Pepperdine University To Welcome George Winston Tonight

Pianist George Winston will perform at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 20, at Pepperdine University's Smothers Theatre in Malibu.

Tickets, priced at $45, $35, and $25 for the public and $10 for full-time Pepperdine students, are available now by calling (310) 506-4522. They are also available through Ticketmaster at (800) 982-2787. More information: http://arts.pepperdine.edu/ or http://www.georgewinston.com/

One hundred percent of the artist's proceeds from this benefit concert will be donated to City of Hope Cancer Research. City of Hope, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is an innovative biomedical research, treatment, and educational institution dedicated to the prevention and cure of cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

Winston grew up mainly in Montana and spent his later formative years in Mississippi and Florida. During this time his favorite music was instrumental rock and instrumental R&B, including Floyd Cramer, the Ventures, Booker T & the MGs, Jimmy Smith, and many more. Inspired by R&B, jazz, blues, and rock (especially the Doors), he began playing organ in 1967.

In 1971 he switched to the acoustic piano after hearing recordings from the 1920s and 1930s by the legendary stride pianists Thomas "Fats" Waller and Teddy Wilson. In addition to working on stride piano, he came up with his own style of melodic instrumental music on solo piano, called "folk piano." In 1972 he recorded his first solo piano album, Ballads and Blues 1972, for the late guitarist John Fahey's Takoma label.

Winston's latest solo piano release is Love Will Come--The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 2 (released in 2010). Since 1980 he has released 10 other solo piano albums: Autumn (1980); Winter into Spring (1982); December (1982); Summer (1991); Forest (1994); Linus & Lucy--The Music of Vince Guaraldi (1996), which includes "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and pieces from the Peanuts TV specials; Plains (1999), which was inspired by Winston's Eastern Montana upbringing; Night Divides the Day--The Music of the Doors (2002); Montana--A Love Story (2004); and Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions--A Hurricane Relief Benefit (2006).

In 2001 Winston released Remembrance--A Memorial Benefit, a six-song CD of piano, guitar, and harmonica solos to benefit those affected by 9/11. He also worked with the late George Levenson of Informed Democracy on three projects: a solo guitar soundtrack for Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and soundtracks of piano, guitar, and harmonica solos for Pumpkin Circle and Bread Comes to Life. In 1984 he did the solo piano soundtrack for the children's story The Velveteen Rabbit for Rabbit Ears Productions.

His next recording, to be released soon, is A Change Is Gonna Come--A Change Benefit.

Winston is presently concentrating mainly on live performances, and most of the time he is touring and playing solo piano concerts, solo guitar concerts, solo harmonica concerts, and solo piano dances (with R&B and slow dance songs).

He is studying the playing of the great New Orleans pianists Henry Butler, James Booker, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, and Jon Cleary, and working on interpreting pieces on solo piano by his favorite composers, including Guaraldi, Professor Longhair, the Doors, Frank Zappa, Randy Newman, Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, Laura Nyro, Al Kooper, Dr. John, Henry Butler, James Booker, Jon Cleary, Ralph Towner, Arthur Lee, Milt Jackson, John Hartford, Oliver Schroer, Taj Mahal, Philip Aaberg, and others.

Additionally, Winston is working on solo guitar and recording the masters of Hawaiian slack-key guitar (named for the beautiful solo finger-style guitar tradition unique to Hawaii) for an extensive series of albums for Dancing Cat Records. He is also recording his main inspirations for his harmonica playing: Sam Hinton, Rick Epping, and Curt Bouterse.

Winston plays Steinway pianos.