The most famous working pianist in America never took a piano lesson in his life, barely reads music and rarely performs with his shoes on.
Nevertheless, George Winston can pack a concert hall as easily as Vladimir Horowitz, and to a large–and growing–segment of America, he has come to epitomize the modern-day solo pianist.
”I guess my career turned out to be bigger than I thought it would be,” says Winston, who performs a solo concert Friday at the Paramount Arts Centre in Aurora and June 21 in Orchestra Hall. ”But, then again, I don`t really think about that. I think about what I can`t play, and how to get there.”
Yet Winston remains one of only a few artists who can, for example, fill Orchestra Hall two nights in a row, as he did during his last Chicago appearance in 1986.
Beyond his piano playing, Winston, more than anyone else, gave the world that sweet and easy brand of music known as New Age. When, in 1980, a struggling record producer named Will Ackerman scraped together his pennies to put out Winston`s first albums–”Autumn,” ”Winter Into Spring” and, later, ”December”–a new age indeed was born. Millions responded to the rippling chords, sugary harmonies and easy undulations of Winston`s piano music.
Today, Windham Hill has evolved into an empire with scores of artists, several spin-off labels and many imitators; New Age has become the music of choice for the hot-tub generation; and Winston is one of the best-selling pianists on the concert circuit.
Mention the phrase New Age to him, however, and Winston will not be pleased.
”I don`t play New Age,” he says. ”I play instrumental pop.
”A lot of people say that I influenced all this New Age music, but I don`t relate to that at all. Maybe New Age is similar to the music I make; I don`t know. But when you`re trying to play like James Booker (the New Orleans pianist who recorded in the `70s), as I am, you don`t think about the sociology of having influenced a musical movement.”
Whether or not Winston takes credit for the New Age sound, its leading practitioners–including Liz Story, Mark Isham and Philip Aaberg and many others–have cited him as their inspiration. They too scored big with the easy-listening sound; and they, like Winston, have been roundly skewered for it by critics.
”If the people who criticize me would spend time on their own personal growth, they wouldn`t have time to gossip about others,” says Winston. ”I don`t read critics, anyway. I don`t have the time.
”And if fans want to use my records as background music, that`s entirely up to them. You can`t dictate what people are going to feel about anything in life.”
Yet surely Winston crafted his albums–with their seasonal titles, and sonorities that imitate raindrops, snowfall and the like–to be mood music more than anything else.
”Absolutely not,” says Winston. ”The titles for my compositions are little more than nicknames. It`s as if I had been calling my cat `Baby` a lot, so the cat`s name ultimately becomes Baby.
”The names of my compositions are not a conscious thing. I`ll be playing a song for six or seven years before I record it, so, by that time, it has just somehow acquired a name.”
If Winston remains elusive about the exact nature of his music, he nevertheless is disarmingly forthright about his musical talents and limitations.
Born in Hart, Mich., in 1949, he says that he showed no interest in music as a youngster, preferring ”to play baseball and basketball.” By the time he finished high school, he had become smitten with the sound of organ music and started teaching himself how to play it. A jazz musician showed him a few rudimentary chords, and he eventually worked in a car wash in Los Angeles to support himself while learning organ and, later, piano.
The journey toward keyboard mastery, which Winston admits still eludes him, has not been easy.
”I`m working at it,” he says. ”Being able to play what comes into my mind would be a nice thing.
”For years, I was at about 2 percent of where I wanted to be. It was not fun waking up in the morning. Now, I have maybe 15 percent of the technique I would like.
”I don`t know how I got by all those early years. Audiences were pretty gracious. They liked my playing. I sure didn`t.
”I`d say, as far as my playing goes, I don`t have to crawl anymore. I can walk, but I want to fly.
”The older generation always criticizes me by saying, `You don`t even use written music,` but they forget that most pop and jazz musicians don`t use written music either–they use chord charts.
”Indian music is, to this day, still taught orally, and that`s 2,000 years old, which is a lot older than written music is.”
So Winston keeps whittling away at his art, generally practicing after midnight (”it`s quieter then”) and spending the day managing his Dancing Cat Records label. He hasn`t turned out a new album of his own in nearly a decade and doesn`t expect to till ”perhaps the `90s.
”When you make a record you`re making the future. I`m interested in present time. If I`m going to reach out to someone, I would rather do it here and now,” says Winston, who traditionally appears on stage in stockinged feet because ”it keeps things from getting noisy on the pedal.”
As to the huge crowds and presumably ample sums of money he draws, Winston insists that`s not what he`s all about.
”It doesn`t matter to me if there are 5 people or 2,500 in the audience, it`s not really an amount that counts,” he says. ”Some of the best playing I`ve done has been for one person.
”And as for the money, no, I`m not a bit embarrassed to be earning this much. You know why?
”Because, through Dancing Cat, I put it all right back into the music.”
