David Ackles - Press Articles

The following are articles that have appeared in various newspapers and magazines about David. In some cases they are used with full permission of the author and in other cases I have been unable to trace the author, but will withdraw the item if it causes a problem. In each case, the publication is credited and the date of publication given.

This is a long page, with a lot of text. You may be best to save it or print it for off-line reading.

Obituary printed in "The Independent", March 1999, written by Brian Mathieson.

There is a cliche in rock journalism about "that difficult third album". David Ackles' third album was considered by many as his masterwork. A critique of his homeland, American Gothic contained the astounding Montana Song which, in 7 minutes, told of the trials faced by the early settlers that made America. He set this to an orchestral score of Coplandesque proportions that etched a panorama reminiscent of John Ford.

Born in 1937 into a show-business family, David Ackles became involved in performance at an early age. He started out in vaudeville as young as four, then took the role of Tuck Warden in four Rusty films for Columbia Pictures (My Dog Rusty, 1948).

Having studied literature at Edinburgh University, Ackles took a degree in Film Studies at USC before working in musical comedy, theatre, film and script writing for television. By the late sixties, he was writing songs that were of stunning beauty and Elektra employed him initially as a songwriter, on the basis of hearing Blue Ribbons.

His persuasiveness led to a more elaborate contract, which resulted in three wonderful albums over five years. Ackles had a richly textured, but unusual voice for rock music. Whilst he had a tender approach to ballads, the vocal tone could develop into an angry rasp or a scornful snarl, depending on the subject matter.

He shared with people like Harry Chapin and Randy Newman the ability to write in character and to construct stories around an individual. He was the prisoner returning home to find his love had not waited for him (Down River) and the drifter who couldn\rquote t face returning to his family (Road To Cairo). But he drew the line at singing in the first person about the wounded soldier who sought to damage children\rquote s minds by slipping them pornography (Candy Man).

Many of Ackles' songs related to the downtrodden or to those who had created difficult situations for themselves. In each case, he tried to give his characters an element of self-respect and dignity. He then added music that ranged fr om simple, beautiful melodies to complex arrangements that could have come from the pen of Bernstein or Gershwin.

His first album used the Elektra house band, yet his arrangements brought the best out of his musicians. Not for him the notion of a bass player who simply plodded along to keep the beat \endash instead, the bass line was often a counterpoint to the main theme. By the third album, Ackles was using a full orchestra and his arrangements showed his understanding of a wide range of musical styles.

The title track of American Gothic said in four minutes what it took David Lynch a complete TV series to describe. He then went on to produce a series of vignettes that summed up life in his home country in the late twentieth century. Interestingly, the al bum was made from the perspective of living in England.

Despite enormous critical acclaim, his unusual voice and eclectic style was not to the taste of the general public. Something of an artist's artist, Ackles had a number of songs covered by others. Al though he reached a critical apogee with American Gothic he was dropped by Elektra, who clearly could not see their investment in him being recouped.

A switch to Columbia for his fourth album didn't assist his career in music. Perhaps Columbia was looking to promote him as another Leonard Cohen, but the result was a good album that few people bought. The contract was terminated and nothing more was heard of David Ackles until Elektra re-released their three albums on CD in the mid-nineties.

His career in popular music cut short, Ackles returned to writing TV scripts, along with work on ballet scores and some lecturing on commercial songwriting. In 1981, a drunk driver rammed his car and his arm was badly damaged. A steel hip meant he spent six months in a wheelchair, but he fought free of it when asked to choreograph a show. It still took years before he was able to return to the piano.

Ackles completed the score for a musical, Sister Aimee in the early 90s and continued to write for TV. He settled on a six-acre horse farm near Los Angeles and worked as a professor of theatre for the USC. He was involved in student theatre production and had a success with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera in 1997. An open and warm man, he was well loved an d greatly respected by his students.

