Down River: In Search Of David Ackles

by Mark Brend

In 1972, David Ackles’s third album, American Gothic, was released to a flurry of press plaudits declaring it to be ‘the Sgt Pepper of folk’ and one of the greatest records ever made. Yet the album, like its two predecessors, failed to sell, and after one more record, its creator simply vanished. He found work, raised a family, and died a couple of decades later, having never made another record.


Today, Ackles’s music is largely consigned to the streaming netherworld. It is yet to be properly repackaged and reappraised, and he remains largely unknown. But there is no middle ground. You either love him or you’ve never heard of him. His admirers range from Black Flag’s Greg Ginn to indie polymath Jim O’Rourke to Genesis drummer turned platinum-selling solo artist Phil Collins. In 2003, when Elvis Costello interviewed Elton John for the first episode of his television show Spectacle, the two spoke at some length, and with palpable respect, about Ackles’s great talent, before performing a duet of his ‘Down River’—the same song Collins had selected for Desert Island Discs a decade earlier.


David Ackles did not make rock’n’roll music, and Down River is not a rock’n’roll story. It is a search for an artist who got lost. Not a pretty-good, I-wonder-what-happened-to-him sort of talent, but a man revered as one of the greats. Drawing on conversations with Ackles during the last year of his life as well as full access to archive material, it positions him as one of the great maverick talents of popular music—an equal of Scott Walker and Tom Waits. It seeks to understand the disconnect between his obvious gifts and his commercial failure, and wonders about the fickleness of fame and cult status.


How does this process of retrospective recognition work, and why does it happen for some but not others? Was Ackles’s music just too strange, or might his time yet come? And what do the answers to these questions say about the mythmaking of the popular music industry—and about us, the audience?

256 pages, Paperback

Published August 19, 2025

Reviews

[Justin K. Rivers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant bit of research about a brilliant songwriter. Brend avoids the narrative pitfalls of documenting an iconoclastic artist with a brief career, namely the reliance on personal tragedy as a selling point. In fact, he discovers no such torrid elements. Ackles was what he appeared to be - a nice guy who was a great songwriter. While it won't provide a dramatic, page-turning story or a central mystery like Connie Converse, Brend does deliver thoughtful research and analysis of the work, and context that helps one to appreciate Ackles all the more. A worthy gateway to a lifelong appreciation for one of music's singular artists.

[Ken Spooner · Rating 5 out of 5]

DOWN RIVER In Search of David Ackles
Mark Brend Jawbone Press London UK

The 12 page prologue that Mark Brend, musician and much more, has in this book, gave me a strong heads up and big dose of deja vu, on what would follow in it’s 247 pages. It’s an intriguing, melancholy, happy yet sad tale, of probably one of the most obscure tunesmiths, to come from the “Singer - Songwriter era of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. With Mr. Brend’s great detail of telling the how’s and why’s of his initial discovery, a dark brown album with just the name David Ackles on it, in a used record and book shop, near “Suicide Bridge” on Archway Road in Highgate, North London. And so the book and I were off and running.

The memories, just the prologue held for me, took me back to 1969, when I already had my first decade logged as a R&R musician, songwriter and a first go-around of four really big ones. First in 66 -68 was a two year run don’t walk with a minor music manager, a major label in the music biz, plus an arms distance, shoulder rub sharing of manager, concerts and recording sessions with a future pop superstar. Most of that was already growing cold on the ash heap, however because hope floats in the music biz, I was also in an embryonic relationship with some bonafide movers and shakers in the biz, namely manager, Albert Grossman & Co, who handled nearly 30 of the biggest acts on the scene then, Columbia records and a band member/ fiancé. For our wedding gift, our road manager gifted us with 40 record albums, one which had a title that really grabbed my ear, “Subway To The Country” which just happened to be my first of two David Ackles albums in my collection I still have. Subway was David’s second from the very impressive label, Elecktra / Asylum, of whom some of Ackles label mates would include, Judy Collins, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Eagles, Linda Rondstadt etc.

My fairly wide taste and exposure to all sorts of music, gave me an understanding of most of what David had produced on Subway To The Country, but I rarely listened to it, mainly as it did not relate to the genres I was chasing at that time. But I was not alone in what added up to Ackles dismal sales. Unfortunately since long before legendary DJ Alan Freed,who exploited the term Rock & Roll and affixed his name with those who wrote a real big tune called “Sincerely”, popular music of all types and “The Biz” became Siamese twins.

This book tells all and more about the good, bad and the ugly in David’s six year major label career, marked by high critical praise ( especially in the UK ) and reverence from fellow artists, such as Elvis Costello, Phil Collins, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, who produced “American Gothic”. One critic called the album “The Sgt. Pepper of Folk” several others “The Album Of The Year” not realizing, nor did Elecktra that believed but over used it, that it was not helpful hype. American Gothic, also gifted to me, ends with the 10 minute “Montana Song” that I would say is a masterpiece of words, music, and production. And the book chronicles many of the missteps, almosts and David’s lows, before disappearing from the scene. We are redeemed in the knowledge that he continued far from the madding crowd, doing what he always was meant to. Thanks to Mark Brend, we have the rest of the story. Through tiny details and analysis of the rights and wrongs throughout the book, along with his dogged pursuit of finding everyone still alive to talk to, who was there with David, until and after his final departure from lung cancer in 1999. This book truly tells, that you need not be mixed up in the crazy world of the music biz, to grasp the significance of David’s work. Perhaps it is best said by Bernie Taupin’s comment, after listening to the final mix of Montana Song. “ You would have to be dead inside, not to be moved ” ___Ken Spooner

Ken Spooner is musician, hit songwriter, concert promoter, author, journalist, historian and 40 plus year veteran of the music business in both New York and Nashville. As a journalist, he has written for four national magazines. His three books are “Long Ride On A Short Track”, “ The Knapps Lived Here” and the audio bio book “If The Devil Danced In Empty Pockets, He’d Have A Ball In Mine” which was also the title of his # 1 country song recorded by Joe Diffie.