George Winston, 74; his piano fused serenity, rhythm
NEW YORK — George Winston, the Grammy-winning pianist who blended jazz, classical, folk, and other stylings on such million-selling albums as “Autumn,” “Winter Into Spring,” and “December,” died on Sunday in Williamsport, Pa. He was 74.
His publicist, Jesse Cutler, said the cause was cancer. Mr. Winston, who lived in the Bay Area, had dealt with several cancers for years while continuing to record and perform; he credited a 2013 bone marrow transplant with extending his life. He was staying in Williamsport near where his tour manager lives, Mr. Cutler said.
“Throughout his cancer treatments, George continued to write and record new music, and he stayed true to his greatest passion: performing for live audiences while raising funds for Feeding America to help fight the national hunger crisis along with donating proceeds from each of his concerts to local food banks,” a statement on his website reads.
His most recent album, “Night,” came out last year.
He released more than a dozen solo piano albums, along with soundtracks for the TV miniseries “This Is America, Charlie Brown” and “The Velveteen Rabbit,” which featured Meryl Streep’s narration of the children’s classic. His 1995 release “Forest” won a Grammy for best New Age recording, while his Doors tribute “Night Divides the Day” received a Grammy nomination in 2004 for best contemporary instrumental album.
“I came up with the melodic style that I play in 1971, and I have always called it ‘Folk Piano,’ (or more accurately ‘Rural Folk Piano’), since it is melodic and not complicated in its approach, like folk guitar picking and folk songs, and has a rural sensibility,” he said, according to his website.
“I just play the songs the best I can, inspired by the seasons and the topographies and regions, and, occasionally, by sociological elements, and try to improve as a player over time.”
Mr. Winston released his first album, “Ballads and Blues,” in 1972, but it was “Autumn,” released in 1980 on the fledgling Windham Hill label, based in Palo Alto, Calif., that propelled his career. It consisted of seven solo piano compositions that were, like most of his music, inspired by nature. They bore simple titles — “Sea,” “Moon,” “Woods” — and hit a sweet spot for many listeners. Sales soared into the hundreds of thousands.
“By attuning his emotions to the serenity, order and power of nature rather than to the violently frenetic tones of our contemporary cityscape,” Lee Underwood wrote in a review in DownBeat, “Winston provides us with a perfect aural and psychological antidote to the urban madness.”
Mr. Winston continued the calendar theme with two 1982 albums, “December” and “Winter Into Spring,” and again with a 1991 release, “Summer.”
Mr. Winston recorded two albums of the music of Vince Guaraldi, the jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated “Peanuts” television specials. In 2012, he released “George Winston: Harmonica Solos,” and in 1983 he created his own label, Dancing Cat Records, to record practitioners of Hawaiian slack-key guitar, a genre he particularly admired.
He never cared much for efforts by critics and others to pigeonhole his music or his musical interests.
“I think putting a label on music is the most useless endeavor,” he told United Press International in 1984, “except for putting a name on religion.”
George Otis Winston III was born on Feb. 11, 1949, in Hart, Mich., near Lake Michigan, to George and Mary (Bohannon) Winston. His father was a geologist, and his mother was an executive secretary.
He grew up in Mississippi, Florida, and Montana. He said that his years in Montana were instrumental in instilling the profound appreciation of nature and the changing seasons that later inspired his music.
“I am very grateful for having spent a lot of time growing up in this beautiful state,” he wrote in “Montana Song,” a 1989 essay posted on his website, “and I can say that the modest, workable level I have managed to get to, both musically and spiritually, would not have been possible without the inspirations and feelings I get from Montana now, and from my memories of growing up there.”
Mr. Winston took piano lessons as a child but didn’t stick with it. Hearing the Doors’ debut album in 1967 reawakened his musical interest. The playing of the Doors’ organist, Ray Manzarek, inspired him to take up the organ, which he played alongside fellow students at Stetson University in Florida in a group called the Tapioca Ballroom Band. But in 1971 he became enthralled by recordings of Fats Waller from the 1920s and ’30s and decided piano was his future.
Mr. Winston, who is survived by a sister, said he was also influenced by the music of two New Orleans pianists, Professor Longhair and James Booker. All of his influences merged into the style he called rural folk piano.
Critics sometimes found his piano work to be unsophisticated or repetitive, but he sold millions of albums and drew enthusiastic audiences wherever he played.
His concerts generally included a charitable component, benefiting food banks or other causes.
Mr. Winston knew his music wasn’t for everyone, and he was self-deprecating about that.
“One person’s punk rock is another person’s singing ‘Om’ or playing harp,” he told The Santa Cruz Sentinel of California in 1982. “It’s all valid — everybody’s got their own path. I wouldn’t want to sit around and listen to me all day.”