August 9, 2025 • 31 mins
In 1972, David Ackles’s third album, American Gothic, was released. The music press declared it the album of the year. Melody Maker called it a classic. The Sunday Times described it as "the Sgt. Pepper of folk", suggesting that it heralded a whole new direction in music. After a fourth and final album in 1973 Ackles vanished. What became of David Ackles? Find out in this episode with author Mark Brend.
Purchase a copy of Down River: In Search Of David Ackles
Follow Mark Brend on Bluesky
Find out more about Mark Brend and Down River at Jawbone Press
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on this episode of Booked on Rock. In
nineteen seventy two, David Ackles' third album, American Gothic, was released.
The Music Press declared it the album of the year.
Melody Maker called it a classic. The Sunday Times described
it as the Sergeant Pepper of folk, suggesting that it
heralded a whole new direction in music. After a fourth
and final album in nineteen seventy three, Ackles vanished. What
(00:23):
became of David Ackles find out next with author Mark Brend,
who We're totally bummed rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I mean, I'll leave you you're reading. Little Hands says
it's time to rock and roll, Rock, roll up.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I totally booked. Welcome everybody back to Booked on Rock,
the podcast for those about to read and rock. A'm
Eric Senich. Mark Brand is our guest. He's the author
of Down River in Search of David Ackles. Mark, Welcome
to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
David Ackles an artist who people either know love, including
fellow musicians Film Collins and Milton John and Elvis Carstell,
or they don't know him at all. There's no middle ground.
As you say in the book, how did you discover David.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Ackles well by chance a long time ago, forty years ago,
I walked into a shop and saw an album that
I liked the look of, like the sleeve, and I
didn't know who David Ackles was. But the record was
from nineteen six Day. It was on Electra and it
was his debut album, and I knew that Elektra Records
(01:28):
was a good bet, and I nineteen six Day it
was a period I was interested in, So I bought
the records speculatively and loved it, absolutely loved it, and
then afterwards managed to get a hold of his other
three albums.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Talk about the process of compiling research material for this book.
You do give a lot of credit to Janice Vogel
Acles that was David's wife, for her contributions and how
else did you manage to put together this story because
it was challenging at times?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, it was. I mean, you're talking about somebody who
died in nineteen ninety nine and who was working in
the sixties and early seventies as a recording artists. So
many of his contemporaries aren't around anymore, and those that
are not surprisingly can't necessarily remember details of events from
(02:16):
fifty five years ago or more. I spoke quite a lot,
as you say, with Janis, we've been speaking over many years,
also with some close friends of David and some colleagues
who work with him in the studio, including a guy
called Douglas Graham who co produced David's fourth album, Bernie
(02:40):
Taupin who produced David's third album. So I did manage
to speak to quite a few people, but also an
awful lot of research into archives so musicians union archives
to get session records, and lots of lots of press cuttings.
David Ackle's got a lot of press interest at the time.
(03:01):
Although he didn't sell many records, there are an awful
lot of interviews with him where you hear him talking
about his career in real time and that they were
very insightful to me. But of course, and I did
also briefly speak have brief contact with David himself in
the last year of his life. We spoke on the
phone and exchanged emails.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Let's get into Eckles' story now. He had a strict
Protestant upbringing, spent time as a child actor. In fact,
he said that the family moved to California was because
of his acting career. Where and when was he born?
What were his childhood years like?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
He was born in the late thirties in Rock Island,
but moved to the family moved to California when he
was probably about eight or nine. I think he had
an older sister and then much later on a younger
sister and as far as I can judge, a close
and happy family life. He was very His mother English
(04:01):
but had moved. She had emigrated to America as a
child with her family, and on her side of the
family there were a lot of people who were professional
music hall performers. So these were people who were on
the stage in England in the late Victorian years and
early twentieth century doing light entertainment, doing sketches, song and
(04:25):
dance routines, that sort of thing. And David's mum, who
was called Queenie, she encouraged David and his sister, in
particular his older sister, to follow that family line, and
so David, from the age of four or five was
in a song and dance duo with his sister. They
(04:48):
were called the Apples Twins, but they weren't twins, and
it was through that that David got recognized by a
guy who was working in Hollywood producing a series of
B movies, and David got signed up to play a
supporting role in those films, which are about Rusty the Dog,
(05:09):
and there were I think seven or eight of those films.
David was in six of them.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It was a kind of like a Lassie spin off.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Absolutely. Yeah. The films are about an hour long, and
Rusty normally gets involved in some kind of scrapes and dramas,
and he's owned by a boy who has a little
group of friends with him, and David was one of
the group of friends in the Rusty films.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There was an interview acles gave in eighteen sixty eight
that led to some confusion enduring confusion as you read
it in the book. The article stated that he had
served jail time before finding God.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yes, what David later said about that, He explained another
interview that the interview with the Los Angeles Times journalist
was somebody who he knew, an old friend, and as
far as David was concerned, they were joking and David
talked about, Oh, yes, I've been to six prisons or
(06:08):
something like that. What he was actually talking about was
singing in a choir that was touring prisons and performing
to entertain the inmates. But the journalist got the wrong
end of the stick and thought that David himself had
served time in those prisons. And in fact, when David died,
the Los Angeles Times published a short obituary which referenced
(06:33):
that again referenced the same mistake, and David's surviving sister
had to write in and correct them, and her letter
was published the following week.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Up until the mid fifties, he was more actor and
the answer than musician. It would be a while still
before his debut album was recorded. He actually turned thirty
in February of nineteen sixty seven when his music career starts,
and as you're right, he was set for a very
low key creative life. There's almost nothing to suggest though,
that before the year was out he would be recording
(07:02):
his debut album for the Hippiest of Us record labels.
