Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Folk Phenom Who Vanished: What Happened To David Ackles? [Episode 311]

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The Folk Phenom Who Vanished: What Happened To David Ackles? [Episode 311] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: Coming up on this episode of Booked on Rock. In
0:02
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, David Ackles' third album, American Gothic, was released.
0:06
Speaker 1: The Music Press declared it the album of the year.
0:09
Speaker 1: Melody Maker called it a classic. The Sunday Times described
0:12
Speaker 1: it as the Sergeant Pepper of folk, suggesting that it
0:15
Speaker 1: heralded a whole new direction in music. After a fourth
0:19
Speaker 1: and final album in nineteen seventy three, Ackles vanished. What
0:23
Speaker 1: became of David Ackles find out next with author Mark Brend,
0:27
Speaker 1: who We're totally bummed rock and roll.
0:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you you're reading. Little Hands says
0:33
Speaker 2: it's time to rock and roll, Rock, roll up.
0:36
Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome everybody back to Booked on Rock,
0:44
Speaker 1: the podcast for those about to read and rock. A'm
0:47
Speaker 1: Eric Senich. Mark Brand is our guest. He's the author
0:50
Speaker 1: of Down River in Search of David Ackles. Mark, Welcome
0:53
Speaker 1: to the podcast.
0:54
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
0:55
Speaker 1: David Ackles an artist who people either know love, including
0:59
Speaker 1: fellow musicians Film Collins and Milton John and Elvis Carstell,
1:02
Speaker 1: or they don't know him at all. There's no middle ground.
1:05
Speaker 1: As you say in the book, how did you discover David.
1:07
Speaker 2: Ackles well by chance a long time ago, forty years ago,
1:11
Speaker 2: I walked into a shop and saw an album that
1:15
Speaker 2: I liked the look of, like the sleeve, and I
1:18
Speaker 2: didn't know who David Ackles was. But the record was
1:22
Speaker 2: from nineteen six Day. It was on Electra and it
1:24
Speaker 2: was his debut album, and I knew that Elektra Records
1:28
Speaker 2: was a good bet, and I nineteen six Day it
1:30
Speaker 2: was a period I was interested in, So I bought
1:32
Speaker 2: the records speculatively and loved it, absolutely loved it, and
1:36
Speaker 2: then afterwards managed to get a hold of his other
1:40
Speaker 2: three albums.
1:41
Speaker 1: Talk about the process of compiling research material for this book.
1:44
Speaker 1: You do give a lot of credit to Janice Vogel
1:47
Speaker 1: Acles that was David's wife, for her contributions and how
1:51
Speaker 1: else did you manage to put together this story because
1:53
Speaker 1: it was challenging at times?
1:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I mean, you're talking about somebody who
1:58
Speaker 2: died in nineteen ninety nine and who was working in
2:03
Speaker 2: the sixties and early seventies as a recording artists. So
2:07
Speaker 2: many of his contemporaries aren't around anymore, and those that
2:11
Speaker 2: are not surprisingly can't necessarily remember details of events from
2:16
Speaker 2: fifty five years ago or more. I spoke quite a lot,
2:20
Speaker 2: as you say, with Janis, we've been speaking over many years,
2:24
Speaker 2: also with some close friends of David and some colleagues
2:30
Speaker 2: who work with him in the studio, including a guy
2:35
Speaker 2: called Douglas Graham who co produced David's fourth album, Bernie
2:40
Speaker 2: Taupin who produced David's third album. So I did manage
2:47
Speaker 2: to speak to quite a few people, but also an
2:49
Speaker 2: awful lot of research into archives so musicians union archives
2:53
Speaker 2: to get session records, and lots of lots of press cuttings.
2:58
Speaker 2: David Ackle's got a lot of press interest at the time.
3:01
Speaker 2: Although he didn't sell many records, there are an awful
3:03
Speaker 2: lot of interviews with him where you hear him talking
3:07
Speaker 2: about his career in real time and that they were
3:12
Speaker 2: very insightful to me. But of course, and I did
3:15
Speaker 2: also briefly speak have brief contact with David himself in
3:19
Speaker 2: the last year of his life. We spoke on the
3:20
Speaker 2: phone and exchanged emails.
3:22
Speaker 1: Let's get into Eckles' story now. He had a strict
3:25
Speaker 1: Protestant upbringing, spent time as a child actor. In fact,
3:28
Speaker 1: he said that the family moved to California was because
3:31
Speaker 1: of his acting career. Where and when was he born?
