August 18, 2025 • 44 mins
Author Mark Brend joins me to talk about his latest book called “Down River: In Search of David Ackles.” Singer/Songwriter/Musician David Ackles is a forgotten cult hero/singer/songwriter/musician. Ackles put out four albums in the late 1960s/early 1970s and suddenly vanished from the music scene. We talk about the book, Ackles and contemporaries like Elton John and Phil Collins.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thank you for joining me here in my little
corner of the world. All the way over to you.
It is great to see you again. If you are
viewing here on YouTube, which I hope you are when
you get the chance. But also I'm available on all
those platforms as they call them, such as Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Deezer,
(00:23):
so many. We just get syndicated all over the place,
don't we, just so we could hear all these wonderful
interviews with really talented individuals. Today is absolutely no different.
I have an author on here today, another author. I
love having authors on here, and the discipline that authors
(00:43):
have and what they go through is just astounding. So
I'm always fascinated not by just musicians, but these authors
are just completely amazing the way that they can get
the information, synthesize it and put these great books. Today
it's Mark brend He wrote a book about somebody who
(01:05):
really could have been a contender, David Akles. Nobody knows
who he is. Nobody knows who David Akle is. David
Akles was really big in the late sixties, in the
early nineteen seventies, and so many of the big stars
that we have today that were even big back then,
such as Sir Elton John. Really love this guy. In fact,
(01:27):
I think David Akles had opened up for him in
La at the Troubadour played that venue. So Mark put
together this great book about a guy who really could
have been He just it's a big mystery as to
where he went after a couple of albums, and we
go through that and what he did in the Los
Angeles area for so long. Mark is also British, so
(01:52):
it was nice to speak with somebody who is across
the pond. I haven't been across the pond in a while,
actually close as I can. Came over there, was visiting
London back in the mid nineteen nineties and was just
fascinated with that city. It was a bit nippy, went
there around a boxing day. But anyway, this is a
(02:14):
great conversation I have with Mark. We go over. David
Akles is just, yeah, a real genius, real good composer.
I would probably maybe say someone He's not like Leonard Kohane,
nothing like that, somebody who just like wasn't a huge
but like was very deep and just had just an
(02:35):
incredible amount of workout there. We talk about some of
these amazing tracks like the Roade de Cairo, a very
bluesy number on his debut album. His sophomore album is
really really good. Great track on there called candy Man
Good Stuff, and it's available wherever you get music. It
was kind of a mystery for a long time as
(02:56):
to what happened with David. It just things just kind
of all through. He was in contact with somebody like
Clive Davis, but the record company at that time just
like it fizzled out. Clive ended up leaving at that point.
Just as we talk about in this so great to
see you all. Great to see you here. In mid
(03:18):
August of twenty twenty five, it again, it's a brutal
summer here in the Greater Metro Atlanta area, as it
always is. I don't expect anything less. We do get
some summers where we could get a little bit of
a respite in the name of rain. That's the only
thing that really brings it down. But this is one
(03:40):
of these summers where it's not raining enough when we
get it. Some people just get very violent thunderstorms in
their area and others just don't see anything. In my
area where I'm at, well north of Atlanta. It is
been really missing a lot of rain. Not that I
need the lightning. Who needs that? Scary enough as it is,
(04:01):
I've seen it strike and it's not fun, trust may.
But you know, as I think about, it's like it's
been years since we had like really rainy summer and
it really kept the temperatures down. So well enough about that.
It's just you know, hey, it's hotlant. It's you expect it,
(04:22):
but it's tough to get through. It's kind of like
our version of winter. But here's the great thing. You
don't have to drive in anything like snow like they
have up in the north. In the wintertime. You have
that physical barrier, you that challenge that you have to
deal with. And our worst weather is the extreme heat.
(04:44):
So I mean the worst thing is, yeah, you gotta
crank the ASA, which you know, the poor little ace
and it's I probably said that a zillion times here before,
but I always feel sorry for them. It's just it's terrifying,
it really is. Then you can get like overcold at times,
like if you're sitting under an air missioner like I
am right now there, you go outside and it's like
muggy and hot and it's like, that's a great way
(05:06):
to get sick, isn't it. And there are probably there
are plenty of people who probably do get sick in
the summertime because of those huge temperature swings. You could
just overcool yourself way too much. Then you go out
there and you're like, oh my gosh, it's like totally different.
Kind of cut back on the running a little bit too.
I can't get up that early these days because I've
(05:28):
been working kind of later days here now, so it's
it's been a little tough. I mean, if I get out,
I'll hit the old dreadmill to get that at the
exercise in there. But other than that, we're making it
through here. This is mid August. Mark's book is just
coming out, and get it wherever you get those books.
(05:48):
Mark brend bren D, I believe, and you can get
that anywhere you're Amazon's or Barnes and Nobles. Interesting book,
really really interesting book out a real major talent and
somebody who had gone on to doing some interesting things
once he was done with the music business. It's a
(06:10):
tough business. Media is tough, and these days there are
other challenges with media. It's really, really, really tough to
deal with and tough to compete in this environment, so
we go over that a lot too. So anyway, enjoy
my talk with author Mark Brand who's way over there
(06:30):
Ian the UK. Hope you enjoy my both. Good morning,
How you doing fine?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thanks?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
How are you good? Good hanging in there? Where are
you speaking from this morning?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'm from Exeter in Devon, southwest of England.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Excellent and weather it's doing fine this time of year.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It's warm for us. Actually yeah, it's about eighty degrees fahrenheit.
It's quite good.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's a great pleasure. An author of many books here
and this latest one is quite interesting and what are
its origins? Your interest in it seems to go back
at least forty years. Your interest in this artist, mister Acles.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yes, David Ackles, Yes, I mean I first came across him,
as you say, forty years ago. I found one of
his albums for sale secondhand. I didn't know who he was.
I just bought it because I liked the cover and
was fascinated by his music. I discovered that he made
four albums which I acquired, and I've always loved his work,
(07:44):
and over the years, I've well, it's dawned on me
quite quickly that he was somebody who wasn't widely known,
and yet the people who do know about him tend
to really love him passionately. And I thought there was
an interesting story there about why he made records that
were so admired by some people and yet he remains
(08:07):
largely unknown.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's really fascinating just stumbling on an artist like that.
I guess you would almost say a no hit wonder
somebody who and you didn't hear this on the radio,
especially in those days. So yeah, I mean, but he
inspired many in the music community, some names that we know,
like Sir Elton John.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yes, that's right, Yeah, I mean, he was actually more
popular in the UK than he was He's an American,
but he was less popular in America. But he came
to the UK in nineteen sixty eight to promote his
first album, and quite a lot of songs from that
first album were covered by recentably well known British artists
like The Hollies and Spooky Truths, Spooky Tooth and Martin
(08:53):
Carthy and Elton John and Bernie Taupin who were just
starting out then were huge fans of David Eckles and
remain so to this state.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah yeah, And it's fascinating writing that just when you
dig deep into his catalog, which Blease starts in nineteen
sixty eight and he recorded four albums. Yeah yeah, yeah,
very interesting debut debut solo album that just really has
and I love that opening track, The Road to Cairo
(09:28):
just has a real deep bluesy sense. Do you notice
over this four album catalog, the arc the changes that
he had gone through, and did you do a deep
dive into his muse and what had inspired him through
the recording career, Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Very much so. I mean he was unusual in those
times and that his recording career didn't start until he
was in his thirties, and in those days that was
really old, you know, and he had spent a lot
of his well his adult life up until that point,
he was mainly interested in musical theater, and he did
(10:09):
various things related to musical theater and that was his
real inspiration. And what you see in his career that
he started out with material that just about fitted into
what you could hear happening elsewhere. It sounded just about
like on the fringes of rock music and the singer
songwriter movement. But by the time you get to his
(10:31):
third album, which is American Gothic, he'd let his musical
theater influences come to the fore and it really doesn't
sound like I mean, it's released on Elektra, which was
a great hip rock label and folk label, but it
doesn't sound like anything else that Elektra or anyone else
released at the time. And yet that was very It
(10:54):
was an interesting thing because that album got a hugely
positive press response. You know, the reviews were saying this
is that there. It's quite funny to read them now,
but there are lots of reviews at the time that
we're discussing whether that album or Sergeant Pepper were the
best albums ever made and amazing and the reviews were
(11:16):
that good. And yet the album didn't sell particularly well
and he only did one more after that and then
it was over. He was gone.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's just absolutely incredible when it's you know, at least
and the critics really, you know, seem to take to it.
