Terrific compilation from the first fourteen Windham Hill Releases – or more specifically, nine of the first fourteen. By 1981, the musical direction of the label was crystal clear, with an emphasis on acoustic instrumental music. The blues/R&B party album by Kidd Afrika, the upbeat folk/pop of Linda Waterfall, and the vocal poems from Robbie Basho’s “Visions of the Country” would all remain footnotes from the label’s formation.
What remains is an excellent overview – missing only a track from Ackerman’s just released “Passage” or the essential “Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit.” The preponderance of solo guitar work is balanced by one long solo piano piece on each side – Bill Quist’s “3 Gymnopedies” on the first, and George Winston’s “Moon” on the second. This is also a master class in the subtle differences in styles of finger-picking guitarists, giving the listener a variety of techniques and tones – from the classically-tinged style of David Qualey, through the intensely soulful playing of Robbie Basho to Will Ackerman’s and de Grassi’s developing styles.
Sampler ’81 is well worth picking up; it’s a great overview of the early Windham Hill style, and some of the cuts are from the Qualey, Hecht and Basho albums which are hard to find and often collected only by completists.
Comments
Share your thoughts, memories or experiences with this album using the comments field at the bottom of this post.
In addition to the original artists’ performances below, you’ll note two excellent cover versions of the de Grassi and Ackerman tracks. De Grassi and Ackerman are good about sharing their tunings, and YouTube hosts dozens of performers who have learned the songs and uploaded their performances. It’s great to see that so many people who are touched by this music learn it and pass it on.
Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daugher – Ackerman
Santa Cruz – Qualey
3 Gymnopedies – Quist/Satie
Children’s Dance – de Grassi (cover version, but masterfully done)
Seattle – Ackerman (cover version)
Credits
Originally Mastered by David Kulka, LRS, Burbank, CA
“Childhood and Memory” is William Ackerman’s third album and the sixth release on Windham Hill records. It is also his last primarily solo album until 2004’s “Returning,” and so has a special place in many listeners’ hearts. Of course, Ackerman duets with himself on banjo, and Dave Ross’ flute graces “Anne’s Song” in such a lovely way, that just as many must be pleased to consider this the first Ackerman album that includes a duet.
Here, the jangly folk influences are receding into Ackerman’s developing style (“Seattle” being a very pleasant exception) and a more contemplative mood comes forward. Where “The Search for the Turtle’s Navel” could never be called depressing, songs like “Sunday Rain” demand a deeply emotional response. Whether that response is tender nostalgia or or morbid depression probably says more about the listener than the performance. Regardless, it’s clear that by the time he recorded “Childhood and Memory” Ackerman had laid fundamental direction the artistic path he is still following today.
Track Listing, Credits and Tunings link after the videos:
All guitar and banjo performed by William Ackerman. The flute on Anne’s Song performed by Dave Ross. The banjo used in SUNDAY RAIN and GIDEON provided by Dana Morgan Music, Palo Alto, CA. These recordings were made in January 1979 using two AKG 451 microphones through an AMEK 2000 board on a TEAC 80-8 deck, and mixed on an AMPEX 440 two-track deck. UREI limiters were used in recording, and EMT 240 reverberation and dbx noise reduction were used in mixing.
AKG 451 Mic information from barryrudolph.com: Made from the late ’60s through the mid-’80s, the original AKG C-451 C Condenser Modular System (CMS Series) was a best-selling “chameleon” of a mic. It was designed to be adaptable to nearly any purpose; it could be outfitted with any of a whole system of modular components –such as screw-on capsule attenuator pads, extension tubes and swivels — that greatly increased its versatility. The original mic used the N-46E dual-AC power supply that supplied 12-volt phantom power and had a two-position, bass roll-off filter switch. As I found out by accident in my distant past as a second engineer, the mic would accept up to 52-volt phantom powering without smoking. The original, externally biased CK-1 capsule had an extremely low mass, making the mic insensitive to handling noise making it a favorite for handheld radio and TV use.
Dana Morgan Music was on Bryant Street in Palo Alto. It appears in several web biographies of the Grateful Dead, and in http://www.paloaltohistory.com/gratefuldead.html. Jerry Garcia taught guitar there in the 1960’s – and the Grateful Dead (then the Warlocks) would practice there. It was closed in the early 80’s.
It Takes a Year is the second album by William Ackerman and the third issue on the Windham Hill label. Certainly the album is best known for introducing us to Ackerman’s most famous song “The Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.” There is much more to the album than the opening track – “It Takes a Year”, deftly transitions between fast-paced folk guitar songs and graceful, contemplative, almost melancholy studies.