3:34
Speaker 1: What were his childhood years like?
3:36
Speaker 2: He was born in the late thirties in Rock Island,
3:40
Speaker 2: but moved to the family moved to California when he
3:44
Speaker 2: was probably about eight or nine. I think he had
3:49
Speaker 2: an older sister and then much later on a younger
3:52
Speaker 2: sister and as far as I can judge, a close
3:55
Speaker 2: and happy family life. He was very His mother English
4:01
Speaker 2: but had moved. She had emigrated to America as a
4:04
Speaker 2: child with her family, and on her side of the
4:09
Speaker 2: family there were a lot of people who were professional
4:12
Speaker 2: music hall performers. So these were people who were on
4:16
Speaker 2: the stage in England in the late Victorian years and
4:20
Speaker 2: early twentieth century doing light entertainment, doing sketches, song and
4:25
Speaker 2: dance routines, that sort of thing. And David's mum, who
4:29
Speaker 2: was called Queenie, she encouraged David and his sister, in
4:37
Speaker 2: particular his older sister, to follow that family line, and
4:42
Speaker 2: so David, from the age of four or five was
4:44
Speaker 2: in a song and dance duo with his sister. They
4:48
Speaker 2: were called the Apples Twins, but they weren't twins, and
4:52
Speaker 2: it was through that that David got recognized by a
4:57
Speaker 2: guy who was working in Hollywood producing a series of
5:01
Speaker 2: B movies, and David got signed up to play a
5:04
Speaker 2: supporting role in those films, which are about Rusty the Dog,
5:09
Speaker 2: and there were I think seven or eight of those films.
5:11
Speaker 2: David was in six of them.
5:13
Speaker 1: It was a kind of like a Lassie spin off.
5:16
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. The films are about an hour long, and
5:19
Speaker 2: Rusty normally gets involved in some kind of scrapes and dramas,
5:22
Speaker 2: and he's owned by a boy who has a little
5:28
Speaker 2: group of friends with him, and David was one of
5:30
Speaker 2: the group of friends in the Rusty films.
5:33
Speaker 1: There was an interview acles gave in eighteen sixty eight
5:35
Speaker 1: that led to some confusion enduring confusion as you read
5:39
Speaker 1: it in the book. The article stated that he had
5:42
Speaker 1: served jail time before finding God.
5:45
Speaker 2: Yes, what David later said about that, He explained another
5:51
Speaker 2: interview that the interview with the Los Angeles Times journalist
5:57
Speaker 2: was somebody who he knew, an old friend, and as
6:00
Speaker 2: far as David was concerned, they were joking and David
6:05
Speaker 2: talked about, Oh, yes, I've been to six prisons or
6:08
Speaker 2: something like that. What he was actually talking about was
6:11
Speaker 2: singing in a choir that was touring prisons and performing
6:16
Speaker 2: to entertain the inmates. But the journalist got the wrong
6:20
Speaker 2: end of the stick and thought that David himself had
6:22
Speaker 2: served time in those prisons. And in fact, when David died,
6:28
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Times published a short obituary which referenced
6:33
Speaker 2: that again referenced the same mistake, and David's surviving sister
6:37
Speaker 2: had to write in and correct them, and her letter
6:39
Speaker 2: was published the following week.
6:41
Speaker 1: Up until the mid fifties, he was more actor and
6:43
Speaker 1: the answer than musician. It would be a while still
6:46
Speaker 1: before his debut album was recorded. He actually turned thirty
6:49
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen sixty seven when his music career starts,
6:54
Speaker 1: and as you're right, he was set for a very
6:56
Speaker 1: low key creative life. There's almost nothing to suggest though,
7:00
Speaker 1: that before the year was out he would be recording
7:02
Speaker 1: his debut album for the Hippiest of Us record labels.
7:06
Speaker 1: Tell us about the unexpected and unstoughtful opportunity that led
7:09
Speaker 1: him to recording his debut. He was a musician at
7:13
Speaker 1: that point. He was writing music, but he hadn't intended
7:16
Speaker 1: to record his own album.