As a committed Christian - although some of his lyrics seem to express the doubts that all of us have from time to time - Ackles was a member of the Pasadena All Saints Episcopal Church. He had strong commitments to hel ping others, both in a direct sense and through his writing. Although Ackles overcame a bout of cancer a few years back, it cost him part of his left lung. He then became very unwell again in 1997 but clung on, through chemotherapy until his death last week.

It is a strange aspect of popular music that some people can remain in the business for many years, purveying difficult or complex sounds, while others of equal talent have their careers foreshortened by record companies that cannot appreciate their wo rth. Perhaps if Ackles had been valued as much in his own country as he was in Europe, we would have had many more than those four magnificent albums.

David T Ackles, singer/songwriter, theatre professor; born Rock Island, Illinois 20 February 1937; married Janice Vogel 1972 (one son); died Tujunga, California 2 March 1999.

Obituary printed in "The Guardian", March 1999, written by Christopher Hawtree.

The singer-songwriter David Ackles, who has died of cancer aged 62, had a rollercoaster career which reached its high point in 1972 when American Gothic was Melody Maker's album of the year.

This was his third Elektra album after David Ackles and Subway To the Country. Written in England, it is the equal of the Band's work and superior to most of Bruce Springsteen's. It ranges across such subjects as the military, infidelity, Native Americans, and, in Montana Song, a picture of the United States through the eyes of early settlers. It is one of the few pop songs that can carry for 10 minutes, and its complex musical structures were overseen by Bernie Taupin.

Born to a show-business family in Rock Island, Illinois, Ackles took to the stage in vaudeville at the age of four, and in the late 1940s appeared in the Rusty film series. During a wild youth, he was jailed five times for theft but, in the end, decided that studying literature would bring greater knowledge to his lyric-writing. He read English literature at Edinburgh University and then film studies at the University of Southern California. He had begun to compose and was enthusiastic about ballet and choral music. He also went on a monster binge, which ended up with him married and in Las Vegas. The union did not survive sobriety.

Ackles's post-USC life resembled a Jim Thompson novel. He worked as a pianist, gardener, playground director, private detective and automobile salesman - no bad experience for someone who would take America as his subject. After some television scriptwriting, he got a songwriting contract with Elektra Records in the late 1960s - his Road To Cairo was Julie Driscoll's follow-up to her version of This Wheel's On Fire. After American Gothic, he made a fourth album, FiveAnd Dime, for Columbia.

Ackles then lived by writing TV scripts and ballet scores, and lecturing on songwriting. He bought a six-acre farm in Tajunga and became a pillar of the local church. In 1981 he spent six months in a wheelchair after a drunken driver smashed into him and needed a steel hip - his arm never fully recovered. Once again, he found joy in stage work, and returned to UCS a couple of years ago for a much-praised student production of The Threepenny Opera. He is survived by, his wife, Janice, and his son.

David Ackles, singer-songwriter, born February 20, 1937; died March 2, 1999.

Interview with David for the Ptolemaic Terrascope 1994 by Kenny MacDonald

AMERICAN GOTHIC - THE ROAD TO DAVID ACKLES

When WEA Records decided to reissue the David Ackles back-catalogue in February 1994 after a mere twenty years out of print, it signalled an immediate upturn in interest in this sadly neglected talent. Music biz gossip has it that the first two'phone calls WEA Big Cheese Rob Dickens received were from Elvis Costello and Phil Collins, each congratulating him on the renewed availability of Ackles' albums. Collins, a long-time champion, included Ackles' 'Down River' on a subsequent appearance on BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs', and observed to Sue Lawley: "He taught me that writing songs didn't have to be moon/spoon/June, that you could write intelligently about more serious subjects". All this acclaim would have been rounded off nicely had the man himself been around to bask in the adulation. Which is where your sleuthing correspondent comes in.