Tell us about the unexpected and unstoughtful opportunity that led
him to recording his debut. He was a musician at
that point. He was writing music, but he hadn't intended
to record his own album.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's right. Yeah, he was writing and taking part in
musical theater productions. That was his big interest. He'd been
studied at the University of Southern California and a guy
called David Andelay was a fellow student there, and David
Ackles and David Andelay were in a couple of college
(07:39):
productions together and they lost touch, but then they ran
into each other in nineteen sixty seven in the summer,
and David Andelay had just joined Elektra as an A
and R man, and David Ackles said, I've got some songs,
can I play them to you? And that led to
him being signed to Elektra. Really, it might not have
(08:02):
happened for him at all if it hadn't been for
that chance meeting. But he was initially signed as a
songwriter and recorded some demos with Elektra. But Jack Holtzman,
who had formed the company was still running it at
that point, said that David should make it his own album,
and so I think he signed in late sixty seven,
(08:23):
and by early sixty eight he was doing the first
sessions for his album.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Did you write in the book about the problem finding
suitable venues for him to play in. He wasn't a
rock musician, so rock clubs and supporting slots with rock
bands tended to go badly. How much of that do
you feel affected the success of that first album and
Nackles overall success with audiences.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It possibly did. It's a bit. I've heard tapes of
him playing live, and his playing and singing were excellent,
there's no doubt about it. But there was something about
his music that didn't have an natural home live, and
so just a guy playing a piano supporting a rock
band wasn't really going to work. He tended to play
(09:09):
and folk clubs quite a bit, and was quite often
described as a folk artist, but he obviously isn't a
folk artist, and so I think he probably struggled to
find a natural home playing live. He also said several
times that he didn't want to go out on endless tours.
He didn't like that, and what he tended to do
(09:34):
was to go to small clubs and play residencies, like
four or five nights over a long weekend or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That would have worked more so maybe later in his career,
kind of like what Billy Joel does now, But at
that time you had to go out there on the
road and really plug it.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, I mean he I think, yeah, he wasn't. He
wasn't a big stage performer. It's interesting because he performed
a lot in front of the camera and on the
age in theater productions. But it seems to be that
when he was there on his own, singing his songs,
that he actually was very nervous. And his wife Janie
(10:13):
said later that, you know, he was often physically ill
before going on. You can't always tell that from tapes
of him playing live, but there are a few reviews
where the writer comments that he seemed nervous.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
He was more comfortable as part of an ensemble. But
it's interesting that you have people like Elton John and
Bernie Taupin who said they felt that they should have
been opening for David, but instead he was opening for
Elton at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. In fact, he
was part of that famous residency there in August of
nineteen seventy for Elton. But Elten was a huge fan,
(10:52):
and so was Bernie. But yeah, they thought this guy
should be the headliner, not us.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, David. When his first album was released in nineteen
sixty eight, a lecture brought him over to Europe for
several months, and he was in London for quite a
few weeks, was on TV, did a radio session, and
was in the press quite a bit. And he didn't
(11:19):
so many records, but he got quite a bit of attention.
There are quite a few cover versions of his songs,
and it was at that time that Elton John and
Bernie Thorpin picked up on him. See he was known
amongst musicians and serious music fans in England at that
time and very highly regarded. But unusually, strangely, he wasn't
(11:43):
He didn't quite pick up such an audience in America. Really,
he didn't get so much notice until his third album,
American Gothic.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
That second album, nineteen sixty nine, subway to the country
again positive critical review but did not succeed commercially. He
moved to England to write and arrange his third album,
American Gothic. This is produced by Bernie Taupin. It's released
to multiple multiple positive reviews, hailing at the album of
the year, some cases, possibly the greatest record ever made.
(12:13):
Acles felt uncomfortable with that kind of critical reception. He
told the reporter quote, it's only an album, you know.
He downplayed it. Why was he so ambivalent. You think
was it too much pressure on him?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think it probably did create pressure on him. But
also what happened was that you've got this strange thing
if you line up all the reviews the album, because
the album first started to get reviewed several months before
it was released, and it was still being reviewed several
months after, so you have a period of about six
months where it was getting reviewed. And initially the reviews
(12:46):
were ecstatic. People were, as you say, claiming it was
one of the greatest records ever made. But a little
bit later on you started to get a few commentators saying, well,
I don't quite see this. It's kind of good, but
it's what's all the fuss about. And I think David
(13:07):
he commented at one point that people were starting to
review the initial reviews if you see what I mean,
but that they weren't responding to the music. They were
responding to those initial responses to the album, and so
that all got a bit confused.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Briti Tapen called the album a difficult sell, didn't fit
in with popular music at the time. Do you agree.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I do. Yeah, it's it's very a very unusual record
and most people, well I said, most people lots of
people read about it and come to the album with
no context and are a little puzzled by it initially
and have to work at it. I think you understand
it more if you've heard the first two albums and
you kind of break yourself in gently. It didn't have
(13:54):
obvious singles on it. It was hard to place it
in any kind of context of the time. David Ackles
was often groups with the singer songwriter movement, but he
really was nothing like somebody like Jackson Brown or James Taylor,
for example.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
For those listening, hopefully you go and look for the
music of David Ackles on Spotify. It's there YouTube. But
how would you best describe his sound. It's hard to
It's hard to compare him with anybody. I guess you
could say he's in that genre with an Elton John
or James Taylor, but he had his own style. Yeah,
(14:33):
I mean because of his theatric background.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I think, yeah, there's a strong musical theater influence. A
lot of the songs are very intense and quite melodramatic.