7:17
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, he was writing and taking part in
7:23
Speaker 2: musical theater productions. That was his big interest. He'd been
7:28
Speaker 2: studied at the University of Southern California and a guy
7:31
Speaker 2: called David Andelay was a fellow student there, and David
7:36
Speaker 2: Ackles and David Andelay were in a couple of college
7:39
Speaker 2: productions together and they lost touch, but then they ran
7:43
Speaker 2: into each other in nineteen sixty seven in the summer,
7:46
Speaker 2: and David Andelay had just joined Elektra as an A
7:51
Speaker 2: and R man, and David Ackles said, I've got some songs,
7:55
Speaker 2: can I play them to you? And that led to
7:57
Speaker 2: him being signed to Elektra. Really, it might not have
8:02
Speaker 2: happened for him at all if it hadn't been for
8:03
Speaker 2: that chance meeting. But he was initially signed as a
8:06
Speaker 2: songwriter and recorded some demos with Elektra. But Jack Holtzman,
8:14
Speaker 2: who had formed the company was still running it at
8:16
Speaker 2: that point, said that David should make it his own album,
8:20
Speaker 2: and so I think he signed in late sixty seven,
8:23
Speaker 2: and by early sixty eight he was doing the first
8:27
Speaker 2: sessions for his album.
8:28
Speaker 1: Did you write in the book about the problem finding
8:30
Speaker 1: suitable venues for him to play in. He wasn't a
8:33
Speaker 1: rock musician, so rock clubs and supporting slots with rock
8:37
Speaker 1: bands tended to go badly. How much of that do
8:39
Speaker 1: you feel affected the success of that first album and
8:43
Speaker 1: Nackles overall success with audiences.
8:47
Speaker 2: It possibly did. It's a bit. I've heard tapes of
8:50
Speaker 2: him playing live, and his playing and singing were excellent,
8:55
Speaker 2: there's no doubt about it. But there was something about
8:58
Speaker 2: his music that didn't have an natural home live, and
9:02
Speaker 2: so just a guy playing a piano supporting a rock
9:05
Speaker 2: band wasn't really going to work. He tended to play
9:09
Speaker 2: and folk clubs quite a bit, and was quite often
9:11
Speaker 2: described as a folk artist, but he obviously isn't a
9:15
Speaker 2: folk artist, and so I think he probably struggled to
9:21
Speaker 2: find a natural home playing live. He also said several
9:25
Speaker 2: times that he didn't want to go out on endless tours.
9:28
Speaker 2: He didn't like that, and what he tended to do
9:34
Speaker 2: was to go to small clubs and play residencies, like
9:37
Speaker 2: four or five nights over a long weekend or something
9:40
Speaker 2: like that.
9:41
Speaker 1: That would have worked more so maybe later in his career,
9:43
Speaker 1: kind of like what Billy Joel does now, But at
9:46
Speaker 1: that time you had to go out there on the
9:47
Speaker 1: road and really plug it.
9:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he I think, yeah, he wasn't. He
9:55
Speaker 2: wasn't a big stage performer. It's interesting because he performed
9:59
Speaker 2: a lot in front of the camera and on the
10:01
Speaker 2: age in theater productions. But it seems to be that
10:04
Speaker 2: when he was there on his own, singing his songs,
10:08
Speaker 2: that he actually was very nervous. And his wife Janie
10:13
Speaker 2: said later that, you know, he was often physically ill
10:16
Speaker 2: before going on. You can't always tell that from tapes
10:22
Speaker 2: of him playing live, but there are a few reviews
10:25
Speaker 2: where the writer comments that he seemed nervous.
10:31
Speaker 1: He was more comfortable as part of an ensemble. But
10:34
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you have people like Elton John and
10:37
Speaker 1: Bernie Taupin who said they felt that they should have
10:41
Speaker 1: been opening for David, but instead he was opening for
10:44
Speaker 1: Elton at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. In fact, he
10:46
Speaker 1: was part of that famous residency there in August of
10:49
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy for Elton. But Elten was a huge fan,
10:52
Speaker 1: and so was Bernie. But yeah, they thought this guy
10:55
Speaker 1: should be the headliner, not us.
10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, David. When his first album was released in nineteen
11:02
Speaker 2: sixty eight, a lecture brought him over to Europe for
11:06
Speaker 2: several months, and he was in London for quite a
11:11
Speaker 2: few weeks, was on TV, did a radio session, and
11:16
Speaker 2: was in the press quite a bit. And he didn't
11:19
Speaker 2: so many records, but he got quite a bit of attention.
