William Ackerman is a guitarist and composer of acoustic-based instrumental music. He founded and ran for many years an influential new age record lable: Windham Hill Records.

Born in West Germany but adopted by a couple who lived in Palo Alto, California. William Ackerman grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. A self-professed poet and musician who briefly studied guitar with Robbie Basho and had no interest in math. After attending Stanford University, Ackerman dropped out to become a carpenter. Ackerman had composed some pieces of music for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Stanford. In 1975, without having played a "paying gig"

(a) group of friends and informal fans got together and collected about $300 in five dollar bills to send me into a recording studio. I picked a studio out of the phone book named Mantra Studios (it was the 70s after all!). I walked into that room and made a record I called The Search for the Turtle's Navel in two afternoons. (William Ackerman, liner notes for Returning, 2005).

Initially William Ackerman kept up his job as a builder but recording music took up more of his time until he was working on music full time. Ackerman ran his music label (Windham Hill Records) for years. He did just about everything from picking cover art to producing the records. Early albums featured himself (It Takes a Year) and his cousin, fellow guitarist Alex de Grassi Turning: Turning Back 1978. Although in later years critics would single out Ackerman's records (especially Childhood and Memory) and De Grassi's first record, the album that gained Windham Hill Records notice was the 1980 recording by George Winston Autumn. This record was well reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine and, as a result of this national exposure the record began selling in large numbers. For many years it was the best selling album in the Windham Hill Catalog.

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