He's a piano playing singer songwriter, not a guitar player,
so that sets him aside for a lot of people.
I think the main thing that I always think about
(14:56):
him is that he's a storyteller. The songs a like
little one act plays or short stories. They're very character driven.
They're often sung in the first person, but that doesn't
mean they're autobiographical. What he tended to do and did
very cleverly, was he would approach an issue, sometimes quite
(15:17):
a different difficult issue, like divorce or racism or something
like that, but not approach it as a social issue.
He'd approach he'd approach it through the eyes of one
or two characters and create a little story to explore the.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Issue, eventually comparing the album to Sergeant Pepper saying it's
the greatest album ever by critics that would batfire on apples, right.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I think it did, Yeah, I mean Elektra not so that.
There were a couple of early reviews, one in Los
Angeles Free Press and one in The Sunday Times in Britain,
which made though pretty much the same claims that it
was the Pepper of folk and either the greatest album
ever made or the second greatest album ever made, and
(16:03):
Elektra not surprisingly jumped on those claims and posted advertised
the album with quotes from those reviews, and there are
lots of subsequent reviews which were equally positive. But I
think in the end it did backfire a bit because
a lot of people when they bought the record were
(16:24):
a bit puzzled by it and couldn't quite couldn't quite see,
couldn't quite match up what they were hearing with the claims.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Bookdown Rock podcast will be back after this.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Patience, patience, little deer. Everything has to be in order.
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(17:03):
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to the show. Mark Brenn is the author of down
(17:23):
River in search of David Ackles. The book is out now.
Ackles and Electra boss Jack Holtzman agree that it's time
for him to Apples to leave the label, and Clive
Davis steps in to sign Ackles to Columbia. Okay, so
great news. Maybe this is where we see David Ackles
get the notoriety he so deserves. Not so what happens next?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Well, with that deal, Clive was apparently a big fan
of David's and was keen to sign him, but there
wasn't a lot of money in the deal, so David
decided to largely record the album at home on a
He had a fortress set up a little home studio,
had the musicians in his front room, and then took
(18:06):
the tapes into a slightly bigger studio to do a
few overdubs and mix the album. So it was a
low budget thing, but that's what he wanted to do.
After American Gothic, which was a really big production, orchestra,
all of this type of thing, he wanted something smaller
and more intimate. When they were getting towards the end
(18:26):
of the album the recording process, David heard that Clive
Davis had been sacked from Columbia, and David didn't know
a soul at Columbia apart from Clive Davis, and so
it was completely adrift there. And at the same time,
by very unfortunate coincidence, David's manager Upton left, He just
(18:50):
moved on and that was the end of that relationship.
So David found himself with an album that was just finished,
but no support in the record company manager to vouch
for him, and Columbia put the album out in America
only not in the UK, where he had more of
a following, and very much the impression that they put
(19:13):
it out because they were contractually obliged to, but there
was very little promotion. It was a very low key
thing and the album vanished really quite quickly, and that
was the end of his career. He never made another record.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, and his album five and Die in eighteen seventy three,
that would be his last. He leaves Columbia, never makes
another record, although that wasn't his plan. He figured he'd
come back at some point, but that never happened. But
he did have a publishing contract with Warner Brothers. This
is interesting, So he was with Columbia, but he was
also with Warner Brothers under contract with them. What was
(19:49):
he doing for them? How did that all work?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's a bit difficult to unpick that, and I'm not
sure I fully understand all the details. But when he
left Columbia, his pub songwriting publishing probably was he was
still contracted to Warners and so what. For some time
he tried to make it as a songwriter for other artists,
which was actually closer to his original intention back in
(20:14):
nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, and he wrote songs, went
to regular Warners songwriter meetings, and pitched songs to other artists,
but none of them were picked up. And after a
while he just realized it was going nowhere and gave
up on that.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And he himself admitted he he was not the type
of person who was determined to find another label. He
felt like it maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
After a while, Janis talks about how he just wasn't
that type of guy who would work the room, didn't
have that aggressive attitude. Could he have found another label
in your opinion, if he himself was a little more aggressive,
(20:52):
or maybe had somebody with him that could be more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I'm sure it would it was possible. Yeah, he he
was very hard to place musically, and that always would
have been a challenge because you couldn't fit him neatly
into any genre. But the talent is so obvious and
so abundant. I feel that he could have continued a
career if he'd had somebody supporting him. I think the
(21:19):
loss of the manager was a disaster really for David.
And as you say, as a personality himself, he wasn't
that he wasn't going to run the business side of
things as well as be the writer and the performer.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
He was more of a passive type, which is a
lot of times you need that manager on your side.
I was just watching the Billy Joel documentary and his wife,
his first wife, was that type of person that really
benefited his career because she could do the things that
he just wasn't comfortable doing.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean, I don't get the impression that David
Eckles was passive. I don't he by all accounts that
kind of outward going, upbeat, optimistic sort of guy. But
you know, finding your way in the music business in
the world of major record labels then was very hard,
(22:16):
I'm sure, and he was on his own. He just
didn't have any support.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
What was the rest of the seventies like for David,
because one person talks about visiting him at his house.
At that time David was working at USC, but also
he was weaving rugs.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, that was just a remark that somebody made David.
He did lots of things after his recording career ended.
He did quite a lot of teaching at USC. He
also spent some time writing film and television scripts with
Douglas Graham, who was the guy who co produced five
(22:51):
and dime, and they got a TV movie produced that
was first shown I think in nineteen eighty or eighty one.