When the first three albums, 'David Ackles', 'Subway To The Country' and 'American Gothic', came out on CD, I replaced my aging vinyl copies and set about tracking down the artist. Initial calls to WEA went unanswered, the vast monolith clearly under the impression they were dealing with a crank who would in time be found and returned to the bughouse. However, they at least established that Ackles was still alive, since they had received a letter from him expressing his delight at his work being freely available again (this was how the WEA press office put it. I suspect the tone of the call might have been more along the "Here's my address kids I look forward to those royalty cheques flooding in" variety, but no matter). Next, I rang Elektra Records' New York office, where they could unearth no-one who had even HEARD of David Ackles, displaying once again the record industry's contempt for anyone not deemed to be an artist worth plugging at the precise moment. A friend in the business suggested that a call to MCPS, the music publishers, might bear fruit, since if Ackles was still getting royalties, someone somewhere would have to pass them on to him. The charming Sue Ellen in their Los Angeles branch did indeed have an address for him, but they were, understandably, unable to divulge such information. They did however promise to forward my phone number to the address they had.

The next step was the logical one (which is why I left it till last). I took some interestingly individual-looking names from the sleeves of the Ackles records, dug out a Los Angeles telephone directory and started disturbing people down the transatlantic wire. After a few false starts and a "Gee, yes, I did play on 'Subway To The Country', but I haven't seen David for years", I tracked down Fred Myrow, who arranged the second album. He proved a fascinating fellow in his own right, probably worthy of a whole separate feature: his father, Joseph, wrote the standard 'You Make Me Feel So Young' and he (Fred) was in the process of writing a musical with Jim Morrison (based, he said, on the Lizard King's response to Myrow's classical collection) when Morrison thoughtlessly checked out in Paris. Fred also claimed to be arranging some work-in-progress involving Van Dyke Parks' songs, as sung by Brain Wilson! As fascinating as all this was, it got me no nearer to Ackles, Myrow being another case of "Oh yes we had such fun making that record, but I haven't seen or heard anything about David since, woah, it must be..."

Then, suddenly, everything clicked merrily into place. A bloke from WEA rang to say he'd just heard of my enquiries and had checked it out with Ackles, who'd given the OK to pass along his phone number! Hallelujah! The following is an account of the conversation which followed after the preliminary niceties and grovelling had finished...

Ptolemaic Terrascope: It must be nice to realise that people are beating a path to record shop counters over here to replace their original copies of the albums.

David Ackles: Well, I'm not sure how beaten that path will be, to be frank! When I heard about the plans to re-issue these albums I really thought it was someone's idea of a joke because they've been unavailable for so long. But I have to be honest and say listening to them again - they sent me some from London - was very interesting, even just from the point of view of hearing them in pristine clarity. I'd become so accustomed to the surface noise I thought it was part of the orchestration!

PT: Of course, 'American Gothic' got all that praise at the time...

DA: (Laughing) Oh yes, I remember! Could I forget! Derek Jewell in the Sunday Times said something about it being a milestone in popular music, all that kind of thing. Derek was trying to help, but it just rebounded. It got outrageous and undeserved praise, praise which put it in the category of being just impossible to follow up. Actually, it all seems kind of unreal now.

PT: I suspect the part of your career up to 'American Gothic' is reasonably well-known, but what happened between it and 'Five And Dime'? [perfectly-acceptable-lighter-toned-fourth-album on Columbia US, which sank without trace but is well worth tracking down]

DA: Well, the thing was, I'd had three strikes at bat with Elektra and got nowhere. The records had all been well reviewed and hadn't done much else, so Jac Holzman (head of Elektra) and I sat down and decided between us that it might be time to try somewhere new. It was thoroughly mutual. Jac was as frustrated at the lack of sales as I was, and we decided it was an opportune moment to move on. So off I went to Columbia and did 'Five And Dime'.

PT: After which, nothing.

DA: Yes, nothing. They (Columbia) just didn't know what to do with me and after nothing happened with 'Five And Dime' they released me. And I just found it was hard to get a deal. A part of it, I would have to say, was my own doing. I didn't come away from Columbia thinking "well, by God I'm going to go elsewhere!". There was so little support that I thought to myself, maybe this isn't what you're intended to do. Of course, I should have been more aggressive, but in retrospect I took it as more of a sign than I should have. It was kind of hard to get motivated but I kept at it. Finally I decided I had to make a living and started to look at other things.

