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Artist
William Ackerman
12+ albums
new ageacoustic guitarguitaracousticinstrumental
about
Will Ackerman is a guitarist and composer of acoustic-based instrumental music. He founded and ran for many years the influential new age record label Windham Hill Records. Born in West Germany, he was adopted by a couple who lived in Palo Alto, California. A self-professed poet and musician who briefly studied guitar with Robbie Basho, Ackerman grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. After attending Stanford University, Ackerman dropped out to become a carpenter. Ackerman had composed some pieces of music for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Stanford. In 1975, without having played a "paying gig" a group of friends and informal fans got together and collected about $300 in five dollar bills to send me into a recording studio. I picked a studio out of the phone book named Mantra Studios (it was the '70s after all!). I walked into that room and made a record I called 'The Search for the Turtle's Navel' in two afternoons. (William Ackerman, liner notes for 'Returning,' 2005). Initially Ackerman kept up his job as a builder but recording music took up more of his time until he was working on music full-time. Ackerman ran his Windham Hill Records for years. He did just about everything from picking cover art to producing the records. Early albums featured himself ('It Takes a Year') and his cousin, fellow guitarist Alex de Grassi's 'Turning: Turning Back' (1978). Although in later years critics would single out Ackerman's records (especially Childhood and Memory) and De Gras