Had some success there. But he had a varied working life.
But what he didn't give up creatively, what he wanted
to do was write musical theater pieces. And he wrote
(23:12):
at least two fully realized musical theater productions, with each
with twenty or thirty songs and a full script, and
he recorded demos for them, and he I mean he
was working on one of those within two years of
his recording career ending, but sadly he never got full
productions of them. One of them had had some workshop productions,
(23:36):
but didn't quite go into full production.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Was that Sister Amy.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Sister Amy had the workshop production. Yeah, and there was
one before that which went under various titles, but was again,
you know, fully developed, and I've heard some of the
songs from it, and it was clear that his songwriting
gift didn't desert him at all.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Almost died in a car accident in nineteen eighty one.
What happened.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
He was driving home with his young son in the
car and somebody on came around the corner on the
wrong side of the road and crashed into him. And
I think that driver was under the influence and didn't
have insurance and that type of thing. David was very
seriously injured and had to have several operations and was
(24:24):
using a wheelchair for some time afterwards, but did recover,
although Janis has said that she thinks he had discomfort
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Bookdown Rock podcast will be back after this hadgona d
you leave town. Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown
rock dot com. There you can find all the back
episodes of the show. I hit this episode in video
and audio links to all of the platforms where he
can listen to the podcast. Plus all the social media
(24:56):
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Pick up some book down Rock merch. It's all at
booked on rock dot com. Going back to Sister Amy, Now,
(25:17):
he worked on that project throughout the eighties and nineties.
What was it about? What was the main character? What
was it about that main character that appealed to David?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
So Sister Amy is about Amy McPherson, who was a
what would you call her a celebrity evangelist in America
in the from the twenties through to the forties. And
she was a very flamboyant, high profile person, had her
own radio station, built a huge church with I think
(25:52):
an auditorium for five thousand people, and that sort of thing.
She was quite controversial. Some people thought she was a
bit of a fraud. But there was an order episode
in her life where she went missing for several weeks
and people wondered whether she was dead, and then she
re emerged, turned up at a hospital in a rather
(26:13):
confused state and said she'd been kidnapped and had been
held for several weeks and have managed to escape, and
some people fatly didn't believe that. There was a big
media scandal about it, and lots of claims and counterclaims that,
some of the claims being that she faked her own
kidnapping to run off with her sound engineer. I think
(26:37):
it was anyway, David was fascinated by her because she
was obviously a conflicted person, somebody of faith but who
also struggled with things of the world if you like.
And sister Amy is really about focuses on that kidnapping
(27:00):
if it was a kidnapping, and in fact, in David's play,
he is very much comes down on the side of
it being a ruse by Amy Macpherson to escape the
pressure and run off with this man.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And David was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early nineties.
He did beat it at first, Sadly, he succumbed to
cancer in nineteen ninety nine. Going back to you had
mentioned you had spoken to him in the last few
years of his life and he seemed to be happy.
He was writing music. He hit the gym in the
morning write music. Play piano, go for hikes, seemed to
(27:36):
be in a really good place. What do you recall
about those conversations with him?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, he his three lecture albums were reissued in the
UK in the early nineties, and he did a few
where are they now? Whatever happened to interviews with the
UK music press, and I did one of those a
little bit later on. He was very cheerful and buoyant
and positive and good humored, and I thought, quite genuinely,
(28:06):
wasn't at all bitter or disappointed about that the end
of his music career. I think he had some disappointments
at the time, but he moved on from it. I mean,
I've spoken to people whose careers have come to an
end and they've seemed to harbor a resentment forever, more
(28:28):
like they didn't get their due. I didn't pick that
up at all with him, and everyone else I know
who spoke to him says the same thing. He was
grateful to be able to make the records. He thinks
they thought they were good, but it came to an
end and he moved on to other things and had
a good life.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You say at the end of the book that there
are no definitive answers as to why David Ackles his
music underachieved commercially when it was released and why it
hasn't gained called status since his death. But two things
keep coming back. One is about how the music business
is set up. The other has to do with Apple's music.
Can you expand on that in your observation on the
Lost Genius.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think it's something that's a perpetually engaging story. I
think of the idea of rediscovering somebody and isn't he great?
And it's not just in music. It happens in all
sorts of fields. But you see, it's a lot in music. Somebody,
(29:26):
somebody who has underachieved or been forgotten in their life.
After they've gone, or perhaps when they're still alive, but
they've been in obscurity for a long time, they're suddenly recognized.
And this idea of discovering something that's hidden treasure, I
think is very appealing. But very often, I think in
(29:49):
the music business that narrative is very entwined with tragedy,
So it seems to be a particularly potent if if
the person has had some kind of tragic end, you know,
there's there's an early death, mental illness, something very dramatic
(30:09):
happening to them, and and David. I think David Ackles
that doesn't fit neatly into that that at all, because
although there were challenges and difficulties in his life, as
there are in everybody's, he he wasn't a tragic figure
at all. He was a popular, happy man and and
(30:30):
so he doesn't quite fit the story that so often
carries music from the pass back to new audiences.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Downriver in Search of David Ackles is out now. You
can find it wherever books are sold. Look forward at
your nearest bookstore. Got a bookdown rock dot com to
find your nearest independent bookstore, and people can reach out
to you. Mark onlines. Is there anywhere where people can
connect with you.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I guess there is. Yeah. I don't have a website
or anything like that. I'm on Blue Sky and people
can always find me through the publisher's joel im Press.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Great. I will put the link up to the Blue
Sky page and also to job owned Press as well.