And now I'm sure not every single critic was in
love with it, but definitely different. What is the theory though,
do you have a theory as to why does an
American artist do well in the UK but doesn't really
scratch the surface back at home? I mean, are there
(11:45):
are a couple of examples, you could see. The band
Sparks comes to mind very much, I mean, did very
well overseas, but like from California, and you know, basically
they have a very eclectic, small following here on our
soil in America.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah. Well, Scott Walker is another example of an American
artist who I understand really didn't register much in the
US at all, but was a big star here for
a while. Who knows, who knows why?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
David Acles was interesting in that actually his mother was English,
so by parentage he was half English. He grew up
in the States and spent almost all his life there,
so he was an American, but he had a strong
English sensibility and was very connected through the mother's side
of his family to the English music hall. His grandparents
(12:35):
and other relatives were involved on the stage professionally, and
that very much came through in his music later on.
And also he seemed to get the English folk community
seemed to pick up on him quite a bit. He
had a song called His Name is Andrew, which is
(12:59):
a very you know, extreme involved narrative ballads and it's
been covered quite a few times within the English traditional
folk community, which is strange really, that's a man from
Los Angeles writing a song about somebody who loses his
faith and it becomes a popular song in the English
(13:21):
traditional folk community. I don't know why that happens. Who
can say?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah? Yeah, So putting the book together, how long did
this take from my idea to finish? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I don't it's I mean, it probably took about two years.
But I've been thinking about it for a long time
before then. And I had actually written about David Ackles
a bit before. I'd written a few articles in the
chapter in another book, So i'd i'd. I've been researching
him for about twenty five years, really on and off,
but the last two years more intensely.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah. And it has a very interesting early life, especially
studying abroad, and has studied litterature abroad, so that that
probably brings a lot of the sensibilities into the lyric
writing as well.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yes, I think.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
He spent a year in Edinburgh and Scotland studying Old English,
and he was quite cultured in that respect. He never
really formally studied music, but he could play the piano
very well and became in a technical sense musically very competent.
(14:29):
But he also before as well as before that, he
had an interesting phase in his life because he was
a child actor in a series of films Rusty Films
with Rusty being a Dog, and there were half a
dozen of those films a few more, I think, and
he was in he had supporting parts in quite a
few of those films when he was between the age
(14:50):
of about eight and twelve, I.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Think, Yeah, it's interesting. He was kind of wanting to
be more like a top and kind of a character
in the music biness. But he was influenced by somebody
named Jack Holsman who wanted to say, hey, you got
the goods, you're it, get up there and start recording that.
I'm sure that had to feel probably kind of strained
(15:14):
to him. And he also, like you were saying earlier,
a little bit older than the singer songwriter that was
coming out in the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean, Jack Holtsman is a fascinating man himself,
of course, and he started Electra Records right back in
the fifties and when Accles was signed. He was signed
in late sixty seven, and the idea was that he
would be a songwriter for other artists. He made some
demos and Jack Holtzman said, I think you should record
(15:49):
these yourself. I think you should be the recording artist.
And so David Ackles found himself in a recording studio
making an album out of nowhere. Really, he had no
expectation that that would happen. He hadn't played live as
a performer. He had none of the background that people
normally have before they get to that stage of making
(16:11):
their first album.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, there's a little bit of a trippy and theatrical
feel in this track called Blue Ribbons that kind of
piqued my interests as I'm listening to this debut solo album,
and it really just tells you how much that was
inspirational to him going back then. Which of the tracks
were covered by other artists like Spooky Tooth Martin Curthy.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
On the first album, The Road to Cairo was almost
a hit for Julie Driscoll and the Brian Augo Trinity
because they'd had a big hit with this Wheels on Fire.
The Bob Dylan song and Road to Cairo was their
follow up single, and everyone was expecting that it would
be a hit, but it wasn't really, I'm not sure why.
(16:57):
So that was covered Down River was covered by the
Hollies and Spooky Tooth and a couple of other less
well known artists. Be My Friends, there's another song from
that album was covered by several English folk singers. And
then his name is Andrew was the one that was
(17:18):
covered by Martin Carthy.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Have he owned the organ in there too? So he
was with David very much a multi instrumentalist or is
he basically just at the piano.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He's just playing piano. The organ on that album is
a guy called Michael Fonfara who went on to play
with all manner of artists. I think he was in
Lou Reed's band in the seventies or eighties for example.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, he was a really good working musician. Back then,
you really paid your DearS. It wasn't like just getting
on a talent show and all of a sudden, your
debut album has five hit singles or something like that.
It's just you. You had to really pay your dues
back in those days, late nineteen sixties, early nineteen seventies
in all those guys very much so, I mean he
sounded like he did all those kind of things. But
(18:07):
as we always know, the music business is so tricky.
It's it's so hard to say, hey, what's a HiT's,
what's a hit album, what's a hit single. It's very tough.
That's what the endur A and R guys are for.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, yeah, that's right. I mean he was somebody who
didn't quite find his niche really he got a lot
of good press and even when he was playing live
as a live performer, he could sing and play very well.
So technically he was really good. And I've heard about
three or four hours of recordings of him live and
(18:43):
the standard of musical performance is very high. But there
wasn't really a right venue for him because he was
a solo piano playing singer songwriter. He didn't play with
the band apart from Once in the UK, and he
tended to end up in folk clubs, which wasn't quite right,
or supporting rock bands, which didn't work either. So his
(19:05):
although he played live quite a lot for a few years,
he was never comfortable with it and it didn't really
he couldn't ever break himself through playing live.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And speaking of live, he was at the Troubadour in
nineteen seventy Was that opening up for Elton John.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, he played there the year before the sixty nine
opening for Joni Mitchell, and then I think in seventy
one or seventy two he headlined there. But he supported
Elton John in August nineteen seventy of those famous breakthrough
gigs when Elton came over to the US for the
first time, and that played the gigs that are now
(19:47):
immortalized in the film rocket Man. David was the support act,
and Bernie Taupin and Elton John were both amazed and
also I think a bit embarrassed that he was their
support acts because they idolized him. They thought he was great,
and he was two albums into his career by then
and they were just starting out, and they thought it
(20:09):
was really strange and uncomfortable that David was supporting them.
But by all accounts they got on very well, and
David and Bernie talking in particular, became good friends after
that gig.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And they became friends all the way until David passed.
Has it been throughout all those years.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I believe so yeah. I think they were particularly close
for a few years afterwards, because then, of course Bernie
taking produced David's third album, American Gothic, which is the
one that got the is this as good as Sergeant
Pepper type of comments, But yes, and they remained friends
after that, and.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
He actually moved to England Wargrave, which is where is
that exactly in England?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Wargrave is in Berkshire. It's kind of let me see,
about forty miles west of London, so it's a prime
commuter territory really. It's a very pretty village on the
River Thames, and there's another river that joins the Thames
there called the Loudon, and David lived there for about
(21:20):
just under a year. I think he went there to
record American Gothic. So he lived in this little wooden
house that was on like brick stilts right by the river,
and he would be prepared the album there in that house.