11:22
Speaker 2: There are quite a few cover versions of his songs,
11:25
Speaker 2: and it was at that time that Elton John and
11:27
Speaker 2: Bernie Thorpin picked up on him. See he was known
11:31
Speaker 2: amongst musicians and serious music fans in England at that
11:35
Speaker 2: time and very highly regarded. But unusually, strangely, he wasn't
11:43
Speaker 2: He didn't quite pick up such an audience in America. Really,
11:47
Speaker 2: he didn't get so much notice until his third album,
11:49
Speaker 2: American Gothic.
11:51
Speaker 1: That second album, nineteen sixty nine, subway to the country
11:56
Speaker 1: again positive critical review but did not succeed commercially. He
11:59
Speaker 1: moved to England to write and arrange his third album,
12:02
Speaker 1: American Gothic. This is produced by Bernie Taupin. It's released
12:06
Speaker 1: to multiple multiple positive reviews, hailing at the album of
12:10
Speaker 1: the year, some cases, possibly the greatest record ever made.
12:13
Speaker 1: Acles felt uncomfortable with that kind of critical reception. He
12:17
Speaker 1: told the reporter quote, it's only an album, you know.
12:20
Speaker 1: He downplayed it. Why was he so ambivalent. You think
12:24
Speaker 1: was it too much pressure on him?
12:26
Speaker 2: I think it probably did create pressure on him. But
12:28
Speaker 2: also what happened was that you've got this strange thing
12:31
Speaker 2: if you line up all the reviews the album, because
12:35
Speaker 2: the album first started to get reviewed several months before
12:37
Speaker 2: it was released, and it was still being reviewed several
12:41
Speaker 2: months after, so you have a period of about six
12:43
Speaker 2: months where it was getting reviewed. And initially the reviews
12:46
Speaker 2: were ecstatic. People were, as you say, claiming it was
12:51
Speaker 2: one of the greatest records ever made. But a little
12:54
Speaker 2: bit later on you started to get a few commentators saying, well,
12:59
Speaker 2: I don't quite see this. It's kind of good, but
13:02
Speaker 2: it's what's all the fuss about. And I think David
13:07
Speaker 2: he commented at one point that people were starting to
13:10
Speaker 2: review the initial reviews if you see what I mean,
13:13
Speaker 2: but that they weren't responding to the music. They were
13:16
Speaker 2: responding to those initial responses to the album, and so
13:20
Speaker 2: that all got a bit confused.
13:22
Speaker 1: Briti Tapen called the album a difficult sell, didn't fit
13:26
Speaker 1: in with popular music at the time. Do you agree.
13:29
Speaker 2: I do. Yeah, it's it's very a very unusual record
13:34
Speaker 2: and most people, well I said, most people lots of
13:36
Speaker 2: people read about it and come to the album with
13:39
Speaker 2: no context and are a little puzzled by it initially
13:42
Speaker 2: and have to work at it. I think you understand
13:46
Speaker 2: it more if you've heard the first two albums and
13:49
Speaker 2: you kind of break yourself in gently. It didn't have
13:54
Speaker 2: obvious singles on it. It was hard to place it
13:59
Speaker 2: in any kind of context of the time. David Ackles
14:02
Speaker 2: was often groups with the singer songwriter movement, but he
14:06
Speaker 2: really was nothing like somebody like Jackson Brown or James Taylor,
14:09
Speaker 2: for example.
14:10
Speaker 1: For those listening, hopefully you go and look for the
14:14
Speaker 1: music of David Ackles on Spotify. It's there YouTube. But
14:18
Speaker 1: how would you best describe his sound. It's hard to
14:23
Speaker 1: It's hard to compare him with anybody. I guess you
14:26
Speaker 1: could say he's in that genre with an Elton John
14:29
Speaker 1: or James Taylor, but he had his own style. Yeah,
14:33
Speaker 1: I mean because of his theatric background.
14:36
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, there's a strong musical theater influence. A
14:42
Speaker 2: lot of the songs are very intense and quite melodramatic.
14:46
Speaker 2: He's a piano playing singer songwriter, not a guitar player,
14:49
Speaker 2: so that sets him aside for a lot of people.
14:53
Speaker 2: I think the main thing that I always think about
14:56
Speaker 2: him is that he's a storyteller. The songs a like
14:59
Speaker 2: little one act plays or short stories. They're very character driven.
