Michael Hedges

A composer who played guitar

Michael Alden Hedges was born on December 31, 1953 in Sacramento and died on December 2, 1997, aged 43. He grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, studied classical guitar and composition at Phillips University under E. J. Ulrich, and was a composition major at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where he studied electronic music. He played electric guitar and flute with the Lotus Band in Baltimore in 1976 and 1977 before going solo acoustic. He moved to Palo Alto in 1980, and in February 1981 Will Ackerman heard him at the Varsity Theater and signed him to Windham Hill, reportedly on a napkin. Bassist Michael Manring played on nearly all his records.

He wrote almost exclusively in alternate tunings, with slap harmonics, hammer-ons and pull-offs with both hands, percussive body slaps and classical-style damping, and saw himself, Wikipedia says, as a composer who played guitar rather than a guitarist who composed. His listening influences included Martin Carthy, John Martyn and the Beatles, and his compositional ones Stravinsky, Varese, Steve Reich and Morton Feldman. Ackerman said Michael tore his head off, like watching the guitar being reinvented. His main guitar was a 1971 Martin D-28 he called Barbara.

Breakfast in the Field (1981) was followed by Aerial Boundaries (1984), Watching My Life Go By (1985, on Windham Hill's subsidiary Open Air), Live on the Double Planet (1987), Strings of Steel (1988), Taproot (1990), Princess Scargo and the Birthday Pumpkin (1993), The Road to Return (1994) and Oracle (1996), which won the 1997 Grammy for Best New Age Album posthumously. Torched (1999) was completed from unfinished recordings. He supported Suzanne Vega on a British tour in 1986, briefly toured with Leo Kottke, and Guitar Player's readers named him best acoustic guitarist five years running. Andy McKee has the most Hedges covers on setlist.fm, 51 performances, and Kaki King 6.