PT: All music related?

DA: Oh yes. I did the music for a couple of movies, one called 'Word of Honour' starring Kari Maiden [described as "an above-average TV movie" in my guide - Ed.], another called 'Father Of The Year', nothing particularly great. I did a children's TV series, anything, really, rather than teaching... the dreaded T-word! But I have to confess that I did teach commercial songwriting for a while. The odd thing is that, although the records were never big successes, the royalty cheques come in once a year. From time to time they even creep into five figures.

PT: Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, there are a couple of things I'd like to ask you about your early years. Most of them come from an early Elektra press-release, and they sound, frankly, a bit fanciful. Can I go through it?

DA: Sure. I might say before you begin I think I know the one you mean and it certainly does sound as though it was the product of some fevered PR man...

PT: You were the star of a series of B movies about a dog called Rusty?

DA: Oh yes, that's true. They were second features. This was in the late forties. It was good fun, we did about nine of them. But by the age of about 13 or 14 I was getting too old.

PT: Security guard in a toilet paper factory? Private detective?

DA: Yes, both of those are true. They were just bit-jobs while I was writing music scores, anything to keep going.

PT: It also claims 'Blue Ribbons' from the first album was written for Cher?

DA: Yes, that's right. You have to remember this was in the mid-sixties. Cher looked and sounded a lot, urn, different to the way she does now.

PT: It also says you studied at Edinburgh University?

DA: Oh yes, that's true as well. This was in 1957/8, my junior year in college.

PT: What were you studying?

DA: I was studying West Saxon, the origins of the English language. If you know of any gathering which requires to hear the Lord's Prayer recited in West Saxon, I'm their man. I have fond memories of being in Scotland. My father's family came from Aberdeen, and most of my mother's family are from England. I still have some distant cousins around Tring in Hertfordshire.

PT: Can we bring things a bit more up to date? Have you kept writing?

DA: Absolutely. I've written stage pieces, musicals, things that play in community theatres. I've just finished a new musical and I've spoken with Rob (Dickens) about perhaps doing an album of that, which would be fun. Oh yes, I've kept on writing - very much so.

PT: I tracked down some people who worked on the records and they all seemed to lose track of you around the early 80s.

DA: Well, that would make sense, because I was out of commission for a long time. In 1981 I was in a near-fatal car crash when a drunk diver ploughed into my car. My wife was outside the theatre door shouting "Don't cut off his arm! He plays the piano!" I was in a wheelchair for six months with a badly damaged hip, and it was 18 months before I could play again. Then last year I was diagnosed as having lung cancer and had part of my left lung removed. But I'm fine now.

PT: Is your wife the girl on the back of 'American Gothic'?

DA: Yes, indeed. Janice. We've been married 21 years and we have a 16 year old son, George, who plays bass in a band called Tuesday's Child. I'm 57 now and I look nowadays like a really bad drivers' licence picture from that time.

PT: I have to say, David, that given the things that have happened both professionally and privately, you remain a very up-sounding guy.

DA: Well, you know, things happen because of timing. I'm not bitter about a thing that's happened to me. I would hate for people to think I'm over here getting all twisted up about what happened 20 years ago. All that feels like another life, lived by someone else.

PT: So what's an average day for David Ackles?

DA: Well, in the morning I usually go to a gym where I'm a member, just to get the blood moving. I write songs. I work at my computer. I play the piano every day. In the afternoons I'll sometimes go for a hike in the hills around my home. I live at 2000 feet , just North of Los Angeles. In fact the wind blew the roof off my stable a month or two ago. I'm sitting here at my kitchen table talking to you and it's a beautiful sunny morning. The hills have some snow on them, it's lovely. I'm not despondent, not in any way. I have a wonderful life.