15:04
Speaker 2: They're often sung in the first person, but that doesn't
15:07
Speaker 2: mean they're autobiographical. What he tended to do and did
15:13
Speaker 2: very cleverly, was he would approach an issue, sometimes quite
15:17
Speaker 2: a different difficult issue, like divorce or racism or something
15:21
Speaker 2: like that, but not approach it as a social issue.
15:25
Speaker 2: He'd approach he'd approach it through the eyes of one
15:28
Speaker 2: or two characters and create a little story to explore the.
15:32
Speaker 1: Issue, eventually comparing the album to Sergeant Pepper saying it's
15:36
Speaker 1: the greatest album ever by critics that would batfire on apples, right.
15:40
Speaker 2: I think it did, Yeah, I mean Elektra not so that.
15:43
Speaker 2: There were a couple of early reviews, one in Los
15:46
Speaker 2: Angeles Free Press and one in The Sunday Times in Britain,
15:51
Speaker 2: which made though pretty much the same claims that it
15:56
Speaker 2: was the Pepper of folk and either the greatest album
16:00
Speaker 2: ever made or the second greatest album ever made, and
16:03
Speaker 2: Elektra not surprisingly jumped on those claims and posted advertised
16:11
Speaker 2: the album with quotes from those reviews, and there are
16:14
Speaker 2: lots of subsequent reviews which were equally positive. But I
16:18
Speaker 2: think in the end it did backfire a bit because
16:22
Speaker 2: a lot of people when they bought the record were
16:24
Speaker 2: a bit puzzled by it and couldn't quite couldn't quite see,
16:29
Speaker 2: couldn't quite match up what they were hearing with the claims.
16:33
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16:36
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16:43
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16:45
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Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
17:20
Speaker 1: to the show. Mark Brenn is the author of down
17:23
Speaker 1: River in search of David Ackles. The book is out now.
17:26
Speaker 1: Ackles and Electra boss Jack Holtzman agree that it's time
17:30
Speaker 1: for him to Apples to leave the label, and Clive
17:33
Speaker 1: Davis steps in to sign Ackles to Columbia. Okay, so
17:37
Speaker 1: great news. Maybe this is where we see David Ackles
17:40
Speaker 1: get the notoriety he so deserves. Not so what happens next?
17:45
Speaker 2: Well, with that deal, Clive was apparently a big fan
17:49
Speaker 2: of David's and was keen to sign him, but there
17:52
Speaker 2: wasn't a lot of money in the deal, so David
17:55
Speaker 2: decided to largely record the album at home on a
17:59
Speaker 2: He had a fortress set up a little home studio,
18:02
Speaker 2: had the musicians in his front room, and then took
18:06
Speaker 2: the tapes into a slightly bigger studio to do a
18:08
Speaker 2: few overdubs and mix the album. So it was a
18:11
Speaker 2: low budget thing, but that's what he wanted to do.
18:13
Speaker 2: After American Gothic, which was a really big production, orchestra,
18:19
Speaker 2: all of this type of thing, he wanted something smaller
18:22
Speaker 2: and more intimate. When they were getting towards the end
18:26
Speaker 2: of the album the recording process, David heard that Clive
18:31
Speaker 2: Davis had been sacked from Columbia, and David didn't know
18:36
Speaker 2: a soul at Columbia apart from Clive Davis, and so
18:38
Speaker 2: it was completely adrift there. And at the same time,
18:43
Speaker 2: by very unfortunate coincidence, David's manager Upton left, He just
18:50
Speaker 2: moved on and that was the end of that relationship.
18:52
Speaker 2: So David found himself with an album that was just finished,
18:57
Speaker 2: but no support in the record company manager to vouch
19:01
Speaker 2: for him, and Columbia put the album out in America
19:04
Speaker 2: only not in the UK, where he had more of
19:07
Speaker 2: a following, and very much the impression that they put
19:13
Speaker 2: it out because they were contractually obliged to, but there
19:15
Speaker 2: was very little promotion. It was a very low key
19:18
Speaker 2: thing and the album vanished really quite quickly, and that
19:23
Speaker 2: was the end of his career. He never made another record.
19:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his album five and Die in eighteen seventy three,
19:29
Speaker 1: that would be his last. He leaves Columbia, never makes
19:31
Speaker 1: another record, although that wasn't his plan. He figured he'd
19:36
Speaker 1: come back at some point, but that never happened. But
19:39
Speaker 1: he did have a publishing contract with Warner Brothers. This
19:43
Speaker 1: is interesting, So he was with Columbia, but he was
19:46
Speaker 1: also with Warner Brothers under contract with them. What was
19:49
Speaker 1: he doing for them? How did that all work?
19:52
Speaker 2: It's a bit difficult to unpick that, and I'm not
19:54
Speaker 2: sure I fully understand all the details. But when he
19:57
Speaker 2: left Columbia, his pub songwriting publishing probably was he was
20:01
Speaker 2: still contracted to Warners and so what. For some time
20:06
Speaker 2: he tried to make it as a songwriter for other artists,
20:10
Speaker 2: which was actually closer to his original intention back in
20:14
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, and he wrote songs, went
20:19
Speaker 2: to regular Warners songwriter meetings, and pitched songs to other artists,
20:23
Speaker 2: but none of them were picked up. And after a
20:26
Speaker 2: while he just realized it was going nowhere and gave
20:30
Speaker 2: up on that.
20:31
Speaker 1: And he himself admitted he he was not the type
20:35
Speaker 1: of person who was determined to find another label. He
20:37
Speaker 1: felt like it maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
20:39
Speaker 1: After a while, Janis talks about how he just wasn't
20:42
Speaker 1: that type of guy who would work the room, didn't
20:45
Speaker 1: have that aggressive attitude. Could he have found another label
20:49
Speaker 1: in your opinion, if he himself was a little more aggressive,
20:52
Speaker 1: or maybe had somebody with him that could be more aggressive.
20:55
Speaker 2: I'm sure it would it was possible. Yeah, he he
21:00
Speaker 2: was very hard to place musically, and that always would
21:03
Speaker 2: have been a challenge because you couldn't fit him neatly
21:06
Speaker 2: into any genre. But the talent is so obvious and
21:11
Speaker 2: so abundant. I feel that he could have continued a
21:15
Speaker 2: career if he'd had somebody supporting him. I think the
21:19
Speaker 2: loss of the manager was a disaster really for David.
21:25
Speaker 2: And as you say, as a personality himself, he wasn't
21:30
Speaker 2: that he wasn't going to run the business side of
21:33
Speaker 2: things as well as be the writer and the performer.
21:37
Speaker 1: He was more of a passive type, which is a
21:39
Speaker 1: lot of times you need that manager on your side.
21:42
Speaker 1: I was just watching the Billy Joel documentary and his wife,
21:44
Speaker 1: his first wife, was that type of person that really
21:47
Speaker 1: benefited his career because she could do the things that
21:50
Speaker 1: he just wasn't comfortable doing.
21:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't get the impression that David
21:55
Speaker 2: Eckles was passive. I don't he by all accounts that
22:01
Speaker 2: kind of outward going, upbeat, optimistic sort of guy. But
22:08
Speaker 2: you know, finding your way in the music business in
22:11
Speaker 2: the world of major record labels then was very hard,
22:16
Speaker 2: I'm sure, and he was on his own. He just
22:19
Speaker 2: didn't have any support.
22:20
Speaker 1: What was the rest of the seventies like for David,
22:23
Speaker 1: because one person talks about visiting him at his house.
22:25
Speaker 1: At that time David was working at USC, but also
22:28
Speaker 1: he was weaving rugs.
22:30
Speaker 2: Yes, that was just a remark that somebody made David.
22:35
Speaker 2: He did lots of things after his recording career ended.
22:39
Speaker 2: He did quite a lot of teaching at USC. He
22:42
Speaker 2: also spent some time writing film and television scripts with
22:48
Speaker 2: Douglas Graham, who was the guy who co produced five
22:51
Speaker 2: and dime, and they got a TV movie produced that
22:56
Speaker 2: was first shown I think in nineteen eighty or eighty one.
23:00
Speaker 2: Had some success there. But he had a varied working life.
23:03
Speaker 2: But what he didn't give up creatively, what he wanted
23:08
Speaker 2: to do was write musical theater pieces. And he wrote
23:12
Speaker 2: at least two fully realized musical theater productions, with each
23:18
Speaker 2: with twenty or thirty songs and a full script, and
23:21
Speaker 2: he recorded demos for them, and he I mean he
23:25
Speaker 2: was working on one of those within two years of
23:28
Speaker 2: his recording career ending, but sadly he never got full
23:32
Speaker 2: productions of them. One of them had had some workshop productions,
23:36
Speaker 2: but didn't quite go into full production.
