If I didn't already know who Ackles was (I have "American Gothic" (1972) and I commented on "Five & Dime"(1973) back in "what Frank is listening to #91" ) I would still have picked this album up as it's on the Elektra label – home of The Doors, Tim Buckley, Love, Stooges, MC5, Phil Ochs etc. Just about everything that label released in the late 60s /early 70s was interesting.
That however is a throwaway opening as I know who Ackles is and he is brilliant.
In commenting on the "Five & Dime" LP I said: "I have Ackles' "American Gothic" (1972) which is generally regarded as his best album … and it certainly is a good 'un. Ackles is, simply put, magnificent. His small body of work contains some of the highlights of the "singer songwriter" genre. Though these grandiose statements of mine are not without qualifications. If you like your music straight ahead, not to complicated, and more tune based rather than character or story based then give him a wide birth ( but, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with "straight ahead" and "uncomplicated"). Likewise if you think John Lennon or Harry Chapin are the heights of 70s singer songwriters then steer clear. And, finally, if you don't like musical theatre you wont make it past the first song".
This album,"Subway to the City", is less musical theatre and more singer-songwriter but only just. It's as if a singer-songwriter was residing in, ah um,a musical theatre when he wrote the songs.
A brief bio: "Born on February 20, 1937 (in Illinois) , he was working in vaudeville by age four and in the mid-'40s played a character named Tucky Worden in Columbia's Rusty the Dog film series. His co-star was Dwayne Hickman, who would later go on to play Dobie Gillis on television. He attended the University of Southern California and took a year to go to school in Edinburgh, where he studied literature. He eventually got a degree in film studies, though he was proficient in the theatre, ballet, and choreography. He held several odd jobs after school and was eventually hired as a songwriter by Elektra. He managed to parlay that assignment into a multi-record deal …"
I went on to say this in #91: (I like referring to earlier comments – less thought is needed) : "He recorded 4 albums over a 5 year period between 1968 and 1973 …they sold nothing ("American Gothic" is the only record he had that charted – #167) . Ackles died of lung cancer on March 2, 1999, at the age of 62. He is however ( and had been) extremely influential on many ( and many minor) artists like Elvis Costello, Phil Collins, Bernie Taupin and Elton John. Don't let those names put you off …..I can see only the obvious story song aspects of Ackles in them – with the exception of Costello who seems hell bent on re-reading the "American Songbook" and maybe Bernie Taupin.
Ackles is of the singer-songwriter genre from the late 60s and early 70s. The genre is much heralded, though it should also be much maligned as anyone who puts pen to paper and plays a guitar or piano is considered a "singer songwriter"… but most of them do not rise above a catchy hook and some lines that rhyme. Ackles however (especially on this LP) encroaches on musical theatre territory though I hasten to add that he is from the "rock" paddock as opposed to the "popular" music field (Sinatra, Crosby, Mitchell et al), though he does blur the lines".
If you care to read that comment I then waxed lyrical about "rock ballads" before saying "OK …. Ackles is way out in left field …. "
And I stick to that.
Apparently the great Lonnie Mack played guitar on this album as did Jim Gordon (Derek and the Dominos, session drummer on Pet Sounds and for The Byrds, the Beau Brummels etc) and Larry Knetchel (from Bread and session muso for Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Doors, and Elvis Presley) and others.
A lot of the mood (apparently) could be due to the arrangements (and conducting) by Ackles school friend Fredric Myrow. Myrow had little background in rock music (perfect), but ended up at Elektra in the late 60s.
He'd been a composer-in-residence under Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic, but by the late 1960s was scoring an experimental movie for former UCLA film student-turned-rock-star Jim Morrison, Highway. Myrow would go on to discuss a creating a musical with Morrison, with Myrow doing the music and Morrison the text and lyrics, although those plans were scrapped after the Doors' singer's death in 1971. Fred subsequently scored several movies, most famously Phantasm, before dying in 1999, only about six weeks before Ackles passed away. "Fred Myrow was certainly from a very classical background and discipline," notes Janice Vogel Ackles. "He added some really interesting things, tonally, to the album. I know that David was extremely pleased about that." http://www.richieunterberger.com/subway.html
This album, his second, is a hyper emotional, brutally honest (which is unusual as the older I get the more I realise that not everyone has insight though I thought everyone did) and quite eccentric. I'm not sure who Ackles thought his audience was in1970 but if there ever was a time for experimentation it was the late 60s or early 70s. Despite the fact he does not draw on the "great American songbook" as much as he does on "Five & Dime" what he does draw on is American art, tin pan alley, and the avant garde which really culminated in his third album, "American Gothic" . This is glorious music and quite visual in it's structure … in mood he comes across as a more frantic aural version of a Edward Hopper painting from the 40s (I don't want to be an obtuse wanker but even if the Arts otherwise means to you "reaching for your handgun" you should google Edward Hopper …)
Musically, the album swings between narrative heavy, world weary, singer-songwriter and the avant garde experimental theatre atonal style of Kurt Weill with (not surprisingly) Bertolt Brecht lyrics. Is this bad … fuck no. It doesn't always work but when it does it soars.
The Tracks
(they are all good) … the best in italics:
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Main Line Saloon – very David Ackles and with a bit more "beat" it would be very early Tom Waits. The characters in the narrative are very Brecht-Weill. Very much of its time … like a surrealist counter-culture off-Broadway play … accentuated by the clapping at the end.
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That's No Reason to Cry – singer-songwriter balladry.
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Candy Man – a song about a child abuser … holding up a mirror to his accusers?
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Out on the Road – it's pretty clear that Elton John and Bernie Taupin ripped Ackles off blind (and cleaned and sanitized him in the process).
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Cabin on the Mountain – country rock apparently though more like Broadway's Oklahoma" updated to 1970 … and I like "Oklahoma".
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Woman River – a very dark lounge jazz tune.
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Inmates of the Institution – this sounds at times like the theme to a TV show from the early 70s before changing mood after a keyboard freak-out half way through … "Inmates of the Institution" …now that would be a TV show I would like to see.
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Subway to the Country – a beautiful song. Are you escaping the city for the country or is this just a desire to show your child that there is more to life than the big smoke and everything it implies. The imagery is vivid … he throws lots of little details into the narrative ... and it's his most upbeat song, though even here there is a tinge of melancholia:
Coney Island's not a place to look for starfish
or to find yourself a fifteen colour stone
that you can carry in your pockets till you're grown
aah there just aren't any subways to the country
But your Daddy, he's gonna try
I I ever get three bucks together I'm gonna buy
three tickets on the train
and I'll show you rain
I will carry you through clean smelling rain
one boy to a shoulder
hey we better go quick
before we get older
Central Park is not a place to watch the sunrise
or to look for redskin writings in a cave
or even find the kind of frogs you like to save
hey I wish we had a subway to the country
New York City is a town too big for children
where there's so much dirt
they think that snow is grey
and you have to watch their childhoods waste away
Hey, you've got to find a subway to the country
or anywhere
well, your Daddy is gonna try
If I ever get three bucks together I'm gonna buy
three tickets on the train
and I'll show you the rain
I will carry you through clean green meadows smelling rain
One son to a shoulder
hey we better go quick
we're getting older
And …
As I have said before …. Ackles apparently regarded the message from Ecclesiastes as gospel (half pun intended) : "Who gathers knowledge gathers pain" … this pretty much sums up his music.
I'm keeping this …brilliant
Sounds
Main Line Saloon
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Subway to the Country
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