For the record, your correspondent was taken aback by Ackles, and I admit confusing the artist with his art. For a man whose work is usually described as 'brooding', 'melancholy'or'elegant', Ackles' speech is frequently punctuated by hearty chuckles. There's nothing gloomy about him, despite the hand dealt to him by the record industry. And it would be nice to think the revitalisation of interest through the re-issues will lead to 'Five And Dime' also reappearing (although, as the first three haven't been released in America, this seems unlikely), and that his new musical will also be released. It's a nice thought. Write to Rob Dickens and encourage him to make it happen.

Copyright: Ptolemaic Terrascope - used with permission. The summer 1999 edition (issue 27) contains the last interview David did before his death. For details of how to subscribe, contact the magazine editor, Phil McMullen, at philmcm@email.dircon.co.uk.

Obituary in the May1999 edition of Mojo by Andy Gill

David Ackles: Unflinching singer-songwriter

OF ALL THE SINGER-SONGWRITERS signed to Jac Holzman's Elektra Records in the late '60s, David Ackles was by far the most individual. He played piano rather than guitar, which alone made his debut single Down River a striking enough proposition on its release in 1968. But it was Ackles' voice which first caught the ear, a warm, lugubrious baritone which reflected the maturity of both the performer and his work.

Born into an Illinois showbusiness family in 1937 - grandad and grandma were vaudeville comedian and women's bandleader, respectively - Ackles was briefly a child actor before studying literature at Edinburgh University and film at the University Of Southern California. His talent for evocative melancholy became clear on his eponymous debut album (released as The Road To Cairo in the USA). Ackles was never afraid of tackling big themes like loss of faith, addiction, childhood trauma and the withering of love; the songs on his second album, Subway To The Country (1969), tackled unpleasant subjects - mental illness, an amputee soldier's pornographic revenge on small children. Though impressive, its creepy, cynical tone proved commercially disastrous, and by the time of his masterpiece, American Gothic (1972), he was struggling to keep his career alive.

Following a move to Columbia which stalled after just one album, Ackles retired from rock and moved to LA, where he worked on ballet scores, wrote TV scripts and lectured. In the carly '90s, he scored a musical, Sister Aimee; later, as adjunct professor of musical theatre at the University of Southern California, he directed a successful 1997 student production of The Threepenny Opera.

Having recovered from an earlier bout of cancer which cost him part of his left lung, Ackles suffered a relapse in 1997, eventually dying on March 2. He leaves his wife of 26 years, Janice, and a son, George, but he w ill be sorely missed by all those touched by his work.

Obituary and Appraisal of David's work in the May1999 edition of Record Collector by Mark Brend:

By the late 60s, Jac Holzman's Elektra Records had grown from humble folk roots into a unique hybrid of creativity and commerciality. Bankrolled by big sellers like the Doors, Holzman assembled an unprecedented array of musical talent, who produced some of the great records of the era. It must have seemed like the ideal environment for a literate singer-songwriter and pianist like David Ackles, who signed to the company in 1967.

Born in Rock Island, Illinois on 20/2/37, Ackles was immersed in showbusiness from an early age. His grandfather had been a music hall comedian, his mother a radio personality and his father a keen amateur musician. At five, he trod the boards with his sister in a music hall duet, the Ackles Twins. A few years later he played a supporting role to Rusty the Dog in a series of B-movies.

By the late 50s Ackles was studying English Literature at Edinburgh University, followed by a degree in Film Studies at the University of Southern California. During this period he became involved in theatre productions, and began composing songs, ballet scores and choral music. After finishing his studies he spent most of his twenties in a series of dead-end jobs, like security guard and private detective, all the while honing his songwriting skills. In 1965 he witnessed the Watts race riots in Los Angeles, an experience he later captured in "Blue Ribbons". This song attracted the attention of an old college friend, David Anderle, who was a staff producer for Elektra. In due course Ackles was signed up, initially as a songwriter.

