BRATTLEBORO — A small village on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, Positano sits high upon the cliffs as it rolls into the Tyrrhenian Sea below.
There, over the course of one week in 2018, Grammy-winning guitarist and producer Will Ackerman wrote the music for his new solo album, Positano Songs (Imaginary Road Music, 2022). He left there with 24 viable musical ideas.
Ackerman has visited Positano for over three decades and says it remains “one of the most beautiful places on Earth.”
“You have to travel up thousands of stairs to navigate the landscape in Positano,” he says. “One must be fit to visit or live there.”
Ackerman, the founder of Windham Hill Records and producer for hundreds of professional musicians, feels at home performing on stage at Carnegie Hall, touring in Japan, or playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. A Renaissance man of sorts, he also feels as much at home in the foothills of the Green Mountains as he does surfing in Kauai.
For the past decade, he has been busy working on group releases, including Flow, Four Guitars, and Brothers, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Age Album in 2022.
Postiano Songs was co-produced by Tom Eaton and Ackerman and recorded at Ackerman's Imaginary Road Studios. The album was mixed and mastered by Eaton.
Of the 10 songs on the album, two are solo pieces by Ackerman. The remaining eight are performed by Ackerman on guitars, Charlie Bisharat on violin, Noah Wilding on voices, and Eaton on bass and piano, with Eugene Friesen on cello and Jeff Oster on flugelhorn.
“I hadn't written any new music in quite some time, and it occurred to me that if there were any place in this world where I could probably find inspiration and write again, it would be in Positano,” Ackerman muses.
As described in Ackerman's liner notes, the songs chronicle snapshots of his connection to the Italian village, starting with music that speaks to his wedding to his wife, Susan.
In “For Giovanni,” he tells the story of how he stays in the upstairs apartment in the home of Giovanni and Rosita Russo whenever he visits Positano, which he describes as “a second home to me for many years.”
“Watching the World Cup Soccer matches with him are some of my fondest memories,” Ackerman says of Russo. “This song is about the years of having this dear man as my friend.”
One album, three guitars
Ackerman played three different guitars on this album, but his principal instrument is the Froggy Bottom Will Ackerman Signature Model K guitar, handmade by Michael Millard.
Millard, formerly of Newfane and now of Tunbridge, is the owner and builder of these guitars as well as being one of Ackerman's dearest friends. The description of the Will Ackerman guitar on the luthier's website is a paean to the musician's impact on the recording of acoustic guitars and a heartfelt testimonial to their friendship and collaboration.
“Millard is on the vanguard of that movement of master guitar builders,” Ackerman says. “His guitars have defined my sound in the last four decades. All of the solos and other tracks are on this guitar.”
When reached by phone, Millard explains, “Will is renowned for altered tunings, he plays around with the guitar and tunes it wherever the muse takes him and then creates music around that tuning.”
Froggy Bottom started building the K model for Ackerman in 1999, from Madagascar rosewood and red spruce. “It became the guitar that he wanted to use for everything,” he says. “Then at one point the guitar was almost destroyed and made into a pile of toothpicks on a flight, and it took me more than one year to restore it. I made a backup so it wouldn't go on the road anymore.”
Their relationship goes deeper than a guitar maker and guitarist.
“Will has been a very faithful friend, one of the kindest and most honest people I know. He's a very special human being,” remarks Millard. They bonded over harvesting trees and working in the woods together. Millard is certain that Ackerman has “influenced the acoustic guitar world as much as anyone.”
The other six-string that Ackerman uses is a Jumbo K Model guitar by Steve Klein of California. “When you are playing lead you want a different sound to distinguish it from the chordal part. I used the Klein for the lead guitar parts,” noted Ackerman.
The third guitar used in this recording is a small Martin parlor guitar that the late guitarist Michael Hedges gave Ackerman years ago. The story goes that Ackerman signed Hedges to a recording contract with Windham Hill Records on a paper napkin at a club in California after hearing him play for the first time.
Playing lead at 72
Ackerman, 72, delighted in exploring a distinctive new element for his own music: melodic work on lead guitar. That is the real hallmark of this album, he explained.
“The most important element of this album is the presence of my contributing more melody with the lead guitar. I was not relying entirely upon other players for melody,” said Ackerman. “That is the principal thing that makes this record unique in my career.”
Ackerman credits Eaton with making Positano Songs possible.
“I was able to experience what these guys experience when I'm producing. I didn't have to think on all levels - I had to think and perform only. Tom was me and he was telling me what works and what was needed,” he says. “It was so great to not have to be my own producer. I could just feel and play.”
Among Ackerman's musical influences is French composer Erik Satie's solo piano. “Satie gave me permission to be simple,” remarks Ackerman.
He was also inspired stylistically by U.S. guitarists John Fahey and Robbie Basho. He discovered them and the Takoma Records label with Basho and Leo Kottke.
“Positano Songs feels like a return in many ways to my earlier recordings. There are fewer bells and whistles and more of me. It feels more self-sufficient and thereby more intimate.”