Fifty years after Will Ackerman pressed a few hundred copies of his own solo guitar record just to get them into local stores, the label he built in a Palo Alto garage is gathering its surviving pioneers for one night in Berkeley. Windham Hill Records marks its 50th anniversary on Nov. 1 with an all-day event of panels, conversations and an evening concert at The Freight, bringing together the musicians who turned acoustic instrumental music into a genre of its own.
From a Garage Press Run to a Genre
Windham Hill was founded in 1976 by Ackerman and Anne Robinson, according to DoTheBay, with the original goal simply being to get Ackerman's album, “Search For the Turtle's Navel,” into record stores. As Palo Alto Online reported in 1996, the label was decades ahead of its time when it formed in Silicon Valley, and it eventually became its own musical genre, spending two decades based in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. The Almanac notes Windham Hill was frequently counted among the first labels to feature New Age music, ultimately winning 27 gold and platinum records.
According to KQED, the label's heyday ran from 1979 to 1995, and its prominence began to fade after BMG acquired it in 1992. The roster that built that run included Alex De Grassi, Michael Hedges, George Winston and Liz Story, per the same Almanac account, alongside Darol Anger, Barbara Higbie and Tuck and Patti, as KQED's reporting adds. A Quiet Revolution, the documentary website covering the label's history, describes the Windham Hill sound as a blend of classical, folk and jazz that topped New Age and Contemporary Jazz charts alike — and says that sound still turns up on playlists today as new listeners discover it.
Reunion Concert and a Documentary in Progress
The Berkeley event will feature Ackerman, Liz Story, Alex de Grassi, Barbara Higbie, Darol Anger, Michael Manring, Scott Cossu, Fred Simon and Ira Stein, according to DoTheBay's event listing. Per Windham Hill Records, the day opens with conversations and panels exploring the label's history, artistry and lasting influence before moving into the evening concert. KQED reports that de Grassi is Ackerman's cousin and a fellow Windham Hill pioneer, and that Ackerman will travel from Vermont to perform his own original music live for the first time in decades. Ackerman has said he is proud of the label's history, per KQED's reporting.
The concert will be filmed as part of director Tal Skloot's documentary, “A Quiet Revolution,” the label confirms on its own site. Skloot is making the film, according to KQED, and plans to screen a 10-minute excerpt of the work-in-progress during the Berkeley event. The Kickstarter campaign for the project describes it as a feature documentary on the history, achievements and groundbreaking sounds of Windham Hill Records, and it drew 575 backers who pledged $102,089 toward the production. KQED also reports that Skloot has said Steve Jobs was a huge fan of Windham Hill — a detail that tracks with another KQED finding that Liz Story's music appeared in Apple's first how-to disc for the Macintosh.
Michael Hedges' Legacy and a Bassist's Long Wait
Few artists shaped the label's sound like guitarist Michael Hedges, who helped establish Windham Hill in the early 1980s with albums including “Breakfast in the Field” and “Aerial Boundaries,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Hedges died at age 43 in a one-car crash on California 128 in rural Mendocino County, the Times reported; KQED notes the crash occurred in 1997. His son and brother are now making a separate documentary, “Oracle: The Life & Music of Michael Hedges,” per KQED's reporting. Hedges had partnered for years with Oakland-based electric bassist Michael Manring, who is among the Berkeley lineup.
Manring's own catalog carries a strange footnote in Windham Hill's history. He released the instrumental heavy metal album “Thonk” in 1994, KQED reports, and it sold out within a few years — but then sat unavailable in every format for more than two decades, something Manring himself has said, before resurfacing as a top-downloaded title on Napster. That disappearance echoes a broader pattern: the wider Windham Hill catalog has been hard to find or unavailable for decades, according to KQED, even as the label today sits within the Sony Music empire. Windham Hill Records has stated plainly that Sunday's anniversary event is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Sony Music Entertainment — it is an independent fan celebration.
A Winter's Solstice Revival Follows in December
Barbara Higbie, another Berkeley performer, organized and directed a Winter Solstice tour for many years, KQED reports; that tour has since been reduced to a single date, back at The Freight on Dec. 20. A related revival is also underway: Bob Duskis, who founded Six Degrees Records, spearheaded a Kickstarter campaign for a new Winter's Solstice celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the original release, according to KQED. Per Yahoo Entertainment, that project reunites producer Dawn Atkinson and Duskis from the original series, with Ackerman serving as executive producer. Between the Berkeley concert, the documentary and the solstice revival, Windham Hill's 50th year is unfolding as a season-long reckoning with a catalog that, by multiple accounts, sold millions of albums and helped define how an entire genre of acoustic music sounded.