After Holzman failed to interest other artists in recording any of his new signing's songs, it was suggested that Ackles should record an album himself. He needed no persuasion, and went into the studio with the Elektra house-band (who released albums as Rhinoceros). David Anderle and Russ Miller shared production chores. The resulting eponymous album was released in 1968, before Ackles had ever performed live as a solo artist. It was reissued, with a different sleeve, as "The Road to Cairo", in 1971. This album was the first of his classic works - a near flawless set of dark, intense songs performed with great feeling.

Already in his 30s, Ackles possessed a lived-in, sonorous voice that lent his poetic songs a sense of gravitas missing from much popular music of the era. Michael Fonfara's sombre yet melodic organ playing complemented his songs and voice perfectly. Many of these early tunes, although performed with conventional rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards), were already displaying Ackles' interest in musical forms not often explored on conventional rock albums. For every Jim Webb-like expansive ballad (such as "Blue Ribbons"), there was a distinctive oddity, like the Brechtian "Laissez Faire".

Standout tracks include the opening "Road To Cairo" (Cairo, Georgia, not Egypt), which featured a stinging blues guitar solo, a rarity on Ackles' albums. "Down River" is an early illustration of Ackles' fondness for writing in the first person, often about downtrodden losers on the margins of society. He was to explain later that this did not necessarily mean he was writing autobiographically. These first-person songs are best understood as the work of a dramatist - an actor as well as a singer - revealing the strong influence of Ackles' theatrical background.

Fonfara's playing dominated the central song, the funereal "His Name Is Andrew", which Martin Carthy covered on his "Landfall" album. A pessimistic narrative of religious manipulation and doubt, it struck a stark contrast to the euphoric free-love anthems popular at the time. This was the first Ackles song which critics found hard to categorise - a situation which became commonplace by the time he reached his third album.

Despite critical acclaim and some airplay the album was not a commercial success on either side of the Atlantic. Two UK singles - "Down River" and "Laissez Faire" - likewise failed to chart. Nonetheless a number of other artists apart from Martin Carthy covered Ackles' songs, including Julie Driscoll and the Brian Auger Trinity, whose version of "Road To Cairo" was a near-hit follow up to the massive "This Wheel's On Fire". Around this time, Ackles performed live and appeared on TV. All the signs were that he would develop into a significant force as a songwriter and recording artist.

The follow-up album, "Subway To The Country", appeared in 1969. Russ Miller alone got the production credits, and only guitarist Doug Hastings survived from first album. He and Ackles were joined top session players, including Lonnie Mack who were marshalled to impressive effect by arranger and conductor Fred Myrow. He was another old friend, who went on to write film scores, including the futuristic Charlton Heston thriller, Soylent Green.

Benefiting from the often extravagant arrangements, "Subway To The Country" was another quality record, without quite matching the classic status of the first album. Highpoints include the epic "Out On The Road", distinguished by a vocal performance of unbridled emotional power; and the eerie "Candyman" (tackling the unfashionable subject of child abuse). Sales were modest, but Ackles' reputation continued to grow.

In no hurry to embark on a third album, Ackles decamped to the UK and a rural idyll in Buckinghamshire. The songs he wrote there appeared on the album for which he is best remembered. "American Gothic", released in 1972, was produced by Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin. Ackles had once gigged with Elton in the States and there was considerable mutual admiration. The album was a highly ambitious song-cycle taking Ackles' homeland as its theme. He commented on the sleeve that "it seems like you get a sharper perspective on your own country when you're away from it". For the first time Ackles wrote the arrangements as well as the songs, a task which he apparently found enormously time-consuming. Whatever energy was expended in preparation for the album was well spent, though - "American Gothic" was an unequivocal artistic triumph.

LANDMARK

Drawing on a wide range of musical influences, it was a work of breathtaking ambition. A number of critics, including Derek Jewel in The Sunday Times, hailed it as a landmark, a whole new direction in popular music. In many ways this acclaim became a rod for Ackles' back. More than a few people bought the album on the strength of the reviews, and were baffled by the complexity of both songs and arrangements. Ackles himself felt immensely pressured by what he saw as unreasonably high expectations on him.