And when he came to record it, it was recorded in
London and he catched the train down every day do
(21:43):
the eight hour session or however along it was then
come back on the train to the house in Wargrave,
and on the cover of the album American Gothic. That's
the house you see there. There are pictures of David
and Janice, who he later married, are on the cover
of the album. That the house was so near the
(22:03):
river it will quite often floods, and to get to
get to that, from the house to the row where
his car was, he'd have to get in a little
rowing boat and row across the floodwater to get to
dry land where his car was.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Wow with an experience, and he loved being by the water,
obviously downriver, all this inspirational stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, so the river River was a sort of recurring
motive in his songs. There were quite a lot of
songs that mentioned the river. And he said later that
he really loved living in England and would have quite
happily stayed there, but career wise it wasn't possible. He
needed to be back in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, Bernie Thompons, so he went on to do it.
Did Bernie Tuppen produce other acts after David.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
You know, I don't know about that. I'm not sure.
I really don't know. I mean, he's obviously known as
being Elton John's lyricist, but he was in Elektra's orbit
at the time because he had done a solo album,
a spoken word album that came out before American Gothic,
and so he knew Jack Holtzman, and he was already
(23:15):
friends with David and somehow all of those connections led
to the idea that Bernie would produce American Gothic.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, American Gothic has a really great texture to it.
You got piano's wood wins, all kinds of textures to it.
You could hear that difference definitely for sure. Recorded in
London at is that a pretty legendary studio there's IBC Studio.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah. IBC Studios was a big studio from the fifties onwards. Really,
it's not a recording studio now. It the who had
recorded there. Hendrix had recorded there, the Kinks, I think
pretty certain, the Rolling Stones, but most of the big
British acts had recorded there. It's right in central London
(24:00):
than near Oxford Circus, in a big old townhouse and
the main studio room was a room where they've knocked
they'd like knocked a floor out, so it had a
forty foot high ceiling and the control booth was in
(24:20):
a sort of elevated platform mezzanine type thing in the
corner of the room, and that's where David recorded the album.
Damon Lionshaw, who was the engineer who'd engineered Tommy by
the Who at that studio, he said that they largely
recorded live, so David would sit down in this big
(24:43):
room with the orchestra and they play and sing live together.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I could definitely feel that. It's just got a
lot of laudatory, you know comments. And when they were
promoting this album, he was on the All Gray Whistle Task.
How did that come to be? And now they never
archived that performance, as you were saying in the.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Book, sadly not knowing. He was on BBC TV three times.
Actually he was on He was initially on a nineteen
sixty eight program called color Me Pop, and then the
successor to that program was called Disco two I think,
and he was on that as well. And then the
successor to that was the Old Gray Whistle Test, which
(25:30):
was a long running rock show on the BBC and
it was very much for it was much more albums orientated.
It wasn't really a kind of hit singles program. And
so but the people who were behind the Old Gray
Whistle Test and produced it had already booked him twice
before for these earlier shows, so he was known to them.
(25:52):
And it's thought that he did two songs on the
old Gray Whistle Test in early seventy two, just and vocals,
but as you say, the footage was white. There's no
record of it at all. Sadly, his very first UK
TV appearance, Color Me Pop. The audio survives of that,
(26:15):
so we can hear him but we can't see him,
which is yes. And that was the one time he
played live with the band. He played the pickup band
when he came over toward Europe, came into London and
he was put with a pickup band who didn't know
they rehearsed for half an hour then straight into playing live.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, it's a shame, you know. Back then, obviously videotip
was pretty expansive, so out of networks, you know recycled,
but you know, a great handful of things did survive,
great records. I'm sure BBC has an amazing library. But yeah,
it was tough because real to real I do know
that being in the video business. So yeah, it's disappointing.
(26:59):
I always hate to hear it. It's always disappointing, but yeah,
moving on from that and the album cells were not
so great with American Gothics, so it went on to
he went on to signing with Columbia with Clive Davas.
How did Clive Davis stumble upon him?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Well, apparently Clive Davis had been aware of his earlier
albums and was a fan, and when he heard that
Jack Holsman and Accles decided mutually to terminate the contract.
David could have held out for another album contractually, but
he didn't, and apparently Clive Davis jumped straight in with
(27:37):
an offer, but it wasn't an offer with much money
attached to it, but David was keen to have control,
so he recorded the album largely at home with a
friend of his called Douglas Graham, and they recorded much
of the album on a four track, which by nineteen
this was nineteen seventy three, so you're into sixteen and
(28:00):
twenty four track era by ben and so recording a
four track was unusual. And then they took the tapes
into a slightly bigger studio to do a few overdubs,
but a very substantial proportion of the album was recorded
in his house in his living room in a house
on Pacific Palisades, and that was what he'd delivered to Columbia.
(28:26):
The problem was for him was that shortly before he
finished the album, Clive Davis was sacked from Columbia because
there was these charges relating to Ford or something, but
were later discredited entirely. But so Clive Davis was out
of the picture, and he was the person who'd signed David,
(28:48):
and David knew nobody else at Columbia at all. He
was completely isolated. They didn't know what to do with him,
and he didn't know what to do either. And you
can really sense that with the way if you compare
how that album was promoted to American Gothic, American Gothic
adverts everywhere, a lot of press coverage, TV specials and
(29:11):
that type of thing. And then with five in Time,
there are a few reviews. It's very low key. It's
quite clear that Colombia didn't have a clue what to
do with him, and that he was dropped very soon
after that, and that album sunk without trace. The other
thing about that which was disappointing for David was that
(29:32):
he was more popular. As I said earlier in the
UK than he was at home and the Columbia album
wasn't even released in the UK, and so where he
had his biggest audience, that they couldn't get a hold
of the album. So it wasn't like now where with
streaming and everything, everything's accessible. If the album isn't released
in your territory, you never saw it.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, homemade, tied, mostly homemade last album, and way before
somebody like you know, somebody like you know, there was
McCartney too. McCartney did it back in nineteen seventy basically
a homemade So that was, you know, still kind of
rare in that kind of time to man your own
stuff and do it. Nowadays anybody can get into and
(30:14):
has their own digital suite, I'm sure, but back then
something like that. It didn't get the promotion, The album fails,
Clive Davis sacked, all that kind of stuff, series of
unfortunate events and the music business it's really tough. It's,
you know, so much great talent and we still see
it today. There's so much out there and so much
(30:35):
to sift through, and it's very hard to break through.
So I mean this is going back decades. Yeah, and
I'm sure there are other stories like that, but this
is a very very unique story about somebody who's just
you know, a renaissance guy in a lot of ways too,
and had a lot of a theatrical inspiration as well.
(30:55):
So after the recording career he goes on and does
other artistic works and then it gets in the TV development.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That's right. Yeah. He and Douglas Graham, who had helped
produce five nine, they wrote for TV for a little while.
They had a writing partnership and they did. Their highest
profile thing was a TV movie called Word of Honor, Yes,
Word of Honor, that came out I think at about
(31:25):
nineteen eighty or seventy nine, and it's a decent quality
TV movie. Carl Malden, who is one of the leads
in it, Ron Silver's in it, I think, so it was,
but that petered out after a while. But David what
he was really interested in doing, what he really wanted
to do, was to write musicals, and he spent the
(31:50):
rest of his life trying to do that. And he
completed several full musicals, script all of the songs and everything,
and had a It got reasonably close to getting a
couple ins of production, but it never quite happened for him,
but that was very much his creative focus after he
(32:11):
stopped recording, but stopped making records, but he wasn't of course,
he wasn't making a living out of that, so he
had to do other things, and he got into teaching
at bits and that sort of thing. He went back
to the University of Southern California to teach, where he
had been an undergraduate in the in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Where did he live in California during that time? Did
you have a specific place where he was.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
He lived in let me come, Let me come back
to you on that exactly. The addressed so familiar to
me because I but I can't quite remember the name.
