After you've immersed yourself here and are wanting more, pick up David's 3rd album ("American Gothic", produced by Bernie Taupin) and drink deeply. Then you'll want to finish your collection; the 2nd album, "Subway to the Country", is available, although I find that less satisfying; and have fun finding the vinyl of the 4th Album, "David T. Ackles' Five and Dime", which Columbia has yet to release to CD.

I am very thankful for finding this in vinyl for 50c at a Salvation Army Thrift Store in Denver in the 70s. (This album was also re-released on vinyl as "The Road to Cairo".) All of David's music has meant a lot to me. His death in 1999 was a blow to many of us.


Against the stream   August 19, 2004
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

By the standards of any time during the last forty years, David Ackle's writing would stand pretty much alone. Laughing Lenny Cohen, in some ways, charts similar territory to Ackles. But the zones he sets his lyrics to must have seemed really perverse in the late sixties & early seventies when, as another reviewer astutely remarks, the nearest gifted equivalent was Jimmy Webb. Webb's star was on the rise though (through interpreters of his songs to be sure,pre-eminently Glen Campbell, as his own albumns received much the same end as Ackles). This is the disc I've most often returned to though. 'Down River', Road to Cairo, & the awesome,'His Name Is Andrew'. Hardly a rollicking affair & none of it bouncing back into mind like the Webb catalogue with the perfume of the bouyant side of the 60s. Ackles was tuned to the darker undercurrent. For subtle nuance of lyric to piano, and range of feeeling in the darker, and tender zones of relationship, I feel he hasn't a rival. Comparisons, I note in other reviews, with Laughing Lenny Cohen do injustice to Ackles, who is far less cumbersome.


Criminally Obscure   July 17, 2006
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

I would call this one of those mature debuts. Even though he would reach greater heights in later recordings, the blueprint was laid down here. The Brecht/Weill drunken carnival music alternating with quiet piano songs creates a fascinating atmosphere of unease, grotesques & quiet reflection. Like some of the Syd Barrett albums where the instruments were added after the singer was finished recording vocals, the notes often chase the rhythym like a flock of birds, not quite arriving at the same time. But, it doesn't seem to matter much. The songs are that good. I think the songs most often cited by critics are the strongest, "Down River", "The Road to Cairo" & "His Name is Andrew". But, I think all the songs are good.


Review of David Ackles   February 13, 2003
 1 out of 18 found this review helpful

I think that this album is generally good with a couple of strong points.


what a happy day indeed   May 14, 2004
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

This must be one of the most haunting debut albums of all. There are some songs by this dignified, rough-edged romantic which are so heartbreakingly moving that words fail - eg. Love`s Enough (if only Sinatra had heard that instead of My Way) and Waiting For the Moving Van, both from a later collection and, from this album, the peerless Down River. If I`d ever been able to see a dream concert featuring Ackles, Tom Rush & Tim Hardin - well, I would have died of pleasure. (Look after yourself now, Tom.)
Four-and-a-half stars, mate? Huh!