Even now, "American Gothic" remains hard to describe and impossible to categorise. Elements of folk, blues, country and gospel were interwoven with echoes of Gilbert & Sullivan and contemporary classical composers. Many of the songs, like "Ballad Of The Ship Of State" and the ten-minute "Montana Song", were elaborate constructions that eschewed the conventional verse/chorus/middle eight structure of most rock songs. It was, however, in no way related to some of the similarly complex progressive efforts of the day, but more like a stage adaptation of an expansive novel of American life. It is a record that demands attention and effort.

Sales of "American Gothic" were a slight improvement on the first two albums: it even crept briefly into the lower reaches of the US charts. But Ackles, a perfectionist who had gone over budget on all three albums, was deeply in debt to Elektra and still, despite the critical plaudits, not shifting large numbers of records. By mutual agreement his contract was terminated and he went to Columbia signed by Clive Davis, a long-term fan. It was the beginning of the end of his recording career.

Shortly after Ackles arrived at Columbia, Davis left, replaced by people who either didn't understand or didn't care about their new signing. Ackles was allowed to record one more album, but that was it. No promotion, no support. Disillusioned, he resolved to give up recording, struggling on as a songwriter for a while before moving to the next phase of his life.

That elusive fourth album, "Five And Dime", released in 1973, is unknown even to many die hard Ackles fans. It was never released in the UK, although a few US promotional copies did find their way over here. Meanwhile, sales in the States were minimal. It turned out to be another good record, although it lacked the intensity of his earlier releases. Only "Abervan", a narrative about the Welsh mining disaster, explored similar musical territory to the previous album. "Surf's Down', an ironic poke at the surfing scene of the 60's, is a plausible but distinctly un-Ackles-like parody of the genre - lent authenticity by the falsetto harmonies of Dean Torrance (from Jan and Dean). Written, arranged and produced by Ackles, the album was recorded mainly in a makeshift studio in his house.

TEACHING

By the late 70s Ackles had all but disappeared from the music business. He made a living writing film music and TV scripts, lecturing on commercial songwriting and latterly teaching theatre-studies. His three Elektra albums were reissued on CD in 1992, although they were soon deleted again. This prompted a modest renewal in interest, and sections of the British music press started to mention him reverentially. Elvis Costello expressed his admiration; Phil Collins selected "Down River" as one of his Desert Island Discs.

Ackles' subsequent life was not without incident. In 1981, a drunk-driver hit his car. In a wheelchair for six months, Ackles needed a hip-replacement, while his arm was so badly injured that he couldn't play piano for some years. In the early 90s he became ill with lung cancer, but made a good recovery after having a part of a lung removed. Yet in an interview with Q a few years back, Ackles exuded good-humoured contentment. Living on a six-acre farm in Tujunga, California, he was by then a committed Christian and a pillar of a strongly socially active church.

In autumn 1997, the cancer returned, and David Ackles died on 2nd March 1999, a few days after his 62nd birthday. His wife Janice, who featured on the cover of "American Gothic", and their son George, survive him. Shortly before he died he began to plan a new release of songs drawn from a wealth of previously unissued material. His family and friends intend to see this project to fruition as a tribute to him.

Ackles achieved neither the fame nor the legendary status of so many of his Elektra label mates. Nonetheless, two of his albums have a genuine claim to classic status, and all of his recordings were unique for successfully assimilating a range of influences not normally associated with rock music. He was a great and underrated talent.

Laments of an Unknown Muse - printed in "The Guardian", 26^th March 1999, written by Jonathan Romney

Last Friday, this paper ran the Obituary of one of those people that you'd have to call a Footnote in pop history - the American singer-songwriter David Ackles, 1937-99. Ackles didn't, as I recall, make the Guardian's alternative poll of great pop records - perhaps he was too shadowy even by the standards of Nick Drake, who was at No 1. Christopher Hawtree's obit told me a lot I didn’t know about Ackles' life (it "resembled a Jim Thompson novel") before and after his recording years. In fact, It made me realise that, although I've owned his first record for over 20 years, 1 actually knew nothing about him at all.

