Bill Connors

During his 1973-1974 tenure with Chick Corea's Return to Forever, Bill Connors reached his highest level of visibility by contributing to the groundbreaking album Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy. Although his subsequent departure from the band to prioritize acoustic guitar proved creatively rewarding, the move eliminated any realistic path to mainstream commercial recognition. Before that period he had performed on electric guitar alongside Mike Nock and Steve Swallow in San Francisco, yet after 1974 his recorded work centered almost exclusively on acoustic playing, most notably through a sequence of atmospheric ECM releases in the 1970s that included collaborations with Jan Garbarek. In the mid-'80s his Pathfinder sessions adopted a stronger rock direction, but those projects failed to register widely despite the evident skill they displayed.