In 2016, I heard a most unusual voice and a most unusual sound. That voice and sound came from David Ackles.
The first David Ackles song I ever heard was his magnum opus "Montana Song", a 10-minute elegy on an American West lost in form but found in spirit.
It took several listens to attain a full appreciation of what I was hearing but it was well worth my time:
Through the dust of summer noons
Over grass long dying
To read the stone and lumber runes
Where my past was lying
High among hillsides and windmill bones
Soft among oak trees and chimney stones
Blew the wind that I came looking for
I came to hear "Montana Song" on Google Play Music which was on my then new T-Mobile phone. A couple of other Ackles songs would follow - "Love's Enough" and "One Night Stand". All three of these songs appeared on Ackles' third album American Gothic which was produced by Bernie Taupin, the longtime songwriting partner of Elton John.
But it wasn't until last year that I fully immersed myself into Ackles' music listening to all four of his albums - David Ackles (1968) Subway to the Country (1969) American Gothic (1972) and Five and Dime (1973) while at work. I played Ackles' music with such frequency that my two co-workers, Scott and John, have become equally fervent in their enthusiasm for Ackles. Earlier this year, Scott alerted me to a book about Ackles written by Mark Brend titled Down River: In Search of David Ackles published by Jawbone Press.
Brend discovered the music of David Ackles 40 years ago after purchasing a copy of his eponymous debut album in a second-hand record store in North London:
When I got the album home, I sat down and listened to both sides straight through, the way you listened to records in those days. I have listened to it straight through many times since. I loved it then and I still do. It is the soundtrack to my personal mythology of our months in that bare flat in Highgate. Matt and Geoff loved it, too. I recall Matt taping it and rewinding the cassette to play 'His Name is Andrew' over and over again, working out the chord changes.
Brend had Matt and Geoff. I have Scott and John. Scott often harmonizes with Ackles while John envisions Ackles' music being brought to the Broadway stage. David Ackles is unlike anyone either of them have heard:
I was right in a sense with my singer-songwriter hunch. Ackles was a member of Elektra's stable of literate, serious, intense singer-songwriters - alongside (Tim) Buckley, Fred Neil, David Blue, Tom Rush, and more. Yet he was different. For a start, he was a piano player, not an acoustic guitar picker. And he didn't seem to have folkie roots in the way the others did. Even on his debut, the most conventional of his albums, he sounded like a man apart.
Ackles also possessed hints of Randy Newman in his piano playing and songwriting (especially on "Billy Whitecloud" from American Gothic) and Scott Walker in his vocal delivery. But from my ears, the songwriter Ackles most closely resembles is Harry Chapin who also spent most of his recording career with Elektra. Brend mentions Chapin in passing noting the two men were friendly with one another.
In this sense, I think Ackles is more of a folk musician than Brend might suspect. While it is true Ackles was more at home in musical theatre than in folk music clubs and had no ambitions to record songs, he and Chapin had a similar story song approach driven by forlorn characters with nowhere to go while managing not to cast judgment on their words and deeds. Ackles "Road to Cairo" and Chapin's "Taxi" could be viewed as companion pieces from the point of view of the passenger and the driver, respectively. Their story songs are sung with clear, deep yet unconventional voices evoking powerful visual imagery. Ackles honed his story telling skills in music theatre while Chapin did it with documentary film earning an Oscar nomination for the 1968 film Legendary Champions.
The one area where Ackles and Chapin diverge is performing on stage. During his lifetime, Chapin regularly performed 200 shows a year half of which were benefits whereas Ackles was less confident being the center of attention despite his stage background.
Ackles would be dropped by Elektra Records in a mutual agreement with founder Jac Holzman following disappointing sales of American Gothic despite considerable resources being deployed to promote the album. Five and Dime was released on Columbia Records after the label signed him at the behest of Clive Davis. Unfortunately, Davis was abruptly fired as the album was to be released leaving it in limbo. Ackles would never record again.
However, Ackles life moved on. He continued to write songs and returned to musical theatre through teaching positions at USC while earning a living as a fundraiser. In the last years of his life, Ackles devoted much of time to working on two musicals - Prince Jack and Sister Aimee. The former was an adaptation of the 19th Century children's story The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak by Dinah Maria Craik while the latter was an original story about the downfall and reemergence of Canadian born American evangelist Sister Aimee McPherson.
Neither play would see the light of day although Sister Aimee was workshopped on several occasions during the 1990s. Sadly, Ackles battled cancer and would succumb to the disease on March 2, 1999, at the age of 62. Remarkably, many who knew Ackles did not learn of his recording career until his funeral.
In the latter part of Down River: In Search of David Ackles, Brend wonders if Ackles will ever attain the cult status of someone like Nick Drake or Connie Converse. He makes the case that cult status is built on a tragic mythology (i.e. Drake's depression and mental illness, Converse's disappearance) and that the music itself seldom lives up to the myth. In Ackles' case, Brend argues that there is no tragic mythology. Although Ackles was seriously injured in a car accident in 1981 which did inhibit him from playing the piano for prolonged periods, he lived a relatively normal life.
I would make the case that Ackles' musical career was more unlucky than tragic. What if Columbia hadn't terminated Clive Davis? Would Ackles have been given the opportunity to record more albums with the label and with it the chance to attain commercial success? Of course, one can never know the answer to that question although I suspect Brend would argue the idiosyncratic nature of Ackles' music would preclude him from commercial success. With regard to American Gothic, Brend argues that the music was too peculiar to live up to the assessment of critics who hailed as "album of the year" or "the Sgt. Pepper of folk" as characterized by Derek Jewell.
There is considerable merit to Brend's argument. However, I disagree with his assessment that American Gothic lacked obvious singles. While "Montana Song" or "Ballad of the Ship of State" would never be heard on America's Top 40, songs like "Love's Enough" or "Waiting for the Moving Van" were accessible and relatable enough to become sleeper hits.
Still, all in all, Mark Brend has done a remarkable service in bringing the work of David Ackles to light. With his discussion of unreleased material from Elektra Records, tapes of live performances and a handful of TV performances which haven't seen the light of day in more than half a century, my already whetted appetite is frothing at the mouth.
Of particular interest is Ackles appearance on the show One of a Kind which first aired in November 1973 on KCET, a PBS affiliate out of Los Angeles, to promote Five and Dime. Brend notes a copy of that performance exists at the Paley Center in New York City. While Brend has not viewed the performance, music critic Richie Unterberger did so on his behalf.
In which case, a visit to the Paley Center when I'm back in New York this November is on the order paper. For you see, the search for David Ackles has only just begun.