Ackerman has said that “The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit” is about the feeling of innocence he had before his mother passed away when he was 12 – the same year he first took up the guitar. Just a beautiful piece – and one he would rerecord several times.
This is an album worth revisiting if you already own it, and sampling if you don’t. As the title implies a maturing and patience, “It Takes a Year” shows the key musical development of Ackerman with themes that he would work time and again over the next 30 years; Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter he has recorded at least twice more.
Produced again by Scott Saxon, the album was mastered by the legendary Stan Ricker. While not as consistent in sound as later albums, the recording still invites an intimate encounter with Ackerman’s guitar. Ackerman points out that one of the microphones he owns at Imaginary Road Studious is worth more than the entire recording budget for his first four albums, the sound is still quite good on the vinyl pressings, even if the steel strings sometimes show more of their metal than mettle.
Highly recommended.
Notably, this is the first Windham Hill album to use the ECM Records-inspired graphics that came to define the Windham Hill look.
I’ve been in touch with Scott Saxon and hope to report some additional details about the recording work he did on the early Windham Hill albums.
Credits
Side One
The Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter, (3:38) 1975
Balancing, (3:35) 1975
The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit, (5:30) 1970
It Takes a Year, (4:52) 1976
Side Two
The Townshend Shuffle (4:27), 1970-1976
A Tribute To The Philosophy Of James Estell Bradley, (2:36) 1973
The Search for the Turtle’s Navel, (4:58) 1970
The Rediscovery Of Big Bug Creek, Arizona, (3:03) 1973
“Artists, I am told, are always searching for a new medium to explore. I honestly thought I had it, but it proved infeasible to lathe sound recordings into Tupperware. My apologies. The search goes on.”
Update: New comment by Jim Bredouw added 6/1/2010. See below.
Review
The second Windham Hill album, and first solo Linda Waterfall album. She had previously released material with Entropy Service. Mary’s Garden a very pleasant folk/pop album, with several strong songs and excellent moments.
Here are Linda Waterfall’s comments on Mary’s Garden from her web site:
“My first solo album, originally released by Windham Hill Records. Special thanks to William Ackerman, my old school buddy from Stanford, who offered to put out my first album and bring me into the music business. Some day soon I want to re-release this recording on CD. This collection of songs is very close to my heart. It cherishes special people I loved very much, who cared for me and started me on my path through life.”
Three of the first ten Windham Hill albums were not being reissued by the time 1980 rolled around; all three varied from what would become the Windham Hill sound: Robbie Basho’s album has gorgeous guitar work in the style that had so inspired Ackerman, but with intensely riveting vocals; Kidd Afrika is a blues album, and Mary’s Garden by Linda Waterfall is vocal folk/pop.
It’s clear that Ackerman had a good ear. There’s an awful lot to like on Mary’s Garden, even 30 plus years after it’s release. But the sound is so different from the crystalline vision of the acoustic instrumental music that would define Windham Hill that it’s no surprise it wasn’t reprinted when the label gained national distribution. In later years, fans would knock Windham Hill for segueing into electronic and vocal jazz. In reality, it had been part of the original vision of the label.
Linda has clearly had a long and successful career as an artist in the wake of her auspicious initial release. Here’s a lovely video of Linda Waterfall singing “Way of Beauty” recorded in 2009 – some 33 years after the release of Mary’s Garden. Credits and Liner notes from Mary’s Garden after the video.
I’m pleased to have received a generous email from Jim Bredouw who engineered and produced the Mary’s Garden, which appears unedited.
Following are the ramblings of a 59-year old music veteran, any of which you’re free to use or edit as you see fit.
Re: the story w/Linda; I worked at a tiny 24 tk. studio on E. Pike St. in Seattle called The Music Farm between 1974-79. I saw Linda with Entropy Service in 1976 and was immediately enamored with her voice, songs, unique gtr. technique* and, of course, that gigantic smile. A few months later, as I was on my way to Santa Cruz to meet my future wife for the very first time (married as of now for 33 years), I stopped by Palo Alto to see Linda and Will Ackerman and pursued the idea of producing her for this fledging new label that Will named for his construction company.
(* 99% of all gtr. players use standard chording but Linda would write all her parts out and would voice her gtr. chords to not match, for example, the line in the treble clef on which her vocal was written – I’d never seen anyone take “folk” music and orchestrate it the way she did; which makes sense given her classical background – that is, she read and wrote music; a ‘legitimacy’ that was rare in those days of mostly self taught, unschooled rock and folk musicians).