Ackles' third LP, American Gothic (1972), was acclaimed as an ambitious panorama of American imagery, but It hasn't worn well. It's a little too stentorian, the elaborately-orchestrated songs rather heavily wearing their intention to address the state of the nation. But it still resonates, once you realise that Ackles wasn't working remotely in the tradition of American pop, but had more in common with the French chanson tradition. In his disillusioned, caustic lyricism and deep, barbed voice, he was a close cousin of Jacques Brel.

On American Gothic and its predecessor, Subway To The Country, Ackles experimented with styles, from lounge ballads to bluegrass. Subway shows his storytelling capacities at full pitch; in the startling Candyman, a Vietnam veteran returns to take revenge on his nation by slipping porn booklets into bags of sweets. Ackles plays such stories dead straight, but listen to the scowling richness of his voice, and you hear a direct precursor of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads.

But the great Ackles record is his first, self-titled album on Elektra, from 1968. It has some of that label's trademark morbidity of the period (Elektra also signed the Doors and Nico), but Ackles scrupulously avoided the personality game, writing songs too detached and sardonic to play the wounded-self card. Even on the sleeve he's barely visible, a blur behind a spiderweb of cracked glass.

The opening track, The Road To Cairo, was recorded by Julie Driscoll as a follow-up to her Swinging London anthem, This Wheel's On Fire (imagine a parallel world in which Ackles song, rather than Dylan's, became the theme to Absolutely Fabulous). The title suggests hippie-trail exotica, but the destination is more likely Cairo, Georgia - one of those US locales like Phoenix or Tulsa that the lovelorn in songs are forever trying to reach, but never do. The hero of this solemn blues song hitches a ride from a rich boy, anticipates seeing his folks again, then has second thoughts: "They're better thinking I'm dead."

There's never any safe haven in these songs. The narrator of Sonny Come Home wanders through a nightmare landscape of glass and broken bicycle wheels, keeps hearing the summons to dinner, but expires in a staccato gasp: "I can't come home". Set to the carnival organ that was an atmospheric staple at the time, it's uncannily close to The Swimmer, Burt Lancaster's existential chiller of the same year

His Name Is Andrew is possibly the most desolate song I've ever heard. All we know is that Andrew works in a canning factory, has no friends, is simply passing through life waiting for the day he dies. He's been brought up on hymns, and believes them. But by the end, the songs are telling him God is dead, and he believes them too. We can try to imagine what the story's about - religious crisis, bluecollar realism, psychotic dysfunction - but it's the missing details that make the words so telling.

What's even more striking is the sound - the bell-like tolls and swells of organ. Played by Michael Fonfara, who later worked with Lou Reed, the organ, more churchlike than bluesy, gives the album a self-enclosed intensity that Ackles never attempted again. It sounds very much a 1968 record, its after-the-party melancholy suggesting grim sobriety in the wake of the psychedelic boom, although some of flower-power's orientalist hangovers persist to elegant effect - the fluid bass, the feathery guitar lamentations.

The record is an extraordinary one-off achievement - it occupies a universe bordering on Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen, and the Band's first album, not to mention latter-day Scott Walker, but with a starkness all its own. Somehow, Ackles never went down in history - although there was a brief flurry of interest in the mid-eighties when Elvis Costello covered one of his songs live. These days, Ackles records can't be readily had (I've never heard or seen his fourth one). His debut was re-released on CD a few years ago, but has since vanished. If you find it, jump on it. The footnotes often have the best stories.

If the above has whetted your appetite for more, you must try to obtain Mark Brend's book, American Troubadours, which looks at the life and work of nine singer-songwriters, including David Ackles.