It's kind of north of Los Angeles, but not out ah.
(33:01):
Let me come back to you.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Did he have a family life there as well? Did
he have.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Janice, who's the woman who is on the cover of
American Gothic. He married her just before the recording of
Five and dime, so they'd only be married a couple
of months when all of the musicians turned up at
their house to make five and dime. And they had
a son, and he had a very happy family life
(33:31):
and died in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, lung cancer.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Gun.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
But he had a close brush with death in nineteen
eighty one, I believe that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, he was he was driving home with his young son,
who was I think must only have been about three
or something, was in the car at the time and
he was hit by a driver on the wrong side
of the road and David and Janis's son was fine.
David was very serious injured and had multiple operations, had
(34:04):
to have his hip replaced, and almost lost his arm.
So it was really but he did recover and he
had to use a wheelchair for several quite a long
time after the accident, but he did recover. But he Yeah,
that was a close shave. That was in eastern nineteen
eighty one.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Wow, And that's an amazing story. But lung cancer took
him out in the end.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
That he had a brush with lung cancer in the
early nineties and round just as he had an operation,
had passed his lung removed and recovered and was well.
And around about that time his three Electra albums were
reissued on CD in the UK and he got a
little bit of attention and there were a few where
(34:52):
are they now whatever happened to type of articles in
the UK music press, and David was interviewed and was
extremely cheerful and positive and happy that the records were
out again, surprised that they were out again. But you
could tell even from what he said that his real
(35:14):
focus was on wanting to do the musical that he
was writing at the time, and he would always talk
about that in interviews he would. I myself interviewed him
in the late nineteen nineties towards the end of his
life for an article about what happened to him, and
he was extremely charming and gracious and warm and generous
(35:39):
and happy to talk about his music, but really wanted
to talk about his musicals as well. And he was
writing and worked for a long time on a musical
about Amy McPherson's sister actly who was in the UK,
it's not somebody who's known at all, but probably in
the USA is better known even now. But she was
(35:59):
a very very famous and somewhat controversial sort of media evangelist.
I suppose she was somebody who used radio a lot
in the twenties and thirties, and there was a scandalous
episode in her life where she went missing and then
turned up a few weeks later. It said she'd been kidnapped,
(36:23):
but there was a lot of dispute about that, and
some people were saying she ran off with her lover.
And anyway, David's musical, which is called Sister Amy, was
all about that disappearance, and he worked on it for
a long time and got it to quite a high
standard and had some workshop productions of it in Los
Angeles through the nineties, but unfortunately didn't quite live long
(36:48):
enough to see it through to a full production.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Maybe the Sun can pick it up. What's the Sun
doing now?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well? Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It would be great
if somebody could pick it up. You know who knows.
He made a demo of it, which he doesn't sing
on himself, well, not much. He hired professional singers, so
he you know, he went a long way with it
and was very committed to it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah. And then later on what song did Phil Collins
cover for the Desert Island Desks.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Well, he didn't cover it, he played it. Solin Disks
is for anyone who doesn't know, is a long running
BBC radio show where celebrities go on and talk about
that that the eight records. I think it is that
they would take to a desert island if they if
they were straight, and Phil Collins chose down River, which
(37:43):
is from the first album. And at that point David
was a very obscure figure. But then Elvis Costello had
a chat show briefly called Spectacle, I believe, where he
and he had Elvis. He had Elton John on as
a guest. This was after David died, but they they
(38:08):
sang down River together. They dueted, and I think you
can probably still see that online somewhere. It was. It
was on YouTube for a while.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Okay, I'll have to check that out. I'm sure it's
a very good of Elton's covering it. It's going to
be an amazing performance. I didn't know Elvis Costello had
a targer, so that's interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I think it was a pretty short running thing called
Spectacle and pretty certain few episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
An electure was going to do a box set at
some time and it just got scrapped.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, that was a frustrating episode. This was in the
late twenty ten, so maybe about two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, there was a box set that
was produced, possibly even manufactured. We're not sure, but it
was all designed, all mastered, and it had three electra
albums plus about an album's worth of previously unreleased material
(39:07):
and beautifully packaged with liner notes by Bernie Taupin and
Elvis Costello. But it was pulled at the last minute
because of I believe an ownership dispute about one of
the tracks, and it's never seen the light of day.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, always something with the legal community getting involved as well.
It happened so much in music as we have seen,
especially with the Beatles and Alan Kleinkott and fov there
and everything. Great new book. Do you have a whole
line of other books. I've not really stumbled and done
a deep dive on your entire catalog. Who else have
(39:43):
you written about?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, my first book, which was a long time ago,
was called American Troubadoors, and that was about nine American
singer songwriters that I particularly liked, including David Apples, but
people like Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley and Fred Neil,
Tom Rush and so on. I wrote a book about
very early electronic music that was about twelve years ago.
(40:08):
Now very I'm talking free synthesizer electronic music, particularly used
in films and TV. I wrote a book about Low
George of Little Feet, and I'm not just music. I
wrote about other things as well.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Very good. And it seems very inspirational there where you
are writing from as well. It seems like a nice, quiet,
humble place where you can concentrate. You mean in this yeah,
right where you're out there. Yeah, it seems like it.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, it's very hot at the moment.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Oh god, yeah, that's true. You don't do you have
air conditioner? There nothing an essential thing we have here
in Atlanta, Georgia and the southeastern United States. Here we
are in July of twenty twenty five, and it is
another score to as it always says here in this
part of America, it's wow. Yeah, it's essential here. But yeah,
(41:03):
over there, I'm sure. But yeah, you definitely save on
the electric bills. But then again, it's kind of tough
when it gets up over a certain temperature there.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, but you know, gone complain. It's better
than cold and rain, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah? Yeah, very very true. Excellence, Well, thank you so
much for joining me. This has been fantastic. It's interesting
to hear about people who are really off the radar,
And that's a general theme in my podcast is that
I've talked to many people, some on the radar a
little bit and then somewhere way off of it. And
(41:38):
David Ackles definitely fits that bill for sure. And it's
just amazing that he has inspired some of the biggest
people in pop music. It's very interesting to hear that
and then you bring that to light in the book
as well. So this book is available wherever we can
get them.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, I can't remember off the top of my head
the exact date. Sometime in mid August. It's just available
through all the usual places that you get your book.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Mid August of twenty twenty five. Be sure to get
that out there down river. That cover of photograph of
the book, is that from something you pulled from this catalog?
Who do you know who took that picture?
Speaker 2 (42:24):
You know, it's a bit of a mystery because the
first in the book, American troubadaals what I wrote about David,
a chapter about David Apples. We got that photo and
it's a photo of him playing live, but nobody knows
where it was taken and who took it, and so
ownership is unclear. It dates from nineteen sixty eight. We
(42:46):
think possibly sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
You know too far before his sophomore album, which has
kind of fun sing alongs on there too, like mainline
salone to Chierry type song. Yeah, just basically I could
picture everybody in the saloon. It's having fun. Yeah, Yeah, definitely,
great catalog for sure. To check him out. David Apples,
He's really He's streaming everywhere, so I'm hoping the estate
(43:13):
gets some money. You don't make a whole lot out
of the streaming, and hopefully it's the publishing that's keeping
everybody in his estake going, so I always hope for that.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Absolutely, Well, thanks for joining me and once again the
fantastic book. Get it wherever you get those books.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Thank you both. Thanks very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Take care, have a good one, cheerios. Wasn't that fascinating?
I really enjoyed it, and I really really had a
good time speaking with him. Good guy, very good writer.
