#83 Will Ackerman, producer, guitarist, founder of Windham Hill Records - a podcast by Planetary Gigs Society

Will Ackerman plays guitar beautifully and has inspired many people with the heart in his music, including his many records and the artists he produced as founder of Windham Hill Records. He listened to music all the time as a youngster, and used to call in to Jim Lange’s show on KGO radio to request songs. He was even interviewed by Lange when he was young and saw the record business. He also knew the members of the Kingston Trio while at Stanford, and learned that, “Music is made by people; it’s not a distant thing. … From a very young age, music was very important to me.”

He experienced many amazing coincidences in his life related to music, as he explains in the podcast. A neighbor, Michael Kilmartin, first put a guitar in his hands, and then ended up promoting Will’s first record nationally to radio stations. “There was almost nothing that was intentional,” he says. He found something in open tunings that really resonated with him when playing guitar; they allowed him to remove the intellectual aspects from the process and the only thing he had to work with was emotion and feeling. “It was just pure heart,” he says. Doors flew open for him, and that was also the story with the founding of Windham Hill and the many, many fantastic artists on its records.

“I found refuge in listening to music, and I think probably that informed my approach as to how I approached music in myself. … The process for me was utterly subjective. I wasn’t trying to change the world. I wasn’t trying to give the world a gift. I was only trying to be true to the emotion, and some very painful memories or new occurrences. I was somebody who needed deeply, emotionally, to express something that I think words were not capable of doing for me.”

He also has felt great solace through nature in his life, which is also sensed in his amazing music. Please enjoy a fascinating Planetary Gig Talk podcast interview with Will. You can find out more at www.williamackerman.com and contact him at will@williamackerman.com.

Further episodes of Planetary Gig Talk

Further podcasts by Planetary Gigs Society

Website of Planetary Gigs Society