his right hand "Breaths, An African in New York".

Career

When growing up his interest in music was listening to instrumentals in the R&B, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 genres, especially by organists. When he heard The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

  in 1967 he was inspired to start playing the organ. In 1971 he switched to solo piano after hearing recordings from the 1920s and the 1930s of the great stride pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

, and soon after of Waller’s contemporaries Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...

, Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...

, and Donald Lambert. Many of Winston’s melodic pieces are self-described as "rural folk piano" or "folk piano", which is a style he came up with in 1971 to have an approach to complement the uptempo stride piano. These melodic pieces evoke the essence of a season and reflect natural landscapes. The third style he plays, and is currently working on the most, is New Orleans R&B piano, influenced mainly by Professor Longhair
Professor Longhair
Professor Longhair was a New Orleans blues singer and pianist...

, James Booker
James Booker
James Carroll Booker III was a jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.-Biography:...

, and Henry Butler
Henry Butler
Henry Butler is an American jazz pianist.He is known for his technique and his ability to play in many styles of music. Referred to by Dr...

, as well as Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...

  and Jon Cleary
Jon Cleary (musician)
Jon Cleary is a funk and R&B musician based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is from Cranbrook in Kent, England, and has studied for the past 20 years the "musical culture and life of New Orleans," according to his website...

.

Winston also is known for his two tribute albums to jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi
Vince Guaraldi
Vincent Anthony "Vince" Guaraldi was an Italian American jazz musician and pianist noted for his innovative compositions and arrangements and for composing music for animated adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip...

, composer for the first sixteen Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...

animated films, who died suddenly in 1976.

Outside of his own piano compositions, adaptations of other people’s songs, and performances, he plays blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

 (mainly Appalachian fiddle tunes) and solo acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 (mainly Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

n fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

 tunes, and Hawaiian slack-key guitar
Slack-key guitar
Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii. Its name refers to its characteristic open tunings: the English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hōalu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key"...

). While he mainly plays these instruments in concert and not on recordings, both his harmonica and guitar playing can be heard on his benefit album Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit
Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit
Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit is the twelfth album of pianist George Winston, released in 2001. All money earned with this album was donated to benefit funds to help the ones who had lost their beloved ones in the September 11, 2001 attacks. It features not only piano solo songs, but also...

, which was released shortly after 9/11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

. In 2006, he recorded another benefit album Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit
Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit
Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions - A Hurricane Relief Benefit is the fifteenth album of pianist George Winston, and eleventh solo piano album, released in 2006. It is his second benefit, made to earn money to benefit funds which help the ones who were victims of the Hurricane Katrina.- Track listing :...

, and a second hurricane relief benefit album is planned.

Winston also produces recordings of Hawaiian slack-key guitarists for his own record label, Dancing Cat Records
Dancing Cat Records
Dancing Cat Records was a record label founded in 1983 by pianist George Winston to publish both his music and music in the Hawaiian slack-key guitar style. Its mission later expanded to cover other Hawaiian musicians. The label has a distribution deal, but is not owned by Windham Hill Records or...

, including artists Keola Beamer
Keola Beamer
Keola Beamer is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar player, best known as the composer of "Honolulu City Lights" and an innovative musician who fused Hawaiian roots and contemporary music.-Family:...

, Sonny Chillingworth
Sonny Chillingworth
Edwin Bradfield Liloa Chillingworth, Jr., known as Sonny Chillingworth, was an American guitarist. Widely influential in Hawaiian music, he played slack-key guitar and is widely regarded as one of the most influential slack key guitarists in history.-Life:Chillingworth was born in Oahu in Hawaii,...

, Leonard Kwan
Leonard Kwan
Leonard Kwan was one of the most influential Hawaiian slack-key guitarists to emerge in the period immediately preceding the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance of the 1970s. He made the first LP of slack key instrumentals, co-wrote the second slack key instruction book, and composed a number of pieces...

, Ray Kane
Ray Kane
Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaʻoleohelemanu Kāne , was one of Hawaii's acknowledged masters of the slack-key guitar. Born in Koloa, Kauaʻi, he grew up in Nanakuli on Oʻahu's Waiʻanae Coast where his stepfather worked as a fisherman....