Mark Brand, Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Jeez, Eric, that's it. It's in the books.
Coming up on this episode of Booked on Rock. In
nineteen seventy two, David Ackles' third album, American Gothic, was released.
The Music Press declared it the album of the year.
Melody Maker called it a classic. The Sunday Times described
it as the Sergeant Pepper of folk, suggesting that it
heralded a whole new direction in music. After a fourth
and final album in nineteen seventy three, Ackles vanished. What
(00:23):
became of David Ackles find out next with author Mark Brend,
who We're totally bummed rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I mean, I'll leave you you're reading. Little Hands says
it's time to rock and roll, Rock, roll up.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I totally booked. Welcome everybody back to Booked on Rock,
the podcast for those about to read and rock. A'm
Eric Senich. Mark Brand is our guest. He's the author
of Down River in Search of David Ackles. Mark, Welcome
to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
David Ackles an artist who people either know love, including
fellow musicians Film Collins and Milton John and Elvis Carstell,
or they don't know him at all. There's no middle ground.
As you say in the book, how did you discover David.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Ackles well by chance a long time ago, forty years ago,
I walked into a shop and saw an album that
I liked the look of, like the sleeve, and I
didn't know who David Ackles was. But the record was
from nineteen six Day. It was on Electra and it
was his debut album, and I knew that Elektra Records
(01:28):
was a good bet, and I nineteen six Day it
was a period I was interested in, So I bought
the records speculatively and loved it, absolutely loved it, and
then afterwards managed to get a hold of his other
three albums.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Talk about the process of compiling research material for this book.
You do give a lot of credit to Janice Vogel
Acles that was David's wife, for her contributions and how
else did you manage to put together this story because
it was challenging at times?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, it was. I mean, you're talking about somebody who
died in nineteen ninety nine and who was working in
the sixties and early seventies as a recording artists. So
many of his contemporaries aren't around anymore, and those that
are not surprisingly can't necessarily remember details of events from
(02:16):
fifty five years ago or more. I spoke quite a lot,
as you say, with Janis, we've been speaking over many years,
also with some close friends of David and some colleagues
who work with him in the studio, including a guy
called Douglas Graham who co produced David's fourth album, Bernie
(02:40):
Taupin who produced David's third album. So I did manage
to speak to quite a few people, but also an
awful lot of research into archives so musicians union archives
to get session records, and lots of lots of press cuttings.
David Ackle's got a lot of press interest at the time.
(03:01):
Although he didn't sell many records, there are an awful
lot of interviews with him where you hear him talking
about his career in real time and that they were
very insightful to me. But of course, and I did
also briefly speak have brief contact with David himself in
the last year of his life. We spoke on the
phone and exchanged emails.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Let's get into Eckles' story now. He had a strict
Protestant upbringing, spent time as a child actor. In fact,
he said that the family moved to California was because
of his acting career. Where and when was he born?
What were his childhood years like?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
He was born in the late thirties in Rock Island,
but moved to the family moved to California when he
was probably about eight or nine. I think he had
an older sister and then much later on a younger
sister and as far as I can judge, a close
and happy family life. He was very His mother English
(04:01):
but had moved. She had emigrated to America as a
child with her family, and on her side of the
family there were a lot of people who were professional
music hall performers. So these were people who were on
the stage in England in the late Victorian years and
early twentieth century doing light entertainment, doing sketches, song and
(04:25):
dance routines, that sort of thing. And David's mum, who
was called Queenie, she encouraged David and his sister, in
particular his older sister, to follow that family line, and
so David, from the age of four or five was
in a song and dance duo with his sister. They
(04:48):
were called the Apples Twins, but they weren't twins, and
it was through that that David got recognized by a
guy who was working in Hollywood producing a series of
B movies, and David got signed up to play a
supporting role in those films, which are about Rusty the Dog,
(05:09):
and there were I think seven or eight of those films.
David was in six of them.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It was a kind of like a Lassie spin off.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Absolutely. Yeah. The films are about an hour long, and
Rusty normally gets involved in some kind of scrapes and dramas,
and he's owned by a boy who has a little
group of friends with him, and David was one of
the group of friends in the Rusty films.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There was an interview acles gave in eighteen sixty eight
that led to some confusion enduring confusion as you read
it in the book. The article stated that he had
served jail time before finding God.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yes, what David later said about that, He explained another
interview that the interview with the Los Angeles Times journalist
was somebody who he knew, an old friend, and as
far as David was concerned, they were joking and David
talked about, Oh, yes, I've been to six prisons or
(06:08):
something like that. What he was actually talking about was
singing in a choir that was touring prisons and performing
to entertain the inmates. But the journalist got the wrong
end of the stick and thought that David himself had
served time in those prisons. And in fact, when David died,
the Los Angeles Times published a short obituary which referenced
(06:33):
that again referenced the same mistake, and David's surviving sister
had to write in and correct them, and her letter
was published the following week.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Up until the mid fifties, he was more actor and
the answer than musician. It would be a while still
before his debut album was recorded. He actually turned thirty
in February of nineteen sixty seven when his music career starts,
and as you're right, he was set for a very
low key creative life. There's almost nothing to suggest though,
that before the year was out he would be recording
(07:02):
his debut album for the Hippiest of Us record labels.
