Everybody has a story
Everybody has a tale to tell
Lies spoken, hearts broken
Lost in Hell
All you have to do is listen
Six of the ten songs Ackles performed on this evening were from Five & Dime which was released only a month before the program aired. Unfortunately for Ackles, this was extent of the album's promotion as Clive Davis was abruptly dismissed from Columbia Records the same month as its release.
If Ackles was troubled by any of the developments at Columbia, he did not show it during this performance. Following "Everyone Has a Story", Ackles played two more cuts from Five & Dime - "I've Been Loved" and "Berry Tree".
"I've Been Loved" is a song about aging and the sadness which comes with it. Yet this sadness is accompanied by acceptance on the strength of past memories of being loved.
And it all seems so lonely
You just wanna cry
It's so lonely
You wanna ask 'Why
Does she go on?
How can she survive?'
And she'll tell you:
'I've been loved, so I know I'm alive
I've been loved alive.'
There's a wooden cross, standing on a hillside
Where it will stand for us all to see
It can show us love, it can feed us through a lifetime
And the fruit it gives, it has given free
And I thank the Lord for the world I see
For loving you and living free and thee
And the berry tree
Ackles then took a moment to banter with the audience lamenting there wasn't a space on the piano to properly tack his setlist. Once everything was in order, Ackles then sang "Subway to the Country", the title track of his sophomore album released on Elektra Records in 1971. Later covered by Harry Belafonte, Ackles makes it clear he is not fond of New York City.
New York City is a town too big for children
Where there's so much dirt they think that snow is grey
And you have to watch their childhood waste away
Hey, we got to find a subway to the country, or anywhere
Ackles would return to Five & Dime with "Jenna Saves", an energetic song about a woman who seeks only material wealth while holding all else in contempt as she lives in a world where everyone is seeking her riches.
When Jenna Pearl was old, her favorite friends were
Buckets of gold, barrels of gold, all of her gold
Her doctor told her, 'You won't last
And everyone goes, and everyone knows you're going fastWhy don't you give it all to charity
Except a little bag for me
You'll never live to spend it anyway
So don't forget the AMA
When Ackles sang those lyrics, I could see at least one woman in the audience laugh in amusement and share her amusement with another woman sitting to her right. Ackles followed "Jenna Saves" with "Laissez Faire", a brief ditty which appeared on his eponymous 1968 debut album about a cynical poor drunk who didn't trust politicians who promised a new deal or to share the wealth.
Sure I've heard what they're saying
Share the wealth
Ah that's what they're saying
But I don't believe it
The government takes all the cash
And eats it or something
So the rich get richer
And the poor get nothing
So leave me my
Money for cigarettes
Pennies for wine
Don't let them take that away bud
It's all I have to call mine
Listen buddy that s all I have to call mine
But buddy it's just enough to call mine
Following these two songs, Ackles told the audience, "Enough with the levity." He then spoke about an experience he had performing in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; a town which he described as being afflicted with "terminal seriousness." Ackles noted that when he played some lighter fare in Bryn Mawr, an audience member shouted, "We came here to be depressed!!!"
After Ackles told this audience, "Let me depress you with a thought," he launched into the most somber song on Five & Dime - "Aberfan". If you live on the other side of the Atlantic there's a good chance you are familiar with the Aberfan coal mining disaster which took place in the Welsh village on October 21, 1966, when a spoil tip collapsed due to heavy rain and descended upon the village killing 144 people, most of them children attending a local school. It is the worst mining disaster in the history of the U.K.
The call for silence hushed the crowd
Who searched the clouds for answers
While they listened for life and held their breath
The sound of death held the dancers
As the rain fell in the morning on Aberfan
But no one told the children, but no one told the children
And it's always the children
Ackles would return to lighter fare with "Oh, California!" from his 1972 album American Gothic. In introducing "Oh, California!", Ackles remarked, "Here's an easy way to learn piano by correspondence in only six weeks!!!"
Then I can warn yaWere all gonna live in California!Wherever we live it's California!Where the road to tomorrow is a dead end doubtIf we won't change the route.Let's all be happyUntil the sun goes out
OK, perhaps it isn't such light fare. But with the ragtime style of piano, "Oh, California!" can easily be interpreted as escapism even if this is exactly what Ackles wanted to avoid. It is worth noting that in this performance, Ackles replaced a lyric about McDonald's with a reference to then LA Mayor Sam Yorty.
As mentioned at the outset of this dispatch, Ackles then concluded the proceedings with "Be My Friend" which also concludes his eponymous debut album lamenting the short half hour and how life is absurd. Perhaps Ackles saw fit to invoke absurdity as he was only able to sing the first two verses of the song and then had to omit the last verse in favor of a long piano outro as the credits rolled over before concluding with the early 1970s PBS call signal. While it is always neat to relive those pleasant childhood sounds, let me close with the verse from "Be My Friend" which Ackles did not sing that night.
This life may not bring much of comfort to you
This world may lose its touch of kindness too
And who's to blame
Why can't you see
Only you and me
So if I may
I'd like to say
Be my friend
In describing this concert footage in Down River: In Search of David Ackles, Mark Brend noted that he had not viewed the concert, but that music critic Richie Unterberger had done so on his behalf. It occurs to me that it is quite possible that Richie Unterberger and I are the only two people in the world who have seen this concert footage in the past 50 years. This is a shame. The music of David Ackles ought to be better known to the world.
But in order for that to be possible somebody has let people know the world there was once a David Ackles who made his own unique brand of music. Perhaps I have to be one of those somebodies. If I can play any role in gaining broader appreciation of David Ackles' music, then I can say that I have succeeded in bringing the world a small measure of comfort and kindness.
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