George Winston

George Winston (born 1949) is an American pianist who was born in Michigan, and grew up mainly in Miles City, Montana, as well as Mississippi and Florida. He attended Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and lives in Santa Cruz, California.^[1]

Background

"Every song I've ever heard, that has gone in and stayed in me, has always reminded me of a season. A picture and a place, maybe, but always a season." -George Winston

George Winston was first recorded by John Fahey for Fahey's Takoma Records. The album Ballads and Blues disappeared without much notice, although it was later reissued on Winston's Dancing Cat Records. However, in 1979, William Ackerman talked with Winston about having Winston record for Ackerman's new record label, Windham Hill Records. 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, which Ackerman produced. Autumn soon became the best-selling record in the Windham Hill catalog, and his albums December and Winter into Spring both went platinum (million-plus sales in the United States). He has recorded seven more solo piano albums, and he is one of the best known performers playing contemporary instrumental music.

Winston was sixteen years of age when Charles Schulz's A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered in 1965, and he ran out and bought the soundtrack the next day.^[2] He eagerly awaited each new Peanuts special to hear Vince 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."^[3] Winston recorded a follow-up album, Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2, released in February 2010.^[4]

Winston's 2002 album Night Divides the Day – The Music of the Doors took the music of the 1960s band The Doors and transformed it into solo piano music. The title of Winston's album is a lyric from "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", the first track of the Doors' self-titled first album.

Concerts

Winston dresses unassumingly for his shows, playing in stocking feet, stating that it quiets his "hard beat pounding" left foot.^[5] For years, the balding, bearded Winston would walk out on stage in a flannel shirt and jeans, and the audience would think he was a technician, coming to tune the 9-foot Steinways that are his piano of choice.^[6] As The Boston Globe 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.”^[7]

On April 19, 2010 he appeared as the sole guest on show 575 of the multimedia WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour.^[8] 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, pop, and jazz genres, especially by organists. After hearing The Doors in 1967, he was inspired to start playing the organ. In 1971, he switched to solo piano after hearing Thomas "Fats" Waller, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines and Donald Lambert. Many of Winston’s melodic pieces are self-described as "rural folk piano" or "folk piano", a style he developed 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 is New Orleans R&B piano, influenced mainly by Professor Longhair, Dr. John and Jon Cleary.

Winston also is known for his two tribute albums to jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, composer for the first sixteen Peanuts animated films.

In addition to his piano work, Winston plays blues harmonica, solo acoustic guitar (mainly Appalachian fiddle tunes) and Hawaiian slack-key guitar. Both his harmonica and guitar playing can be heard on his benefit album Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit, which was released shortly after 9/11. In 2006, he recorded another benefit album Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit, followed by Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions 2: A Louisiana Wetlands Benefit in 2012.

Winston also produces recordings of Hawaiian slack-key guitarists for his own record label, Dancing Cat Records, including artists Keola Beamer, Sonny Chillingworth, Leonard Kwan, and others. He is also working on recording cover versions of songs by Sam Hinton, Rick Epping and Curt Bouterse.

Discography

Studio Albums

• 1972 Ballads and Blues
• 1980 Autumn
• 1982 Winter into Spring
• 1982 December
• 1991 Summer
• 1994 Forest
• 1996 Linus and Lucy – The Music of Vince Guaraldi
• 1998 All The Seasons
• 1999 Plains
• 2001 Remembrance - A Memorial Benefit
• 2002 Night Divides the Day – The Music of the Doors
• 2005 Montana – A Love Story
• 2006 Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit
• 2010 Love Will Come – The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2
• 2012 Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions 2: A Louisiana Wetlands Benefit
• 2015 "Spring Carousel - A Cancer Research Benefit EP"

Soundtracks

• 1984 Country
• 1984 The Velveteen Rabbit
• 1988 This is America Charlie Brown—The Birth of the Constitution
• 1995 Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
• 2002 Pumpkin Circle
• 2003 Bread Comes to Life

"What I want to do as a musician is provide a soundtrack. Life is the film, and I'm doing the soundtrack." -George Winston

References

External links

• Official website