Tell us about the unexpected and unstoughtful opportunity that led
him to recording his debut. He was a musician at
that point. He was writing music, but he hadn't intended
to record his own album.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's right. Yeah, he was writing and taking part in
musical theater productions. That was his big interest. He'd been
studied at the University of Southern California and a guy
called David Andelay was a fellow student there, and David
Ackles and David Andelay were in a couple of college
(07:39):
productions together and they lost touch, but then they ran
into each other in nineteen sixty seven in the summer,
and David Andelay had just joined Elektra as an A
and R man, and David Ackles said, I've got some songs,
can I play them to you? And that led to
him being signed to Elektra. Really, it might not have
(08:02):
happened for him at all if it hadn't been for
that chance meeting. But he was initially signed as a
songwriter and recorded some demos with Elektra. But Jack Holtzman,
who had formed the company was still running it at
that point, said that David should make it his own album,
and so I think he signed in late sixty seven,
(08:23):
and by early sixty eight he was doing the first
sessions for his album.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Did you write in the book about the problem finding
suitable venues for him to play in. He wasn't a
rock musician, so rock clubs and supporting slots with rock
bands tended to go badly. How much of that do
you feel affected the success of that first album and
Nackles overall success with audiences.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It possibly did. It's a bit. I've heard tapes of
him playing live, and his playing and singing were excellent,
there's no doubt about it. But there was something about
his music that didn't have an natural home live, and
so just a guy playing a piano supporting a rock
band wasn't really going to work. He tended to play
(09:09):
and folk clubs quite a bit, and was quite often
described as a folk artist, but he obviously isn't a
folk artist, and so I think he probably struggled to
find a natural home playing live. He also said several
times that he didn't want to go out on endless tours.
He didn't like that, and what he tended to do
(09:34):
was to go to small clubs and play residencies, like
four or five nights over a long weekend or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That would have worked more so maybe later in his career,
kind of like what Billy Joel does now, But at
that time you had to go out there on the
road and really plug it.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, I mean he I think, yeah, he wasn't. He
wasn't a big stage performer. It's interesting because he performed
a lot in front of the camera and on the
age in theater productions. But it seems to be that
when he was there on his own, singing his songs,
that he actually was very nervous. And his wife Janie
(10:13):
said later that, you know, he was often physically ill
before going on. You can't always tell that from tapes
of him playing live, but there are a few reviews
where the writer comments that he seemed nervous.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
He was more comfortable as part of an ensemble. But
it's interesting that you have people like Elton John and
Bernie Taupin who said they felt that they should have
been opening for David, but instead he was opening for
Elton at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. In fact, he
was part of that famous residency there in August of
nineteen seventy for Elton. But Elten was a huge fan,
(10:52):
and so was Bernie. But yeah, they thought this guy
should be the headliner, not us.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, David. When his first album was released in nineteen
sixty eight, a lecture brought him over to Europe for
several months, and he was in London for quite a
few weeks, was on TV, did a radio session, and
was in the press quite a bit. And he didn't
(11:19):
so many records, but he got quite a bit of attention.
There are quite a few cover versions of his songs,
and it was at that time that Elton John and
Bernie Thorpin picked up on him. See he was known
amongst musicians and serious music fans in England at that
time and very highly regarded. But unusually, strangely, he wasn't
(11:43):
He didn't quite pick up such an audience in America. Really,
he didn't get so much notice until his third album,
American Gothic.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
That second album, nineteen sixty nine, subway to the country
again positive critical review but did not succeed commercially. He
moved to England to write and arrange his third album,
American Gothic. This is produced by Bernie Taupin. It's released
to multiple multiple positive reviews, hailing at the album of
the year, some cases, possibly the greatest record ever made.
(12:13):
Acles felt uncomfortable with that kind of critical reception. He
told the reporter quote, it's only an album, you know.
He downplayed it. Why was he so ambivalent. You think
was it too much pressure on him?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think it probably did create pressure on him. But
also what happened was that you've got this strange thing
if you line up all the reviews the album, because
the album first started to get reviewed several months before
it was released, and it was still being reviewed several
months after, so you have a period of about six
months where it was getting reviewed. And initially the reviews
(12:46):
were ecstatic. People were, as you say, claiming it was
one of the greatest records ever made. But a little
bit later on you started to get a few commentators saying, well,
I don't quite see this. It's kind of good, but
it's what's all the fuss about. And I think David
(13:07):
he commented at one point that people were starting to
review the initial reviews if you see what I mean,
but that they weren't responding to the music. They were
responding to those initial responses to the album, and so
that all got a bit confused.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Briti Tapen called the album a difficult sell, didn't fit
in with popular music at the time. Do you agree.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I do. Yeah, it's it's very a very unusual record
and most people, well I said, most people lots of
people read about it and come to the album with
no context and are a little puzzled by it initially
and have to work at it. I think you understand
it more if you've heard the first two albums and
you kind of break yourself in gently. It didn't have
(13:54):
obvious singles on it. It was hard to place it
in any kind of context of the time. David Ackles
was often groups with the singer songwriter movement, but he
really was nothing like somebody like Jackson Brown or James Taylor,
for example.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
For those listening, hopefully you go and look for the
music of David Ackles on Spotify. It's there YouTube. But
how would you best describe his sound. It's hard to
It's hard to compare him with anybody. I guess you
could say he's in that genre with an Elton John
or James Taylor, but he had his own style. Yeah,
(14:33):
I mean because of his theatric background.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I think, yeah, there's a strong musical theater influence. A
lot of the songs are very intense and quite melodramatic.
He's a piano playing singer songwriter, not a guitar player,
so that sets him aside for a lot of people.
I think the main thing that I always think about
(14:56):
him is that he's a storyteller. The songs a like
little one act plays or short stories. They're very character driven.
