Windham Hill Memories

This weeks post is on the second Will Ackerman album, "It Takes A Year" from 1977. Now this album, for some reason is pretty much like the first album. It even included the Title Track that was supposed to be in the first one too. Here is the track list: 1. The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter 2. Balancing 3. The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit 4. It Takes A Year 5. The Townshend Shuffle 6. A Tribute to the Philosophy of James Estell Bradley 7. The Search for the Turtle's Navel 8. Rain Sequence (From the Townshend Shuffle) 9. The Rediscovery of Big Buck Creek, Arizona This is the sheet music for "The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter". Thankfully the album has been re-issued on CD in 1998 and is also available now in mp3 format. If you ever find the vinyl LP by any chance, good for you. It never hurts to have it on multiple formats. To order the CD or download it digitally, click here:  http://www.amazon.com/It-Takes-A-Y

To keep this short, I will tell you that Will Ackerman is an American guitarist and composer of instrumental music. He founded, ran, and recorded music for the Windham Hill record label for many years since the mid 1970s until he sold it to his wife, Anne Ackerman. The reason being is due to the fact the music business was getting too overwhelming for him. If you wish to learn more about his life and career, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ackerman There is a lot about him that I just feel would be too much to explain. Anyway, today I thought I'd start things off with Will Ackerman's debut album "In Search of the Turtle's Navel" . As you can see this is the original version of the album cover. Fun fact: When this album was originally released on vinyl, it was titled "The Search of the Turtle's Navel". However, the cassette format title is unknown, but I know it was later retitiled "In Search of the Turtle'

Windham Hill Records was a subsidiary label originally owned by A&M records (and is now a sub label of Sony Music Entertainment as of 2008) from the mid-late 1970s through the late 1990s. It specialized in Acoustic, New Age, Contemporary/Smooth Jazz, and Folk music. The label was originally founded as an independent one by guitarist and carpenter, William Ackerman and wife Anne Robinson in 1976. The laber started out as an independent label for instrumental music, whereas Ackerman released his own material, later of other guitarists. It then expanded to include electronic and world music as well. That was what made the label known in the music industry as a New Age label. It even had Billboard-charting albums, mainly on the New Age genre charts. Windham Hill Records was best known for it's high quality in sound, groundbreaking music, "unique flagship collections", and tasteful album art of nature. The label's records were distributed by A&M Records from 1979

This is the fan site dedicated to the new age music under the Windham Hill record label. It may include smooth jazz related stuff too. I will be posting the following items on this blog to keep you interested: 1. LP's/CD's. 2. Photos/Images. 3. Music sheets/Information. 4. Videos from YouTube, Veoh, and other video sites. The order of posts will be followed under the list of artists and associated record labels. Be sure to check that out here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windham_Hill_Records Some will be links, others will be the actual content. On the holidays, I will be posting the Christmas samplers so be sure to check that out. The reason I decided to make the blog now is because there aren't many blog sites related to this record label (except for the one about Will Ackerman, the founder and main musician of Windham Hill Records, wearing a POP hat) and I felt that it's time to share my love for the former subsidiary record label. Just because new