I don’t believe Will had never signed an act before and as I had been involved in exactly one ‘deal’ with another act I’d produced, the master of which got bought and actually released by a major label (Capitol), I suppose I thought of myself as the seasoned professional among we three (laughable now, of course, as Will became perhaps the most successful independent label since Berry Gordy of Motown and I never again placed another major) and if memory serves, I believe I might have helped Linda better her deal with Will a tiny bit and negotiated my end as well. (I think after moderate sales, it amounted to a few hundred bucks but in those days of regularly having an annual income of $6,000, that was a lot – it was also a high honor just to be paid to make a record in the then very small Seattle studio world.)
Linda generously allowed me to collaborate on her arrangements and I hired maybe a dozen or so of my favorite studio players to enhance her already complete compositions and the result, I think, still mostly stands up today – I particularly love the steel guitar on Mary’s Garden played by Chris Middaugh of the much loved Seattle country band, The Skyboys – more on them later. (I also hired the photographer, Jonathan Crane, the brother of an ex-girlfriend who took what I consider to be an iconic cover photo.)
She and I, considering that we’re both being fairly headstrong and opinionated about music (and most things), got along famously to my memory and I truly loved the entire process. (She also patiently and generously taught me how to write music which was instrumental to my future work orchestrating and even conducting large studio orchestras in my commercial composing career.
We were both proud of this record. Anecdotally, my next project after Linda was producing the aforementioned Skyboys – perhaps the best record I’ve ever produced. Midway through recording, they fired their bass player and on a WAY out of left field whim, I suggested that they audition Linda, who is also a remarkably capable bassist, among her many abilities. To many people’s surprise I would guess, she actually joined this hard drinking touring bar band all over Western Washington for the next couple of years and enhanced them all musically much as she had me – nothing unusual given her need to constantly be exploring her musical boundaries.
A couple of years after the completion of Mary’s Garden, I moved to LA, gradually built a 16-studio recording complex called The L.A. Studios (http://www.facebook.com/l/dc780;www.lastudios.com), which coincidentally I just sold two weeks ago after 30 years, and as mentioned, composed music for commercials for a number of years; most notably for Nike. I am now retired on Orcas Island north of Seattle and work out of a private home studio.
This also has the distinction of being the first Windham Hill album with a lyric sheet with the first note to Windham Hill customers:
“Windham Hill records is, and will probably remain, a small record label. As such, and with a budget typical of most independent ventures, this is little to rely upon in terms of promotion for our music but the quality of the music itself. Though we obviously hop to survive financially, we will be less concerned with the mass appeal of our recordings than with promoting the talents of the individual artist, whose freedom artistically will be in no way compromised by Windham Hill. So without wanting to become in any way elitist, we will be content to reach an audience looking for some alternative to the dictates of the major labels. The production of our albums will be of a quality consistent with our regard for the music, and though there are certainly good arguments for “home recordings,” we have chosen to master only the work of professional studios. Please write to us and inquire about our other recordings.”
In a 2016 Facebook post, Ackerman added some details about this, and the othe early Windham Hill instrumental title, Kidd Afrika: “Linda Waterfall (Mary’s Garden) and Kidd Afrika were personal choices of mine … Linda was at Stanford with me and was close to JB White and Frank Light (the “White Light Band”) who were as good as any duo on the radio at the time…. no, I mean REALLY as good as anything on the radio at that time. Linda was equally brilliant …. Kidd Afrika included Larry Ryan who was a faculty brat like me… his dad was in the English Dept. at Stanford along with my dad and a lot of memories include Larry.”
“I would like to thank Jim Bredouw for his fine engineering, invaluable production advice, and for being great fun to work with. I would also like to thank William Ackerman of Windham Hill Records for his friendship and enthusiasm. Special thanks also to Gunnar Erickson, Ned Hearn, Richenda Richardson, The Music Farm, and Entropy Service; to Peter Langston for ideas I used in the arrangements of The Bird Song and Lullaby, to Annette Morriss for the first line of Cherry Tomato, and to my teachers Mrs. Olga Sorenson Fuss, Mrs. William Burgoyne, and especially to Mary Festinger.
All selections Windham Hill Music (BMI) except Grandma’s Crumbcake Mighty Oak Music
Manufactured ny Windham Hill Records, Stanford, California (c) & (p) 1976 Windham Hill Records.
