George Winston

George Otis Winston III (February 11, 1949 – June 4, 2023) was an American pianist performing contemporary instrumental music.

George Otis Winston III was born in Hart, Michigan on February 11, 1949.

He was raised mainly in Montana (Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida.

As a youth, his musical interests included instrumentals of the R&B, rock, pop and jazz genres, especially those by organists.

In 1965 at age 16, he became interested in Vince Guaraldi's music when the animated television special A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered, and he soon purchased the soundtrack album featuring Guaraldi's music.

Over the next few years, Winston purchased all of Guaraldi's releases and watched each new Peanuts special to hear Guaraldi's newest music.

After hearing the Doors in 1967, he was inspired to play the organ.

After graduating from Coral Gables Senior High School in Coral Gables, Florida in 1967, Winston attended Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, where he majored in sociology.

While he did not complete his undergraduate degree, following his rise to prominence, the university awarded him an honorary doctor of arts degree.

Winston was first recorded by John Fahey for Fahey's Takoma Records.

In 1971, he switched to solo piano after hearing the stride pianists Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and later Earl Hines, Donald Lambert and Cleo Brown.

Best known for his solo piano recordings, Winston released his first album in 1972, and came to prominence with his 1980 album Autumn, which was followed in 1982 by Winter into Spring and ''December.

All three became platinum-selling albums, with December'' becoming a triple-platinum album.

His debut album Piano Solos disappeared without much notice, although it was later reissued on Windham Hill Records under the title Ballads and Blues 1972.

In 1979, Winston sent a demo tape to William Ackerman, who had started his new record label, Windham Hill, in 1976.

Ackerman offered to produce his next album, which became Autumn; it was soon the best-selling record in the label's catalog.

Both Autumn and the following album Winter into Spring went platinum, signifying million-plus shipment in the United States.

The Christmas album December became an even greater success, and it was certified triple platinum for shipment of three million.

On the heels of his three successful albums, Winston composed the score to accompany Meryl Streep's narration on The Velveteen Rabbit in 1984, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Children's Music Album.

At the request of producer Lee Mendelson in 1988, he provided the music for the TV miniseries This Is America, Charlie Brown, which Winston considered a highlight of his career.

A total of 16 solo albums were released, accumulating over 15 million records sold, with the 1994 album Forest earning Winston a Grammy award for Best New Age Album.

Winston received four other Grammy nominations, including one for Best Children's Music Album, performed with actress Meryl Streep, and another for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for his interpretation of works by the rock band the Doors.

Winston played in three styles: the melodic approach that he developed and called "rural folk piano"; stride piano, primarily inspired by Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; and his primary interest, New Orleans rhythm and blues (R&B) piano, influenced by James Booker, Professor Longhair and Henry Butler.

While the majority of his recordings were in the folk piano style, Winston mostly enjoyed playing R&B piano.

His musical style has been classified as new age and sometimes classical, but he rejected both labels.

Winston also played the guitar and harmonica.

His interest in the Hawaiian slack-key guitar led him to start his own record label, Dancing Cat Records.

At the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in 1996, Winston won the award for Best New Age Album for Forest.

In 1996, he released Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi, primarily devoted to the theme music Guaraldi wrote for the Peanuts cartoons: fifteen television specials and one feature film, ranging from 1965 until Guaraldi's death in 1976.

"I love his melodies and his chord progressions", Winston said of Guaraldi.

"He has a really personal way of doing voicings."

Two of his other works, Plains (1999) and Montana: A Love Story (2004), were also later nominated for best new age album.

Winston released two albums of Guaraldi's music.

Winston's 2002 album Night Divides the Day – The Music of the Doors consists of solo piano renditions of music by the rock band the Doors.

The title of the album is a lyric from the band's song "Break on Through (To the Other Side)".

The album received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.

Winston suffered from a number of illnesses, and while recuperating from a bout of cancer in 2013, he played the piano in the medical center auditorium, creating 21 pieces, that he says were "kind of circular" and "minimalist".

In 2014, he included three of the pieces in a Spring Carousel EP, and a 15-track album, called Spring Carousel: A Cancer Research Benefit released on March 31.

Winston recorded a follow-up album in 2020, Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2.

In 2022, he was planning a third volume, Count the Ways: The Music of Vince Guaraldi Volume 3.