, Cyril Pahinui, Led Kaapana, Dennis Kamakahi
Dennis Kamakahi
Dennis David Kahekilimamaoikalanikeha Kamakahi is a Hawaiian slack key guitarist, recording artist, and music composer. He has won multiple Grammy Awards, and in 2009 was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame.-Professional music career:...

, Bla Pahinui, Martin Pahinui, George Kahumoku, Moses Kahumoku, George Kuo, Ozzie Kotani
Ozzie Kotani
Ozzie Kotani is a slack-key guitar player and a well-respected teacher, arranger, solo performer and accompanist.Kotani was born in 1956 in Honolulu, Hawaii in the neighborhood of Pauoa...

, and others. He is also working on recording several old-time musicians, including the venerable harmonica player/folksinger Sam Hinton
Sam Hinton
Sam Duffie Hinton was an American folk singer and marine biologist, best known for his music and harmonica playing. Hinton also taught at the University of California, San Diego, published books and magazine articles on marine biology, and worked as a calligrapher and artist.-Biography:Sam Hinton...

, harmonica player Rick Epping
Rick Epping
Rick Epping is a California-born musician who has immersed himself in American old-time and Irish traditional music since the 1960s. He is an accomplished player of the harmonica, concertina, banjo and jaw harp....

, and multi-instrumentalist Curt Bouterse.

Discography

  • 1972 Ballads and Blues
  • 1980 Autumn
    Autumn (album)
    Autumn is the second solo piano album by pianist George Winston, released in 1980. It was re-issued in 2001 with a bonus track "Too Much Between Us" on the Dancing Cat label.- Track listing :All music by George Winston.-In other media:...

  • 1982 Winter into Spring
    Winter into Spring
    Winter into Spring is the third solo album of pianist George Winston, released in 1982. It was inspired by the transition of the seasons and was the follow-up to his 1980 album, Autumn. It was reissued on Winston's Dancing Cat label.-Track listing:...

  • 1982 December
  • 1991 Summer
    Summer (George Winston album)
    Summer is the sixth album of pianist George Winston and his fifth solo piano album, released in 1991. It was reissued on Dancing Cat Records in 2008.- Track listing :...

  • 1994 Forest
  • 1996 Linus and Lucy – The Music of Vince Guaraldi
  • 1998 All The Seasons
  • 1999 Plains
    Plains (album)
    Plains is the eleventh album of pianist George Winston and eighth solo piano album, released in 1999. It was his first studio album consisting of original compositions since 1994's Forest. According to Winston, "this album is inspired by the plains and its people. The four seasons there have always...

  • 2001 Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit
    Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit
    Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit is the twelfth album of pianist George Winston, released in 2001. All money earned with this album was donated to benefit funds to help the ones who had lost their beloved ones in the September 11, 2001 attacks. It features not only piano solo songs, but also...

  • 2002 Winter Into Spring (20th Ann Edt)
  • 2002 Night Divides the Day – The Music of the Doors
  • 2005 Montana – A Love Story
  • 2006 Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit
    Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit
    Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions - A Hurricane Relief Benefit is the fifteenth album of pianist George Winston, and eleventh solo piano album, released in 2006. It is his second benefit, made to earn money to benefit funds which help the ones who were victims of the Hurricane Katrina.- Track listing :...

  • 2010 Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2
    Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2
    Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2 is the 16th album by pianist George Winston and 12th solo piano album, released on February 2, 2010...


Soundtracks

  • 1984 The Velveteen Rabbit
    The Velveteen Rabbit (George Winston album)
    The Velveteen Rabbit is an album by pianist George Winston and actress Meryl Streep, released in 1984. The story, The Velveteen Rabbit is narrated by Streep accompanied by Winston's piano pieces.-Track listing:All songs by George Winston...

  • 1988 This is America Charlie Brown—The Birth of the Constitution
  • 1995 Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
    Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (album)
    Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is an album by pianist George Winston and actress Liv Ullman, released in 1995.- Track listing :All songs by George Winston unless otherwise noted....

  • 2002 Pumpkin Circle
  • 2003 Bread Comes to Life

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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