Description

Known to many as a "new age" artist because of his association with the Windham Hill label, Michael Hedges could be more accurately described as a progressive guitarist in the tradition of Leo Kottke or even Jimi Hendrix. Revered for his virtuoso playing and revolutionary approach to the instrument, Hedges became a cult hero to legions of acoustic guitar fanatics, despite his later, less-successful attempts at vocal music. His life and career cut short by a car accident in 1997, Hedges deserves to be remembered as one of the true guitar innovators of the 20th century.

Biography

b. 31 December 1958, California, USA, d. 30 November 1997, Mendocino County, USA. This American guitarist, singer and composer moved from a highly individual instrumental style to a growing acclaim as a singer and composer, cut short by his death in a car accident. Hedges grew up in Enid, Oklahoma and began playing the piano at the age of four. At high school he played cello and clarinet, then flute and guitar. He underwent a formal musical education, studying flute and composition at Philips University in Oklahoma then classical guitar and electronic music at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Hedges cited as his early influences, the Beatles, guitarist Leo Kottke and the twentieth century composers Morton Feldman, Bela Bartok and Anton Webern. In 1980, he moved to California to study computer music at Stanford University and was signed by Windham Hill Records.
The company's image, as purveyors of ethereal "new age' music was, in part, forged by Hedges' early recordings with them, in particular Breakfast In The Field and The Shape Of The Land. While mysticism was a force behind his songwriting and he admitted being deeply influenced by the ideas of the anthropologist Joseph Campell, Hedges built a solid and grittier reputation as a musical innovator. Freewheeling experiments with tuning, two handed-fretwork tapping and harmonics pre-figured in later work in both recordings and concerts, which also saw the use of the harp guitar (an obscure instrument augmenting the standard six-strings with a tangential set of five bass strings) and synthesizers. The experiments are not merely embellishments to the music, but structural - Hedges" route to a distinctive musical voice. He was not, he said, an instrumentalist, but a composer. That was clearly disputed by his standing with the specialist music press who saw him as one of the great guitarists of the past two decades.
DISCOGRAPHY: Breakfast In The Field (Windham Hill 1981)***, Aerial Boundaries (Windham Hill 1984)****, with Kelly McGillis Santabear's First Christmas (Windham Hill 1986)***, Watching My Life Go By (Windham Hill 1987)***, Live On The Double Planet (Windham Hill 1987)***, Taproot (Windham Hill 1990)***, with Geena Davis Princess Scargo & The Birthday Pumpkin (Rabbit Ears 1993)***, The Road To Return (Windham Hill 1994)***, Oracle (Windham Hill 1996)****, Torched (Windham Hill 1999)***.
COMPILATIONS: Strings Of Steel (Windham Hill 1993)***, Best Of Michael Hedges (Windham Hill 2000)****, Beyond Boundaries: Guitar Solos (Windham Hill 2001)***.
VIDEOGRAPHY: The Artist's Profile: Michael Hedges (Artist's Profile 1996).

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