He's done quite a bit of work in the magazine
books world, so enjoy look him up too, He's done
a lot of other stuff. Great artist, David Agles. Get
(43:57):
that book wherever you get your books. Take care and
hopefully we'll keep doing this. We are over five years
into doing this podcast, and those who do download these
episodes or watch them on YouTube, I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much. It means a lot to me.
Take care,
Hey, thank you for joining me here in my little
corner of the world. All the way over to you.
It is great to see you again. If you are
viewing here on YouTube, which I hope you are when
you get the chance. But also I'm available on all
those platforms as they call them, such as Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Deezer,
(00:23):
so many. We just get syndicated all over the place,
don't we, just so we could hear all these wonderful
interviews with really talented individuals. Today is absolutely no different.
I have an author on here today, another author. I
love having authors on here, and the discipline that authors
(00:43):
have and what they go through is just astounding. So
I'm always fascinated not by just musicians, but these authors
are just completely amazing the way that they can get
the information, synthesize it and put these great books. Today
it's Mark brend He wrote a book about somebody who
(01:05):
really could have been a contender, David Akles. Nobody knows
who he is. Nobody knows who David Akle is. David
Akles was really big in the late sixties, in the
early nineteen seventies, and so many of the big stars
that we have today that were even big back then,
such as Sir Elton John. Really love this guy. In fact,
(01:27):
I think David Akles had opened up for him in
La at the Troubadour played that venue. So Mark put
together this great book about a guy who really could
have been He just it's a big mystery as to
where he went after a couple of albums, and we
go through that and what he did in the Los
Angeles area for so long. Mark is also British, so
(01:52):
it was nice to speak with somebody who is across
the pond. I haven't been across the pond in a while,
actually close as I can. Came over there, was visiting
London back in the mid nineteen nineties and was just
fascinated with that city. It was a bit nippy, went
there around a boxing day. But anyway, this is a
(02:14):
great conversation I have with Mark. We go over. David
Akles is just, yeah, a real genius, real good composer.
I would probably maybe say someone He's not like Leonard Kohane,
nothing like that, somebody who just like wasn't a huge
but like was very deep and just had just an
(02:35):
incredible amount of workout there. We talk about some of
these amazing tracks like the Roade de Cairo, a very
bluesy number on his debut album. His sophomore album is
really really good. Great track on there called candy Man
Good Stuff, and it's available wherever you get music. It
was kind of a mystery for a long time as
(02:56):
to what happened with David. It just things just kind
of all through. He was in contact with somebody like
Clive Davis, but the record company at that time just
like it fizzled out. Clive ended up leaving at that point.
Just as we talk about in this so great to
see you all. Great to see you here. In mid
(03:18):
August of twenty twenty five, it again, it's a brutal
summer here in the Greater Metro Atlanta area, as it
always is. I don't expect anything less. We do get
some summers where we could get a little bit of
a respite in the name of rain. That's the only
thing that really brings it down. But this is one
(03:40):
of these summers where it's not raining enough when we
get it. Some people just get very violent thunderstorms in
their area and others just don't see anything. In my
area where I'm at, well north of Atlanta. It is
been really missing a lot of rain. Not that I
need the lightning. Who needs that? Scary enough as it is,
(04:01):
I've seen it strike and it's not fun, trust may.
But you know, as I think about, it's like it's
been years since we had like really rainy summer and
it really kept the temperatures down. So well enough about that.
It's just you know, hey, it's hotlant. It's you expect it,
(04:22):
but it's tough to get through. It's kind of like
our version of winter. But here's the great thing. You
don't have to drive in anything like snow like they
have up in the north. In the wintertime. You have
that physical barrier, you that challenge that you have to
deal with. And our worst weather is the extreme heat.
(04:44):
So I mean the worst thing is, yeah, you gotta
crank the ASA, which you know, the poor little ace
and it's I probably said that a zillion times here before,
but I always feel sorry for them. It's just it's terrifying,
it really is. Then you can get like overcold at times,
like if you're sitting under an air missioner like I
am right now there, you go outside and it's like
muggy and hot and it's like, that's a great way
(05:06):
to get sick, isn't it. And there are probably there
are plenty of people who probably do get sick in
the summertime because of those huge temperature swings. You could
just overcool yourself way too much. Then you go out
there and you're like, oh my gosh, it's like totally different.
Kind of cut back on the running a little bit too.
I can't get up that early these days because I've
(05:28):
been working kind of later days here now, so it's
it's been a little tough. I mean, if I get out,
I'll hit the old dreadmill to get that at the
exercise in there. But other than that, we're making it
through here. This is mid August. Mark's book is just
coming out, and get it wherever you get those books.
(05:48):
Mark brend bren D, I believe, and you can get
that anywhere you're Amazon's or Barnes and Nobles. Interesting book,
really really interesting book out a real major talent and
somebody who had gone on to doing some interesting things
once he was done with the music business. It's a
(06:10):
tough business. Media is tough, and these days there are
other challenges with media. It's really, really, really tough to
deal with and tough to compete in this environment, so
we go over that a lot too. So anyway, enjoy
my talk with author Mark Brand who's way over there
(06:30):
Ian the UK. Hope you enjoy my both. Good morning,
How you doing fine?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thanks?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
How are you good? Good hanging in there? Where are
you speaking from this morning?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'm from Exeter in Devon, southwest of England.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Excellent and weather it's doing fine this time of year.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It's warm for us. Actually yeah, it's about eighty degrees fahrenheit.
It's quite good.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's a great pleasure. An author of many books here
and this latest one is quite interesting and what are
its origins? Your interest in it seems to go back
at least forty years. Your interest in this artist, mister Acles.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yes, David Ackles, Yes, I mean I first came across him,
as you say, forty years ago. I found one of
his albums for sale secondhand. I didn't know who he was.
I just bought it because I liked the cover and
was fascinated by his music. I discovered that he made
four albums which I acquired, and I've always loved his work,
(07:44):
and over the years, I've well, it's dawned on me
quite quickly that he was somebody who wasn't widely known,
and yet the people who do know about him tend
to really love him passionately. And I thought there was
an interesting story there about why he made records that
were so admired by some people and yet he remains
(08:07):
largely unknown.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's really fascinating just stumbling on an artist like that.
I guess you would almost say a no hit wonder
somebody who and you didn't hear this on the radio,
especially in those days. So yeah, I mean, but he
inspired many in the music community, some names that we know,
like Sir Elton John.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yes, that's right, Yeah, I mean, he was actually more
popular in the UK than he was He's an American,
but he was less popular in America. But he came
to the UK in nineteen sixty eight to promote his
first album, and quite a lot of songs from that
first album were covered by recentably well known British artists
like The Hollies and Spooky Truths, Spooky Tooth and Martin
(08:53):
Carthy and Elton John and Bernie Taupin who were just
starting out then were huge fans of David Eckles and
remain so to this state.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah yeah, And it's fascinating writing that just when you
dig deep into his catalog, which Blease starts in nineteen
sixty eight and he recorded four albums. Yeah yeah, yeah,
very interesting debut debut solo album that just really has
and I love that opening track, The Road to Cairo
(09:28):
just has a real deep bluesy sense. Do you notice
over this four album catalog, the arc the changes that
he had gone through, and did you do a deep
dive into his muse and what had inspired him through
the recording career, Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Very much so. I mean he was unusual in those
times and that his recording career didn't start until he
was in his thirties, and in those days that was
really old, you know, and he had spent a lot
of his well his adult life up until that point,
he was mainly interested in musical theater, and he did
(10:09):
various things related to musical theater and that was his
real inspiration. And what you see in his career that
he started out with material that just about fitted into
what you could hear happening elsewhere. It sounded just about
like on the fringes of rock music and the singer
songwriter movement. But by the time you get to his
(10:31):
third album, which is American Gothic, he'd let his musical
theater influences come to the fore and it really doesn't
sound like I mean, it's released on Elektra, which was
a great hip rock label and folk label, but it
doesn't sound like anything else that Elektra or anyone else
released at the time. And yet that was very It
(10:54):
was an interesting thing because that album got a hugely
positive press response. You know, the reviews were saying this
is that there. It's quite funny to read them now,
but there are lots of reviews at the time that
we're discussing whether that album or Sergeant Pepper were the
best albums ever made and amazing and the reviews were
(11:16):
that good. And yet the album didn't sell particularly well
and he only did one more after that and then
it was over. He was gone.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's just absolutely incredible when it's you know, at least
and the critics really, you know, seem to take to it.