They're often sung in the first person, but that doesn't
mean they're autobiographical. What he tended to do and did
very cleverly, was he would approach an issue, sometimes quite
(15:17):
a different difficult issue, like divorce or racism or something
like that, but not approach it as a social issue.
He'd approach he'd approach it through the eyes of one
or two characters and create a little story to explore the.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Issue, eventually comparing the album to Sergeant Pepper saying it's
the greatest album ever by critics that would batfire on apples, right.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I think it did, Yeah, I mean Elektra not so that.
There were a couple of early reviews, one in Los
Angeles Free Press and one in The Sunday Times in Britain,
which made though pretty much the same claims that it
was the Pepper of folk and either the greatest album
ever made or the second greatest album ever made, and
(16:03):
Elektra not surprisingly jumped on those claims and posted advertised
the album with quotes from those reviews, and there are
lots of subsequent reviews which were equally positive. But I
think in the end it did backfire a bit because
a lot of people when they bought the record were
(16:24):
a bit puzzled by it and couldn't quite couldn't quite see,
couldn't quite match up what they were hearing with the claims.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Bookdown Rock podcast will be back after this.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Patience, patience, little deer. Everything has to be in order.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out the Bookdown
Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If
you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
share on social media and let people know about Bookdown Rock.
And if you do like the podcast, make sure subscribe
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(17:03):
Booked one Rock podcast, Run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
tune in in on YouTube music. You can check out
the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
to the show. Mark Brenn is the author of down
(17:23):
River in search of David Ackles. The book is out now.
Ackles and Electra boss Jack Holtzman agree that it's time
for him to Apples to leave the label, and Clive
Davis steps in to sign Ackles to Columbia. Okay, so
great news. Maybe this is where we see David Ackles
get the notoriety he so deserves. Not so what happens next?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Well, with that deal, Clive was apparently a big fan
of David's and was keen to sign him, but there
wasn't a lot of money in the deal, so David
decided to largely record the album at home on a
He had a fortress set up a little home studio,
had the musicians in his front room, and then took
(18:06):
the tapes into a slightly bigger studio to do a
few overdubs and mix the album. So it was a
low budget thing, but that's what he wanted to do.
After American Gothic, which was a really big production, orchestra,
all of this type of thing, he wanted something smaller
and more intimate. When they were getting towards the end
(18:26):
of the album the recording process, David heard that Clive
Davis had been sacked from Columbia, and David didn't know
a soul at Columbia apart from Clive Davis, and so
it was completely adrift there. And at the same time,
by very unfortunate coincidence, David's manager Upton left, He just
(18:50):
moved on and that was the end of that relationship.
So David found himself with an album that was just finished,
but no support in the record company manager to vouch
for him, and Columbia put the album out in America
only not in the UK, where he had more of
a following, and very much the impression that they put
(19:13):
it out because they were contractually obliged to, but there
was very little promotion. It was a very low key
thing and the album vanished really quite quickly, and that
was the end of his career. He never made another record.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, and his album five and Die in eighteen seventy three,
that would be his last. He leaves Columbia, never makes
another record, although that wasn't his plan. He figured he'd
come back at some point, but that never happened. But
he did have a publishing contract with Warner Brothers. This
is interesting, So he was with Columbia, but he was
also with Warner Brothers under contract with them. What was
(19:49):
he doing for them? How did that all work?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's a bit difficult to unpick that, and I'm not
sure I fully understand all the details. But when he
left Columbia, his pub songwriting publishing probably was he was
still contracted to Warners and so what. For some time
he tried to make it as a songwriter for other artists,
which was actually closer to his original intention back in
(20:14):
nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, and he wrote songs, went
to regular Warners songwriter meetings, and pitched songs to other artists,
but none of them were picked up. And after a
while he just realized it was going nowhere and gave
up on that.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And he himself admitted he he was not the type
of person who was determined to find another label. He
felt like it maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
After a while, Janis talks about how he just wasn't
that type of guy who would work the room, didn't
have that aggressive attitude. Could he have found another label
in your opinion, if he himself was a little more aggressive,
(20:52):
or maybe had somebody with him that could be more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I'm sure it would it was possible. Yeah, he he
was very hard to place musically, and that always would
have been a challenge because you couldn't fit him neatly
into any genre. But the talent is so obvious and
so abundant. I feel that he could have continued a
career if he'd had somebody supporting him. I think the
(21:19):
loss of the manager was a disaster really for David.
And as you say, as a personality himself, he wasn't
that he wasn't going to run the business side of
things as well as be the writer and the performer.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
He was more of a passive type, which is a
lot of times you need that manager on your side.
I was just watching the Billy Joel documentary and his wife,
his first wife, was that type of person that really
benefited his career because she could do the things that
he just wasn't comfortable doing.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean, I don't get the impression that David
Eckles was passive. I don't he by all accounts that
kind of outward going, upbeat, optimistic sort of guy. But
you know, finding your way in the music business in
the world of major record labels then was very hard,
(22:16):
I'm sure, and he was on his own. He just
didn't have any support.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
What was the rest of the seventies like for David,
because one person talks about visiting him at his house.
At that time David was working at USC, but also
he was weaving rugs.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, that was just a remark that somebody made David.
He did lots of things after his recording career ended.
He did quite a lot of teaching at USC. He
also spent some time writing film and television scripts with
Douglas Graham, who was the guy who co produced five
(22:51):
and dime, and they got a TV movie produced that
was first shown I think in nineteen eighty or eighty one.
Had some success there. But he had a varied working life.
