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PROFILE 
BIOGRAPHY
WILL ACKERMAN
GUITARIST
CARPENTER
COMPOSER
FOUNDER OF WINDHAM HILL RECORDS
Will Ackerman was born in 1949 and grew up in Palo Alto, California, the
son of a Stanford English professor. He lived in Germany for a year
and attended school in Western Massachusetts from 1964-67 which was when
he discovered Windham County of Southern Vermont. It was during this
time that Will first began to play steel string guitar and learned about
open tunings (the basis of his composition) from roommate Jim Baldwin.
As a student at Stanford, Will studied History and English and assumed
his future would be in academia, but life took a radical turn when he
discovered a fondness and competence in carpentry. He apprenticed under
Asmund Hansen, a Norwegian boatbuilder turned ship's carpenter turned
California general contractor and himself became a general contractor in
1972, locating his company, Windham Hill Builders in Palo Alto in that
year.
While music had always been a big part of his life, there was no thought
of pursuing music as either an academic or career goal. Playing music
for Stanford University theater productions and finding a small audience
while hosting impromptu concerts in reverberative spaces around the
university, Will finally decided to honor the requests of friends and a
very small legion of fans by recording his first record, The Search for
the Turtle's Navel, in 1976. Seen as a private release only, the first
pressing of the record was 300 copies, the covers for which were printed
by friends and glued onto plain white record covers. Fate entered as
Will ran into his childhood next door neighbor, Michael Kilmartin, on
the street in Palo Alto. Michael had been the much-looked-up-to older
kid who had, in fact, first put a guitar into Will's hands when Will was
12. Catching up on their lives, Will revealed the release of his
record and Michael countered with the fact that he was doing radio
promotion work for a fledgling record label in the East Bay, Fantasy
Records (which debuted with the massively successful Creedence
Clearwater Revival). Kilmartin delivered ten of Ackerman's records to
radio stations around the country, which resulted in airplay in Seattle,
Portland, Boston, Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area. This led to
independent distribution and the inescapable conclusion that a record
label had been born, Windham Hill Records. Ackerman's first paying gig
was at the Seattle Opera House in front of 3,700 people. The second
artist on the label was Alex de Grassi, Ackerman's cousin and part of
the building crew for Windham Hill Builders.
The label grew exponentially for a number of years, but exploded onto
the national scene in 1980 with the release of George Winston's Autumn,
the labels first gold, then platinum, then multi-platinum record. A
major label distribution deal with A&M Records followed in 1982, with
Ackerman giving up none of the equity in the company or the increasingly
valuable publishing catalogue. A&M also opened the doors to
international distribution, most significantly in Japan where Windham
Hill Records garnered a collection of gold and platinum records.
Windham Hill continued to grow over the next ten years, generating sales
of between 30 and 40 million dollars annually and finally became so
corporate that Will no longer felt close enough to the cottage industry
he had founded. He sold his entire interest in Windham Hill to German
conglomerate BMG in May of 1992, retaining the entire publishing
catalogue amassed between 1976 and 1992. Will Ackerman Biogrpahy
Continued
It must be remembered that while Ackerman was the president, CEO, and
finally Chairman of Windham Hill he was also a musician and producer,
recording 10 of his own CDs over the years to glowing reviews and
performing in concert in many nations. He was throughout his career at
Windham Hill the head of A&R, the division of a record company that
picks the new artists for the roster. It was he who signed George
Winston, Michael Hedges, Shadowfax, Liz Story, Tuck and Patti and
created the massively successful Windham Hill Samplers and Winter's
Solstice collections. He also was the principal producer for the label
from 1976- 1992, shepherding the
music of individual artists into the world.
During his tenure at Windham Hill, Ackerman produced award winning
long-form videos with Pioneer and Paramount Home Video and became
involved in film production. He has lectured in the Business Schools of
Harvard, Yale and Stanford and has taught classes in the record business
at the Omega Institute and in independent seminars. Following his
years at Windham Hill, he created a spoken word label called Gang of
Seven, working with talent like Spaulding Gray, Wally Shawn, Linda Barry
and Tom Bodett. Until the sale of PolyGram to Universal he created and
ran, with partner Dawn Atkinson, the Imaginary Road record label.
Today Ackerman is producing a handful of records a year out of his state
of the art recording studio, Imaginary Road Studios. He is pursuing
work in movie soundtracks and is returning to two early loves; writing
and building, writing a book about his experiences and memories of the
entire experience of Windham Hill and constructing traditional post and
beam structures in Vermont (a New York Times Sunday Magazine wrote up
one of his building projects in the summer of 2000 and This Old House is
chronicling his design and construction of a post and beam structure in
Windham County, Vermont, for publication in 2001).
He has just finished a new CD for Windham Hill; Hearing Voices is a CD
using the human voice to accompany his guitar. The songs are sung in
many languages and it is the sound of the words and the subtle
expression of the human voice rather than the literal meaning of the
words that inspired him. "These pieces are a departure for me in some
ways, but in its' expression of simple human emotion it is consistent
with what I've always hoped to create.
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WILL'S ANSWERS
HOW OFTEN DO YOU FLY?
When I'm on tour I'm in the air daily. I've been "home" four days in the last five months and am flying to Amman, Jordan and then Egypt this weekend. In short, I fly a lot.
IN A YEAR HOW MANY MILES/POINTS DO YOU EARN?
I honestly don't know as my office handles all this, but I've never been unable to buy myself or a friend or a relative a ticket to anywhere and use miles for upgrades a lot.
WHAT CLASS OF SERVICE DO YOU MOSTLY FLY IN?
I rarely pay for first class, but with upgrades I spend most of my time there.
FAVORITE AIRLINE?
Domestically it used to be United, but I find them blind and unresponsive of late. Problems and suggestions fall on utterly deaf ears. I'm not conviced there are actually human beings running the show there any longer. American has filled the void for me... I don't know what they're feeding the folks over there, but I've encountered some of the nicest, brightest and most attentive people at American of late. The human connection means a lot to me.
FAVORITE AIRCRAFT?
Anything Buddy Holly wouldn't have flown in.
FAVORITE HOTEL?
That would depend on where I am, but the old corner room at Palazzo Murat in Positano is pretty remarkable. The new restaurant there is wonderful and the most romantic place on earth. In the US, I'm probably happiest in the north wing of the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley (Tom Bodett was just there hiking with me a little while ago).
FAVORITE HOTEL AMENITY?
heat and bathrobes
FAVORITE AIRPORT?
United Terminal in Chicago:
FAVORITE AIRPORT TO PASS TIME IN?
Anyplace with a laptop connection and, for real luxury, airports that have a place to take a shower.
FAVORITE CITY?
San Francisco/New York I'm essentially a hick and like the country, but I
do love knowing my way around a place as crazy as New York.
FAVORITE RESTAURANT?
I'm not telling... it's getting crowed enough even if Beatrice would like the press.
AISLE OR WINDOW?
Window... that's some incredible stuff out there... even the clouds
ETICKET OR PAPER?
No matter
TRAVEL AGENT OR ONLINE?
Can't replace a great knowledgeable travel agent who knows your tastes well. Lisa Miller at andavotravel.com is a genius.
FAVORITE TRAVEL WEBSITE?
I've used Travelocity more than any others.
FAVORITE TRAVEL COMPANION?
I ain't tellin.
IF YOU WERE STRANDED ON A TROPICAL ISLAND, WHAT THREE ITEMS WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU?
surfboard, book and a case of Solaia '97
BEST TRAVEL TIP:
It's going to get screwed up sometimes... expect it. And some of the best discoveries have been made because of having to ad lib.
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