And now I'm sure not every single critic was in
love with it, but definitely different. What is the theory though,
do you have a theory as to why does an
American artist do well in the UK but doesn't really
scratch the surface back at home? I mean, are there
(11:45):
are a couple of examples, you could see. The band
Sparks comes to mind very much, I mean, did very
well overseas, but like from California, and you know, basically
they have a very eclectic, small following here on our
soil in America.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah. Well, Scott Walker is another example of an American
artist who I understand really didn't register much in the
US at all, but was a big star here for
a while. Who knows, who knows why?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
David Acles was interesting in that actually his mother was English,
so by parentage he was half English. He grew up
in the States and spent almost all his life there,
so he was an American, but he had a strong
English sensibility and was very connected through the mother's side
of his family to the English music hall. His grandparents
(12:35):
and other relatives were involved on the stage professionally, and
that very much came through in his music later on.
And also he seemed to get the English folk community
seemed to pick up on him quite a bit. He
had a song called His Name is Andrew, which is
(12:59):
a very you know, extreme involved narrative ballads and it's
been covered quite a few times within the English traditional
folk community, which is strange really, that's a man from
Los Angeles writing a song about somebody who loses his
faith and it becomes a popular song in the English
(13:21):
traditional folk community. I don't know why that happens. Who
can say?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah? Yeah, So putting the book together, how long did
this take from my idea to finish? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I don't it's I mean, it probably took about two years.
But I've been thinking about it for a long time
before then. And I had actually written about David Ackles
a bit before. I'd written a few articles in the
chapter in another book, So i'd i'd. I've been researching
him for about twenty five years, really on and off,
but the last two years more intensely.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah. And it has a very interesting early life, especially
studying abroad, and has studied litterature abroad, so that that
probably brings a lot of the sensibilities into the lyric
writing as well.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yes, I think.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
He spent a year in Edinburgh and Scotland studying Old English,
and he was quite cultured in that respect. He never
really formally studied music, but he could play the piano
very well and became in a technical sense musically very competent.
(14:29):
But he also before as well as before that, he
had an interesting phase in his life because he was
a child actor in a series of films Rusty Films
with Rusty being a Dog, and there were half a
dozen of those films a few more, I think, and
he was in he had supporting parts in quite a
few of those films when he was between the age
(14:50):
of about eight and twelve, I.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Think, Yeah, it's interesting. He was kind of wanting to
be more like a top and kind of a character
in the music biness. But he was influenced by somebody
named Jack Holsman who wanted to say, hey, you got
the goods, you're it, get up there and start recording that.
I'm sure that had to feel probably kind of strained
(15:14):
to him. And he also, like you were saying earlier,
a little bit older than the singer songwriter that was
coming out in the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean, Jack Holtsman is a fascinating man himself,
of course, and he started Electra Records right back in
the fifties and when Accles was signed. He was signed
in late sixty seven, and the idea was that he
would be a songwriter for other artists. He made some
demos and Jack Holtzman said, I think you should record
(15:49):
these yourself. I think you should be the recording artist.
And so David Ackles found himself in a recording studio
making an album out of nowhere. Really, he had no
expectation that that would happen. He hadn't played live as
a performer. He had none of the background that people
normally have before they get to that stage of making
(16:11):
their first album.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, there's a little bit of a trippy and theatrical
feel in this track called Blue Ribbons that kind of
piqued my interests as I'm listening to this debut solo album,
and it really just tells you how much that was
inspirational to him going back then. Which of the tracks
were covered by other artists like Spooky Tooth Martin Curthy.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
On the first album, The Road to Cairo was almost
a hit for Julie Driscoll and the Brian Augo Trinity
because they'd had a big hit with this Wheels on Fire.
The Bob Dylan song and Road to Cairo was their
follow up single, and everyone was expecting that it would
be a hit, but it wasn't really, I'm not sure why.
(16:57):
So that was covered Down River was covered by the
Hollies and Spooky Tooth and a couple of other less
well known artists. Be My Friends, there's another song from
that album was covered by several English folk singers. And
then his name is Andrew was the one that was
(17:18):
covered by Martin Carthy.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Have he owned the organ in there too? So he
was with David very much a multi instrumentalist or is
he basically just at the piano.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He's just playing piano. The organ on that album is
a guy called Michael Fonfara who went on to play
with all manner of artists. I think he was in
Lou Reed's band in the seventies or eighties for example.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, he was a really good working musician. Back then,
you really paid your DearS. It wasn't like just getting
on a talent show and all of a sudden, your
debut album has five hit singles or something like that.
It's just you. You had to really pay your dues
back in those days, late nineteen sixties, early nineteen seventies
in all those guys very much so, I mean he
sounded like he did all those kind of things. But
(18:07):
as we always know, the music business is so tricky.
It's it's so hard to say, hey, what's a HiT's,
what's a hit album, what's a hit single. It's very tough.
That's what the endur A and R guys are for.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, yeah, that's right. I mean he was somebody who
didn't quite find his niche really he got a lot
of good press and even when he was playing live
as a live performer, he could sing and play very well.
So technically he was really good. And I've heard about
three or four hours of recordings of him live and
(18:43):
the standard of musical performance is very high. But there
wasn't really a right venue for him because he was
a solo piano playing singer songwriter. He didn't play with
the band apart from Once in the UK, and he
tended to end up in folk clubs, which wasn't quite right,
or supporting rock bands, which didn't work either. So his
(19:05):
although he played live quite a lot for a few years,
he was never comfortable with it and it didn't really
he couldn't ever break himself through playing live.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And speaking of live, he was at the Troubadour in
nineteen seventy Was that opening up for Elton John.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, he played there the year before the sixty nine
opening for Joni Mitchell, and then I think in seventy
one or seventy two he headlined there. But he supported
Elton John in August nineteen seventy of those famous breakthrough
gigs when Elton came over to the US for the
first time, and that played the gigs that are now
(19:47):
immortalized in the film rocket Man. David was the support act,
and Bernie Taupin and Elton John were both amazed and
also I think a bit embarrassed that he was their
support acts because they idolized him. They thought he was great,
and he was two albums into his career by then
and they were just starting out, and they thought it
(20:09):
was really strange and uncomfortable that David was supporting them.
But by all accounts they got on very well, and
David and Bernie talking in particular, became good friends after
that gig.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And they became friends all the way until David passed.
Has it been throughout all those years.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I believe so yeah. I think they were particularly close
for a few years afterwards, because then, of course Bernie
taking produced David's third album, American Gothic, which is the
one that got the is this as good as Sergeant
Pepper type of comments, But yes, and they remained friends
after that, and.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
He actually moved to England Wargrave, which is where is
that exactly in England?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Wargrave is in Berkshire. It's kind of let me see,
about forty miles west of London, so it's a prime
commuter territory really. It's a very pretty village on the
River Thames, and there's another river that joins the Thames
there called the Loudon, and David lived there for about
(21:20):
just under a year. I think he went there to
record American Gothic. So he lived in this little wooden
house that was on like brick stilts right by the river,
and he would be prepared the album there in that house.
