Michael Hedges; Guitarist for Windham Hill Label

Michael Hedges, an acoustic guitarist and composer known for his unusual two-handed picking style, has died in an automobile crash. He was 43.

Hedges died in a one-car crash on California 128 in rural Mendocino County, about 100 miles northwest of San Francisco, California Highway Patrol Officer Bob Burke said. A work crew discovered the guitarist’s body in his wrecked 1986 BMW Tuesday morning.

Burke said it appeared that Hedges’ car had skidded off a curve and down a steep embankment a few days earlier.

Known for innovations such as simultaneously picking both ends of the guitar, the Grammy nominee described his own music as “heavy mental,” “acoustic thrash” and “new edge.”

In the early 1980s, he helped establish the Windham Hill label with his albums “Breakfast in the Field” (1983) and “Aerial Boundaries” (1984). He also collaborated with such musicians as bassist Michael Manring, guitarist Dweezil Zappa and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

“He was a great friend and one of the most brilliant musicians in America,” David Crosby said Wednesday from his Southern California home.

A native of Enid, Okla., Hedges played piano, cello, clarinet and flute in his teens. He studied flute and classical guitar at Phillips University in Enid and the Interlochen Music Camp. Eventually Hedges earned a degree in composition from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He also studied electronic music at Stanford University, where he met Windham Hill co-founder and guitarist Will Ackerman.

In recent years, Hedges lived in Mendocino, recording in his Naked Ear Music studio. There, he incorporated vocals into albums such as “Taproot” (1990) and “The Road to Return” (1994), but had returned to instrumentals in his most recent album, “Oracle.”

When Hedges appeared at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles in late October as part of the “Guitar Summit” tour, Times reviewer Steve Hochman wrote: “Hedges was the star, with an unclassifiable amalgam of styles and eye-popping, ear-bending technique that even seeing isn’t believing. [Rory] Block introduced him as ‘the guitar Buddha,’ and his music is indeed meditative but very playful and rarely peaceful.”

Hedges performed regularly at venues throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles’ Universal Amphitheatre and the Roxy, Orange County’s Coach House and San Diego’s Humphrey’s.

After an appearance at the Roxy in 1987, Times reviewer Don Heckman called Hedges “a brilliant acoustic guitarist” and could find nothing to criticize but possible lack of focus. “Hedges does so many things so well,” Heckman wrote, “that his talent too often seems to be flying in all directions.”

Hedges is survived by his mother, Ruth Ipsen, of Fresno; sister Carol Hedges of San Francisco; two brothers, Craig of Los Angeles and Brendan of Madera; and two sons from a former marriage.

The family has requested that memorial donations be made to the Children of Michael Hedges Fund, Bank of America, 228 N. Main St., Fort Bragg, Calif. 95437.