23:39
Speaker 1: Was that Sister Amy.
23:40
Speaker 2: Sister Amy had the workshop production. Yeah, and there was
23:45
Speaker 2: one before that which went under various titles, but was again,
23:50
Speaker 2: you know, fully developed, and I've heard some of the
23:54
Speaker 2: songs from it, and it was clear that his songwriting
23:57
Speaker 2: gift didn't desert him at all.
24:00
Speaker 1: Almost died in a car accident in nineteen eighty one.
24:02
Speaker 1: What happened.
24:03
Speaker 2: He was driving home with his young son in the
24:07
Speaker 2: car and somebody on came around the corner on the
24:10
Speaker 2: wrong side of the road and crashed into him. And
24:13
Speaker 2: I think that driver was under the influence and didn't
24:16
Speaker 2: have insurance and that type of thing. David was very
24:19
Speaker 2: seriously injured and had to have several operations and was
24:24
Speaker 2: using a wheelchair for some time afterwards, but did recover,
24:28
Speaker 2: although Janis has said that she thinks he had discomfort
24:33
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life.
24:36
Speaker 1: Bookdown Rock podcast will be back after this hadgona d
24:40
Speaker 1: you leave town. Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown
24:45
Speaker 1: rock dot com. There you can find all the back
24:48
Speaker 1: episodes of the show. I hit this episode in video
24:51
Speaker 1: and audio links to all of the platforms where he
24:53
Speaker 1: can listen to the podcast. Plus all the social media
24:56
Speaker 1: platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok x. Also
25:01
Speaker 1: check out the book down Rock blog, find your local
25:04
Speaker 1: independent bookstore, find out all the latest hot rock book releases,
25:08
Speaker 1: and before you go, check out the bookdown Rock online store.
25:10
Speaker 1: Pick up some book down Rock merch. It's all at
25:14
Speaker 1: booked on rock dot com. Going back to Sister Amy, Now,
25:17
Speaker 1: he worked on that project throughout the eighties and nineties.
25:21
Speaker 1: What was it about? What was the main character? What
25:26
Speaker 1: was it about that main character that appealed to David?
25:28
Speaker 2: So Sister Amy is about Amy McPherson, who was a
25:33
Speaker 2: what would you call her a celebrity evangelist in America
25:38
Speaker 2: in the from the twenties through to the forties. And
25:43
Speaker 2: she was a very flamboyant, high profile person, had her
25:48
Speaker 2: own radio station, built a huge church with I think
25:52
Speaker 2: an auditorium for five thousand people, and that sort of thing.
25:55
Speaker 2: She was quite controversial. Some people thought she was a
25:58
Speaker 2: bit of a fraud. But there was an order episode
26:00
Speaker 2: in her life where she went missing for several weeks
26:04
Speaker 2: and people wondered whether she was dead, and then she
26:07
Speaker 2: re emerged, turned up at a hospital in a rather
26:13
Speaker 2: confused state and said she'd been kidnapped and had been
26:16
Speaker 2: held for several weeks and have managed to escape, and
26:21
Speaker 2: some people fatly didn't believe that. There was a big
26:23
Speaker 2: media scandal about it, and lots of claims and counterclaims that,
26:29
Speaker 2: some of the claims being that she faked her own
26:33
Speaker 2: kidnapping to run off with her sound engineer. I think
26:37
Speaker 2: it was anyway, David was fascinated by her because she
26:42
Speaker 2: was obviously a conflicted person, somebody of faith but who
26:47
Speaker 2: also struggled with things of the world if you like.
26:52
Speaker 2: And sister Amy is really about focuses on that kidnapping
27:00
Speaker 2: if it was a kidnapping, and in fact, in David's play,
27:05
Speaker 2: he is very much comes down on the side of
27:08
Speaker 2: it being a ruse by Amy Macpherson to escape the
27:13
Speaker 2: pressure and run off with this man.
27:15
Speaker 1: And David was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early nineties.
27:18
Speaker 1: He did beat it at first, Sadly, he succumbed to
27:21
Speaker 1: cancer in nineteen ninety nine. Going back to you had
27:24
Speaker 1: mentioned you had spoken to him in the last few
27:27
Speaker 1: years of his life and he seemed to be happy.