And when he came to record it, it was recorded in
London and he catched the train down every day do
(21:43):
the eight hour session or however along it was then
come back on the train to the house in Wargrave,
and on the cover of the album American Gothic. That's
the house you see there. There are pictures of David
and Janice, who he later married, are on the cover
of the album. That the house was so near the
(22:03):
river it will quite often floods, and to get to
get to that, from the house to the row where
his car was, he'd have to get in a little
rowing boat and row across the floodwater to get to
dry land where his car was.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Wow with an experience, and he loved being by the water,
obviously downriver, all this inspirational stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, so the river River was a sort of recurring
motive in his songs. There were quite a lot of
songs that mentioned the river. And he said later that
he really loved living in England and would have quite
happily stayed there, but career wise it wasn't possible. He
needed to be back in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, Bernie Thompons, so he went on to do it.
Did Bernie Tuppen produce other acts after David.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
You know, I don't know about that. I'm not sure.
I really don't know. I mean, he's obviously known as
being Elton John's lyricist, but he was in Elektra's orbit
at the time because he had done a solo album,
a spoken word album that came out before American Gothic,
and so he knew Jack Holtzman, and he was already
(23:15):
friends with David and somehow all of those connections led
to the idea that Bernie would produce American Gothic.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, American Gothic has a really great texture to it.
You got piano's wood wins, all kinds of textures to it.
You could hear that difference definitely for sure. Recorded in
London at is that a pretty legendary studio there's IBC Studio.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah. IBC Studios was a big studio from the fifties onwards. Really,
it's not a recording studio now. It the who had
recorded there. Hendrix had recorded there, the Kinks, I think
pretty certain, the Rolling Stones, but most of the big
British acts had recorded there. It's right in central London
(24:00):
than near Oxford Circus, in a big old townhouse and
the main studio room was a room where they've knocked
they'd like knocked a floor out, so it had a
forty foot high ceiling and the control booth was in
(24:20):
a sort of elevated platform mezzanine type thing in the
corner of the room, and that's where David recorded the album.
Damon Lionshaw, who was the engineer who'd engineered Tommy by
the Who at that studio, he said that they largely
recorded live, so David would sit down in this big
(24:43):
room with the orchestra and they play and sing live together.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I could definitely feel that. It's just got a
lot of laudatory, you know comments. And when they were
promoting this album, he was on the All Gray Whistle Task.
How did that come to be? And now they never
archived that performance, as you were saying in the.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Book, sadly not knowing. He was on BBC TV three times.
Actually he was on He was initially on a nineteen
sixty eight program called color Me Pop, and then the
successor to that program was called Disco two I think,
and he was on that as well. And then the
successor to that was the Old Gray Whistle Test, which
(25:30):
was a long running rock show on the BBC and
it was very much for it was much more albums orientated.
It wasn't really a kind of hit singles program. And
so but the people who were behind the Old Gray
Whistle Test and produced it had already booked him twice
before for these earlier shows, so he was known to them.
(25:52):
And it's thought that he did two songs on the
old Gray Whistle Test in early seventy two, just and vocals,
but as you say, the footage was white. There's no
record of it at all. Sadly, his very first UK
TV appearance, Color Me Pop. The audio survives of that,
(26:15):
so we can hear him but we can't see him,
which is yes. And that was the one time he
played live with the band. He played the pickup band
when he came over toward Europe, came into London and
he was put with a pickup band who didn't know
they rehearsed for half an hour then straight into playing live.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, it's a shame, you know. Back then, obviously videotip
was pretty expansive, so out of networks, you know recycled,
but you know, a great handful of things did survive,
great records. I'm sure BBC has an amazing library. But yeah,
it was tough because real to real I do know
that being in the video business. So yeah, it's disappointing.
(26:59):
I always hate to hear it. It's always disappointing, but yeah,
moving on from that and the album cells were not
so great with American Gothics, so it went on to
he went on to signing with Columbia with Clive Davas.
How did Clive Davis stumble upon him?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Well, apparently Clive Davis had been aware of his earlier
albums and was a fan, and when he heard that
Jack Holsman and Accles decided mutually to terminate the contract.
David could have held out for another album contractually, but
he didn't, and apparently Clive Davis jumped straight in with
(27:37):
an offer, but it wasn't an offer with much money
attached to it, but David was keen to have control,
so he recorded the album largely at home with a
friend of his called Douglas Graham, and they recorded much
of the album on a four track, which by nineteen
this was nineteen seventy three, so you're into sixteen and
(28:00):
twenty four track era by ben and so recording a
four track was unusual. And then they took the tapes
into a slightly bigger studio to do a few overdubs,
but a very substantial proportion of the album was recorded
in his house in his living room in a house
on Pacific Palisades, and that was what he'd delivered to Columbia.
(28:26):
The problem was for him was that shortly before he
finished the album, Clive Davis was sacked from Columbia because
there was these charges relating to Ford or something, but
were later discredited entirely. But so Clive Davis was out
of the picture, and he was the person who'd signed David,
(28:48):
and David knew nobody else at Columbia at all. He
was completely isolated. They didn't know what to do with him,
and he didn't know what to do either. And you
can really sense that with the way if you compare
how that album was promoted to American Gothic, American Gothic
adverts everywhere, a lot of press coverage, TV specials and
(29:11):
that type of thing. And then with five in Time,
there are a few reviews. It's very low key. It's
quite clear that Colombia didn't have a clue what to
do with him, and that he was dropped very soon
after that, and that album sunk without trace. The other
thing about that which was disappointing for David was that
(29:32):
he was more popular. As I said earlier in the
UK than he was at home and the Columbia album
wasn't even released in the UK, and so where he
had his biggest audience, that they couldn't get a hold
of the album. So it wasn't like now where with
streaming and everything, everything's accessible. If the album isn't released
in your territory, you never saw it.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, homemade, tied, mostly homemade last album, and way before
somebody like you know, somebody like you know, there was
McCartney too. McCartney did it back in nineteen seventy basically
a homemade So that was, you know, still kind of
rare in that kind of time to man your own
stuff and do it. Nowadays anybody can get into and
(30:14):
has their own digital suite, I'm sure, but back then
something like that. It didn't get the promotion, The album fails,
Clive Davis sacked, all that kind of stuff, series of
unfortunate events and the music business it's really tough. It's,
you know, so much great talent and we still see
it today. There's so much out there and so much
(30:35):
to sift through, and it's very hard to break through.
So I mean this is going back decades. Yeah, and
I'm sure there are other stories like that, but this
is a very very unique story about somebody who's just
you know, a renaissance guy in a lot of ways too,
and had a lot of a theatrical inspiration as well.
(30:55):
So after the recording career he goes on and does
other artistic works and then it gets in the TV development.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That's right. Yeah. He and Douglas Graham, who had helped
produce five nine, they wrote for TV for a little while.
They had a writing partnership and they did. Their highest
profile thing was a TV movie called Word of Honor, Yes,
Word of Honor, that came out I think at about
(31:25):
nineteen eighty or seventy nine, and it's a decent quality
TV movie. Carl Malden, who is one of the leads
in it, Ron Silver's in it, I think, so it was,
but that petered out after a while. But David what
he was really interested in doing, what he really wanted
to do, was to write musicals, and he spent the
(31:50):
rest of his life trying to do that. And he
completed several full musicals, script all of the songs and everything,
and had a It got reasonably close to getting a
couple ins of production, but it never quite happened for him,
but that was very much his creative focus after he
(32:11):
stopped recording, but stopped making records, but he wasn't of course,
he wasn't making a living out of that, so he
had to do other things, and he got into teaching
at bits and that sort of thing. He went back
to the University of Southern California to teach, where he
had been an undergraduate in the in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Where did he live in California during that time? Did
you have a specific place where he was.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
He lived in let me come, Let me come back
to you on that exactly. The addressed so familiar to
me because I but I can't quite remember the name.
It's kind of north of Los Angeles, but not out ah.
