What is Winterfold?

“He used to be a rock guy, all guitars and electric, and now he’s a jazz guy, all saxophones and acoustic.” Or so at least goes the rather simplistic shorthand for those who have been good enough to consider Bill’s recorded output since 1977.  While, for the musician, such distinctions may appear hopelessly old-fashioned, it is, as they say, the way the world works. Back here at the ranch, it seems to us the case that a number of listeners who had hitherto derived pleasure from the music of  Holdsworth, Stewart, Berlin, Moraz et al, were unintentionally left behind in the watershed year of 1987 with the arrival of  Earthworks, and musicians with less familiar names and smaller amplifiers, like Bates, Ballamy, Garland, and Hamilton. Quite simply, we lost those good listeners and they lost us, for no good reason anyone can think of, and here’s the way to reconnect.

WINTERFOLD RECORDS exists, in the first instance, to re-issue re-mastered and expanded versions of Bill’s first 7 CDs up to the 1987 watershed.

Winterfold Records and Summerfold Records serve as shop windows for each other. Those who enjoyed Bill’s work up to 1987, but got nervous at the word “jazz” ( a word that can make anyone nervous, believe me ) will get a free sampler of the delights to be found on Summerfold when they buy a Winterfold CD. Conversely, those who are happy with the acoustic stuff, and younger listeners who maybe unaware that Bill had a life before Earthworks, will, with any Summerfold purchase*, get an equally free sampler of the noisier existence he used to lead before 1987. So the fans of each label will get a look at the delights on the other side of the fence, which was never intentionally erected in the first place. Simple, no?