I like my buddy George:
http://www.last.fm/music/George+Winston#close
He certainly made this tune by Pachelbel famous.
We have been friends for over 30 years.
You can hear the influence of Floyd Cramer in this piece but it is 100% George!
He has also influenced a lot of other pianists and singlehandedly started the solo piano movement in the early 80's.
Scroll down to the Pachelbel, first one on the left and there are kids playing his pieces there also.
On the right hand side of that page is a list of performers and another pianist I really love, Liz Story, there is a piece by her called Greensleeves.
I like all of her music, like "Escape of the circus ponies' and many others. I wish she had made more CD's but something happened, not sure what, that sidetracked her recordings.
She would never have recorded and become popular had it not been for George.
Both George and Liz got their main start on Will Ackerman's record label Windom Hill records, George actually had his first record on John Fahey's label "Tacoma records', Titled Blues and Ballads for Solo Piano. It did ok for a folk record label, sold something like 5000 copies but then in the early 80's Will Ackerman bought the rights to it and when it hit the world in I think 1982 or so, it went platinum and put Windom Hill on the map and the solo piano scene has not been the same since!
It was really funny, my wife and I had moved to Arizona after I had a band in LA, Southwind Irish band which did a lot of pretty big gigs back then and we were really good friends with George, we both lived in Venice Beach ATT, and I didn't find out about the Windom Hill deal till one day we were at some hotel or other and got in an elevator and lo and behold, there was George's music playing which I knew very well, having done gigs with him early on. We looked at each other and were going, What in the world is George's music doing playing in this elevator? Unbeknownst to us, his re-release on Windom hill was a huge hit and put him on the map instantly! We were thrilled when we found out!
My wife introduced George to Hawaiian music, she was a professional Hawaiian dancer in her youth and gave George a few Hawaiian guitar records and he really ran with that, he is a virtuoso in that field also, now doing concerts with just guitar and harmonica which he is also an expert in.
He wanted my wife Susan to be his manager just before we moved to Arizona but fate took us on different paths.
BTW, my guitar teacher, Mike Stewart, AKA Backwards Sam Firk, and John Fahey both recorded a few cuts on Joe Bussard's label Fonotone records, on 78's! Both RIP. Joe is still around though. My son Kevin and I visited him in Maryland a few years ago.
sonhouse's mention of George Winston reminds me that I sometimes put Vince Guaraldi's 'Nobody Else' on repeat and drift off to sleep with it playing until daybreak. (I heard Winston's nice cover of that song about a year ago.)
My dream lineup (some now deceased):
Lead guitar-- Chet Atkins
Rhythm guitar-- John Lennon
Bass-- Paul McCartney
Percussion-- Hal Blaine
Keyboards-- Floyd Cramer
Clarinet-- Pete Fountain
Saxophone-- Clarence Clemons
Trumpet-- Al Hirt
Banjo-- Pete Seeger
Pedal steel-- Pete Drake
Vocals, female co-leads-- Nana Mouskouri & Diana Ross
Vocals, male co-leads-- George Jones & Mick Jagger
Backing vocals-- Anita Kerr Singers
{bunch of edits, adding to list}