But what he didn't give up creatively, what he wanted
to do was write musical theater pieces. And he wrote
(23:12):
at least two fully realized musical theater productions, with each
with twenty or thirty songs and a full script, and
he recorded demos for them, and he I mean he
was working on one of those within two years of
his recording career ending, but sadly he never got full
productions of them. One of them had had some workshop productions,
(23:36):
but didn't quite go into full production.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Was that Sister Amy.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Sister Amy had the workshop production. Yeah, and there was
one before that which went under various titles, but was again,
you know, fully developed, and I've heard some of the
songs from it, and it was clear that his songwriting
gift didn't desert him at all.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Almost died in a car accident in nineteen eighty one.
What happened.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
He was driving home with his young son in the
car and somebody on came around the corner on the
wrong side of the road and crashed into him. And
I think that driver was under the influence and didn't
have insurance and that type of thing. David was very
seriously injured and had to have several operations and was
(24:24):
using a wheelchair for some time afterwards, but did recover,
although Janis has said that she thinks he had discomfort
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Bookdown Rock podcast will be back after this hadgona d
you leave town. Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown
rock dot com. There you can find all the back
episodes of the show. I hit this episode in video
and audio links to all of the platforms where he
can listen to the podcast. Plus all the social media
(24:56):
platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok x. Also
check out the book down Rock blog, find your local
independent bookstore, find out all the latest hot rock book releases,
and before you go, check out the bookdown Rock online store.
Pick up some book down Rock merch. It's all at
booked on rock dot com. Going back to Sister Amy, Now,
(25:17):
he worked on that project throughout the eighties and nineties.
What was it about? What was the main character? What
was it about that main character that appealed to David?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
So Sister Amy is about Amy McPherson, who was a
what would you call her a celebrity evangelist in America
in the from the twenties through to the forties. And
she was a very flamboyant, high profile person, had her
own radio station, built a huge church with I think
(25:52):
an auditorium for five thousand people, and that sort of thing.
She was quite controversial. Some people thought she was a
bit of a fraud. But there was an order episode
in her life where she went missing for several weeks
and people wondered whether she was dead, and then she
re emerged, turned up at a hospital in a rather
(26:13):
confused state and said she'd been kidnapped and had been
held for several weeks and have managed to escape, and
some people fatly didn't believe that. There was a big
media scandal about it, and lots of claims and counterclaims that,
some of the claims being that she faked her own
kidnapping to run off with her sound engineer. I think
(26:37):
it was anyway, David was fascinated by her because she
was obviously a conflicted person, somebody of faith but who
also struggled with things of the world if you like.
And sister Amy is really about focuses on that kidnapping
(27:00):
if it was a kidnapping, and in fact, in David's play,
he is very much comes down on the side of
it being a ruse by Amy Macpherson to escape the
pressure and run off with this man.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And David was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early nineties.
He did beat it at first, Sadly, he succumbed to
cancer in nineteen ninety nine. Going back to you had
mentioned you had spoken to him in the last few
years of his life and he seemed to be happy.
He was writing music. He hit the gym in the
morning write music. Play piano, go for hikes, seemed to
(27:36):
be in a really good place. What do you recall
about those conversations with him?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, he his three lecture albums were reissued in the
UK in the early nineties, and he did a few
where are they now? Whatever happened to interviews with the
UK music press, and I did one of those a
little bit later on. He was very cheerful and buoyant
and positive and good humored, and I thought, quite genuinely,
(28:06):
wasn't at all bitter or disappointed about that the end
of his music career. I think he had some disappointments
at the time, but he moved on from it. I mean,
I've spoken to people whose careers have come to an
end and they've seemed to harbor a resentment forever, more
(28:28):
like they didn't get their due. I didn't pick that
up at all with him, and everyone else I know
who spoke to him says the same thing. He was
grateful to be able to make the records. He thinks
they thought they were good, but it came to an
end and he moved on to other things and had
a good life.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You say at the end of the book that there
are no definitive answers as to why David Ackles his
music underachieved commercially when it was released and why it
hasn't gained called status since his death. But two things
keep coming back. One is about how the music business
is set up. The other has to do with Apple's music.
Can you expand on that in your observation on the
Lost Genius.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think it's something that's a perpetually engaging story. I
think of the idea of rediscovering somebody and isn't he great?
And it's not just in music. It happens in all
sorts of fields. But you see, it's a lot in music. Somebody,
(29:26):
somebody who has underachieved or been forgotten in their life.
After they've gone, or perhaps when they're still alive, but
they've been in obscurity for a long time, they're suddenly recognized.
And this idea of discovering something that's hidden treasure, I
think is very appealing. But very often, I think in
(29:49):
the music business that narrative is very entwined with tragedy,
So it seems to be a particularly potent if if
the person has had some kind of tragic end, you know,
there's there's an early death, mental illness, something very dramatic
(30:09):
happening to them, and and David. I think David Ackles
that doesn't fit neatly into that that at all, because
although there were challenges and difficulties in his life, as
there are in everybody's, he he wasn't a tragic figure
at all. He was a popular, happy man and and
(30:30):
so he doesn't quite fit the story that so often
carries music from the pass back to new audiences.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Downriver in Search of David Ackles is out now. You
can find it wherever books are sold. Look forward at
your nearest bookstore. Got a bookdown rock dot com to
find your nearest independent bookstore, and people can reach out
to you. Mark onlines. Is there anywhere where people can
connect with you.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I guess there is. Yeah. I don't have a website
or anything like that. I'm on Blue Sky and people
can always find me through the publisher's joel im Press.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Great. I will put the link up to the Blue
Sky page and also to job owned Press as well.
Mark Brand, Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Jeez, Eric, that's it. It's in the books.
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