52 Weeks, 26 Letters

Letter A, Part 2, Week 2

William Ackerman
"The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter"

Change usually occurs in small steps, a little tweak here, a little tweak there and a minor improvement is made. This type of change is common: autos, iPhones and influenza all evolve this way. There's little difference between any two sequential versions. Those small changes add up eventually, however, and there is a big difference between the 1980 and the 2020 Accord, between the first iPhone and the iPhone 11, and between the 1918 influenza and the 2018 influenza.

In contrast, the difference between the car and the horse-drawn carriage is greater than the difference between any two cars in history.  Sometimes change is not a small step down the street where we all live, but a giant leap into the great wide open.

Like many American acoustic finger-pickers, William Ackerman started off a small step from John Fahey and the American Primitive style. Eventually that folk foundation gave way to more minimal and meditative music. He released his first album at one book store in the Bay Area. After finding others making the same type of modern compositions, he sold millions worldwide. His label, Windham Hill became a brand, with recognizable covers and a common atmospheric production that introduced a new genre of music to the world.

The lesson here is that both types of change are powerful. Little things add up to big things over time. Big changes are more rare, but the impact can be colossal. The important thing is to never stop trying to improve whatever you do. It's a lesson direct from evolution: adapt or die.

I've always been guitar-oriented and Will's music was such a revelation in so many way. It was really hard to pick just one song from his catalog, but I settled on "The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter". I think you can hear the folk roots where he started, but the steps towards what would later be called New Age are evident as well. Will must like it too, he's recorded it three times. I acknowledge the decay that happened to New Age, it happens with anything new and exciting when the trolls latch on. It's how you go from William Ackerman to Kenny G, but that's a discussion for another day.

Week 1: The Letter A, Part 1

52 weeks, 26 letters

An alphabetical list of artists and associated tales

Week 1: The letter A, part 1

America "Ventura Highway"

For whatever reason, many groups have used locations for names, be it a city, (Boston, Chicago), state (Kansas, Oregon) or continent (Asia, Europe). Two displaced Army brats took on the moniker "America" to make sure the local Europeans knew they weren't faking their accents. Understandable, but I have often felt given their soft-rock style and songs about the desert, sunshine and, well, California, that maybe they should have been called "California" instead.

Or maybe not. I think that more than any other state, California encapsulates most parts of America, good and bad. Pick a state, we've got that: Agriculture and oil, hippies up north and the DOD down south. Sunny shores, majestic mountains, and amazingly scenic deserts. There are cotton fields and casinos here. And of course, miles and miles of highway for that most American of all things, the automobile.

One day when I was in third grade, our teacher was showing us an academic film, when she noticed we weren't exactly focused on its educational aspects. Finally, between the collective gasps and giggles, one girl had the courage to ask "What are they WEARING?" 
"Oh" said Ms. Alderdice, "That's just California. They are always ahead of everyone, those clothes will be here in three or four years."

Well I had seen enough Star Trek to know you can't live in the future, you can only be stuck in the past. Right then, with the certainty only a child can have, I determined to live in California someday.

California is not just a mash-up of America. Places like Silicon Valley, Napa Valley, and Hollywood are uniquely Californian. There are no other cities quite like Los Angeles or San Francisco. And then there's the Southern California coast, where I live now. It's hard to describe the optimism and freedom a day of being near the ocean, soaking up the sunshine and navigating the open highway can bring to you, even on a bad day. This song captures that wispy warm feeling, even for those that have never been here. It's superb Sunshine Pop¹, and most certainly Californian. 

¹Which makes it all the odder that a certain symbolic someone latched onto not the sunshine, but the opposing Purple Rain part.