Piano legend to play slack-key guitar at benefit

Words are not George Winston's strong suit.

Instead, the pianist, guitarist and harmonica player prefers to make his instruments his voice. Winston has built a career performing live and recording his solo piano works, some inspired by the changing seasons, many of them compositions written by others. He has one Grammy award-winning album to his credit, as well as an entire album of songs by The Doors called "Night Divides the Day."

To hear Winston speak, he's more a student of music than a musician. For decades Winston has studied the music of North America -- R&B, jazz, rock 'n' roll, folk -- and the slack-key guitarists of Hawaii. On Wednesday he'll present some of what he's learned here in Cape Girardeau, when he plays a benefit concert for the Saint Francis Medical Center Children's Fund. Guests are also asked to bring canned goods to benefit local food pantries.

Q: So what can people expect to hear at a George Winston solo guitar concert?

A: What I play on guitar is about half Hawaiian slack-key, which is a traditional Hawaiian fingerstyle. It's a tradition that began back about, it began back about 1830, probably, when the guitar first came to Hawaii, and it preceded the steel guitar by about 60 years.

George Winston, a renowned pianist, will play slack-key guitar for a Saint Francis Medical Center benefit. (Submitted photo)

It's really just fingerstyle, it's really just playing Hawaiian tunes fingerstyle. People all over the world who play with their fingers have a lot in common, you play kind of the bass with your thumb and the melody with your other fingers.

About half what I do is Hawaiian, about half what I do is mainland American Appalachian standards, folk, it's about half and half.

Q: How did you happen upon Hawaiian slack-key?

A: I'm always looking around. Back in '74 I first heard some of the recordings of the great players ... and I realized this is part of the equation for me, was this tradition. I'm an instrumental player, and it just fit me with what I wanted to do instrumentally. I grew up in Montana ... the songs reminded me more of May in Montana than anything I'd ever heard.

Montana gave me the reason to play, the changing of the season is a big inspiration for me, but it didn't give me any music, so I had to find that other places.

Q: Are there any certain musical traditions that attract you more than others?

A: To me it's just all one big soup. There's not just traditions to me as much as there are individuals, because individuals create traditions.

If I put in the time with the songs, even though I didn't grow up with them, you can play them, but you've got to put in the time sometimes. Part of that is just getting the music in your head. If you grew up in America you don't have to learn "Yankee Doodle," it's just in your head. Now if you're going to play it, you have to kind of learn to play it, but you don't have to figure out the tune to play it, it's already there.

So it's a matter of ... just doing lots of listening, and pretty soon it's part of you, then you have to figure out how to play it on an instrument, and then you have to say, okay, that's fine, that's how they did it, but who am I.

I think of all the traditions I listen to I play in very few of them. It's almost all North American except for the Hawaiian on guitar and a bit of Celtic. North American music, it's like where do you draw the line between blues and country? They are separate in a way, but it's like a rainbow, there's blue and green, but where does one end and the other begin? There is no fine line.

Q: Why is North American music your main inspiration?

A: I'm inspired by a lot of traditions that I'm not influenced by. Like I'm inspired by the different African places and traditions, and I'm inspired by India, it's just kind of whatever it ended up. I don't analyze it, it's just kind of what I want to do.

It's probably because the North American stuff is similar ... like I speak English because I grew up with English, it kind of just happened that way. But some people are American and play all Irish music, so it all depends on the person. It's just kind of what speaks to you.

On the piano the New Orleans R&B, and the instrumental rock and R&B from the late '50s and early '60s, that speaks to me, the stride piano of the '20s and early '30s.

I've never played any European classical. Most people do. I've just never touched it. Never wanted to.

Q: Is there a big difference between playing piano and guitar?

A: They're entirely different. It's like playing basketball and flying an airplane.

That's what attracted me is that it was different. With a guitar you can do all kinds of things the piano can't begin to do, and vice versa. But you can play them both solo and do it all yourself, so that's the common thing to me, and they're both chordal instruments.

I also play solo harmonica, and it's a big ditto what I just said about that.

msanders@semissourian.com

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