(33:01):
Let me come back to you.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Did he have a family life there as well? Did
he have.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Janice, who's the woman who is on the cover of
American Gothic. He married her just before the recording of
Five and dime, so they'd only be married a couple
of months when all of the musicians turned up at
their house to make five and dime. And they had
a son, and he had a very happy family life
(33:31):
and died in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, lung cancer.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Gun.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
But he had a close brush with death in nineteen
eighty one, I believe that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, he was he was driving home with his young son,
who was I think must only have been about three
or something, was in the car at the time and
he was hit by a driver on the wrong side
of the road and David and Janis's son was fine.
David was very serious injured and had multiple operations, had
(34:04):
to have his hip replaced, and almost lost his arm.
So it was really but he did recover and he
had to use a wheelchair for several quite a long
time after the accident, but he did recover. But he Yeah,
that was a close shave. That was in eastern nineteen
eighty one.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Wow, And that's an amazing story. But lung cancer took
him out in the end.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
That he had a brush with lung cancer in the
early nineties and round just as he had an operation,
had passed his lung removed and recovered and was well.
And around about that time his three Electra albums were
reissued on CD in the UK and he got a
little bit of attention and there were a few where
(34:52):
are they now whatever happened to type of articles in
the UK music press, and David was interviewed and was
extremely cheerful and positive and happy that the records were
out again, surprised that they were out again. But you
could tell even from what he said that his real
(35:14):
focus was on wanting to do the musical that he
was writing at the time, and he would always talk
about that in interviews he would. I myself interviewed him
in the late nineteen nineties towards the end of his
life for an article about what happened to him, and
he was extremely charming and gracious and warm and generous
(35:39):
and happy to talk about his music, but really wanted
to talk about his musicals as well. And he was
writing and worked for a long time on a musical
about Amy McPherson's sister actly who was in the UK,
it's not somebody who's known at all, but probably in
the USA is better known even now. But she was
(35:59):
a very very famous and somewhat controversial sort of media evangelist.
I suppose she was somebody who used radio a lot
in the twenties and thirties, and there was a scandalous
episode in her life where she went missing and then
turned up a few weeks later. It said she'd been kidnapped,
(36:23):
but there was a lot of dispute about that, and
some people were saying she ran off with her lover.
And anyway, David's musical, which is called Sister Amy, was
all about that disappearance, and he worked on it for
a long time and got it to quite a high
standard and had some workshop productions of it in Los
Angeles through the nineties, but unfortunately didn't quite live long
(36:48):
enough to see it through to a full production.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Maybe the Sun can pick it up. What's the Sun
doing now?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well? Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It would be great
if somebody could pick it up. You know who knows.
He made a demo of it, which he doesn't sing
on himself, well, not much. He hired professional singers, so
he you know, he went a long way with it
and was very committed to it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah. And then later on what song did Phil Collins
cover for the Desert Island Desks.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Well, he didn't cover it, he played it. Solin Disks
is for anyone who doesn't know, is a long running
BBC radio show where celebrities go on and talk about
that that the eight records. I think it is that
they would take to a desert island if they if
they were straight, and Phil Collins chose down River, which
(37:43):
is from the first album. And at that point David
was a very obscure figure. But then Elvis Costello had
a chat show briefly called Spectacle, I believe, where he
and he had Elvis. He had Elton John on as
a guest. This was after David died, but they they
(38:08):
sang down River together. They dueted, and I think you
can probably still see that online somewhere. It was. It
was on YouTube for a while.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Okay, I'll have to check that out. I'm sure it's
a very good of Elton's covering it. It's going to
be an amazing performance. I didn't know Elvis Costello had
a targer, so that's interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I think it was a pretty short running thing called
Spectacle and pretty certain few episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
An electure was going to do a box set at
some time and it just got scrapped.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, that was a frustrating episode. This was in the
late twenty ten, so maybe about two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, there was a box set that
was produced, possibly even manufactured. We're not sure, but it
was all designed, all mastered, and it had three electra
albums plus about an album's worth of previously unreleased material
(39:07):
and beautifully packaged with liner notes by Bernie Taupin and
Elvis Costello. But it was pulled at the last minute
because of I believe an ownership dispute about one of
the tracks, and it's never seen the light of day.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, always something with the legal community getting involved as well.
It happened so much in music as we have seen,
especially with the Beatles and Alan Kleinkott and fov there
and everything. Great new book. Do you have a whole
line of other books. I've not really stumbled and done
a deep dive on your entire catalog. Who else have
(39:43):
you written about?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, my first book, which was a long time ago,
was called American Troubadoors, and that was about nine American
singer songwriters that I particularly liked, including David Apples, but
people like Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley and Fred Neil,
Tom Rush and so on. I wrote a book about
very early electronic music that was about twelve years ago.
(40:08):
Now very I'm talking free synthesizer electronic music, particularly used
in films and TV. I wrote a book about Low
George of Little Feet, and I'm not just music. I
wrote about other things as well.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Very good. And it seems very inspirational there where you
are writing from as well. It seems like a nice, quiet,
humble place where you can concentrate. You mean in this yeah,
right where you're out there. Yeah, it seems like it.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, it's very hot at the moment.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Oh god, yeah, that's true. You don't do you have
air conditioner? There nothing an essential thing we have here
in Atlanta, Georgia and the southeastern United States. Here we
are in July of twenty twenty five, and it is
another score to as it always says here in this
part of America, it's wow. Yeah, it's essential here. But yeah,
(41:03):
over there, I'm sure. But yeah, you definitely save on
the electric bills. But then again, it's kind of tough
when it gets up over a certain temperature there.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, but you know, gone complain. It's better
than cold and rain, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah? Yeah, very very true. Excellence, Well, thank you so
much for joining me. This has been fantastic. It's interesting
to hear about people who are really off the radar,
And that's a general theme in my podcast is that
I've talked to many people, some on the radar a
little bit and then somewhere way off of it. And
(41:38):
David Ackles definitely fits that bill for sure. And it's
just amazing that he has inspired some of the biggest
people in pop music. It's very interesting to hear that
and then you bring that to light in the book
as well. So this book is available wherever we can
get them.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, I can't remember off the top of my head
the exact date. Sometime in mid August. It's just available
through all the usual places that you get your book.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Mid August of twenty twenty five. Be sure to get
that out there down river. That cover of photograph of
the book, is that from something you pulled from this catalog?
Who do you know who took that picture?
Speaker 2 (42:24):
You know, it's a bit of a mystery because the
first in the book, American troubadaals what I wrote about David,
a chapter about David Apples. We got that photo and
it's a photo of him playing live, but nobody knows
where it was taken and who took it, and so
ownership is unclear. It dates from nineteen sixty eight. We
(42:46):
think possibly sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
You know too far before his sophomore album, which has
kind of fun sing alongs on there too, like mainline
salone to Chierry type song. Yeah, just basically I could
picture everybody in the saloon. It's having fun. Yeah, Yeah, definitely,
great catalog for sure. To check him out. David Apples,
He's really He's streaming everywhere, so I'm hoping the estate
(43:13):
gets some money. You don't make a whole lot out
of the streaming, and hopefully it's the publishing that's keeping
everybody in his estake going, so I always hope for that.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Absolutely, Well, thanks for joining me and once again the
fantastic book. Get it wherever you get those books.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Thank you both. Thanks very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Take care, have a good one, cheerios. Wasn't that fascinating?
I really enjoyed it, and I really really had a
good time speaking with him. Good guy, very good writer.
He's done quite a bit of work in the magazine
books world, so enjoy look him up too, He's done
a lot of other stuff. Great artist, David Agles. Get
(43:57):
that book wherever you get your books. Take care and
hopefully we'll keep doing this. We are over five years
into doing this podcast, and those who do download these
episodes or watch them on YouTube, I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much. It means a lot to me.
Take care,
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