27:29
Speaker 1: He was writing music. He hit the gym in the
27:33
Speaker 1: morning write music. Play piano, go for hikes, seemed to
27:36
Speaker 1: be in a really good place. What do you recall
27:39
Speaker 1: about those conversations with him?
27:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, he his three lecture albums were reissued in the
27:47
Speaker 2: UK in the early nineties, and he did a few
27:50
Speaker 2: where are they now? Whatever happened to interviews with the
27:53
Speaker 2: UK music press, and I did one of those a
27:55
Speaker 2: little bit later on. He was very cheerful and buoyant
27:59
Speaker 2: and positive and good humored, and I thought, quite genuinely,
28:06
Speaker 2: wasn't at all bitter or disappointed about that the end
28:11
Speaker 2: of his music career. I think he had some disappointments
28:14
Speaker 2: at the time, but he moved on from it. I mean,
28:17
Speaker 2: I've spoken to people whose careers have come to an
28:21
Speaker 2: end and they've seemed to harbor a resentment forever, more
28:28
Speaker 2: like they didn't get their due. I didn't pick that
28:31
Speaker 2: up at all with him, and everyone else I know
28:34
Speaker 2: who spoke to him says the same thing. He was
28:37
Speaker 2: grateful to be able to make the records. He thinks
28:39
Speaker 2: they thought they were good, but it came to an
28:42
Speaker 2: end and he moved on to other things and had
28:44
Speaker 2: a good life.
28:45
Speaker 1: You say at the end of the book that there
28:46
Speaker 1: are no definitive answers as to why David Ackles his
28:50
Speaker 1: music underachieved commercially when it was released and why it
28:53
Speaker 1: hasn't gained called status since his death. But two things
28:56
Speaker 1: keep coming back. One is about how the music business
28:59
Speaker 1: is set up. The other has to do with Apple's music.
29:02
Speaker 1: Can you expand on that in your observation on the
29:05
Speaker 1: Lost Genius.
29:06
Speaker 2: I think it's something that's a perpetually engaging story. I
29:13
Speaker 2: think of the idea of rediscovering somebody and isn't he great?
29:18
Speaker 2: And it's not just in music. It happens in all
29:22
Speaker 2: sorts of fields. But you see, it's a lot in music. Somebody,
29:26
Speaker 2: somebody who has underachieved or been forgotten in their life.
29:33
Speaker 2: After they've gone, or perhaps when they're still alive, but
29:35
Speaker 2: they've been in obscurity for a long time, they're suddenly recognized.
29:39
Speaker 2: And this idea of discovering something that's hidden treasure, I
29:46
Speaker 2: think is very appealing. But very often, I think in
29:49
Speaker 2: the music business that narrative is very entwined with tragedy,
29:56
Speaker 2: So it seems to be a particularly potent if if
30:01
Speaker 2: the person has had some kind of tragic end, you know,
30:03
Speaker 2: there's there's an early death, mental illness, something very dramatic
30:09
Speaker 2: happening to them, and and David. I think David Ackles
30:14
Speaker 2: that doesn't fit neatly into that that at all, because
30:17
Speaker 2: although there were challenges and difficulties in his life, as
30:20
Speaker 2: there are in everybody's, he he wasn't a tragic figure
30:24
Speaker 2: at all. He was a popular, happy man and and
30:30
Speaker 2: so he doesn't quite fit the story that so often
30:34
Speaker 2: carries music from the pass back to new audiences.
30:39
Speaker 1: Downriver in Search of David Ackles is out now. You
30:42
Speaker 1: can find it wherever books are sold. Look forward at
30:44
Speaker 1: your nearest bookstore. Got a bookdown rock dot com to
30:47
Speaker 1: find your nearest independent bookstore, and people can reach out
30:51
Speaker 1: to you. Mark onlines. Is there anywhere where people can
30:53
Speaker 1: connect with you.
30:55
Speaker 2: I guess there is. Yeah. I don't have a website
30:57
Speaker 2: or anything like that. I'm on Blue Sky and people
31:00
Speaker 2: can always find me through the publisher's joel im Press.
31:03
Speaker 1: Great. I will put the link up to the Blue
31:04
Speaker 1: Sky page and also to job owned Press as well.
31:08
Speaker 1: Mark Brand, Thank you, thank you very much.
31:10
Speaker 2: Jeez, Eric, that's it. It's in the books.