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| American Gothic | 
 enlarge | Artist: David Ackles
Label: Collector's Choice
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $13.44
You Save: $0.54 (4%)
New (8) Used (1) from $13.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 3775
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 311
UPC: 617742031126
EAN: 0617742031126
ASIN: B00006RYIX
Release Date: February 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Scene Behind Grant Wood's Painting October 3, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ackle's penultimate album contains the consumate rural romance,'Montana Song', whose 10 minutes alone makes this a rewarding collection. It's not the expressive voice rising directly from its rural source. It's the urban striving to recuperate a faded vision,filtered through a city sophisticate's sensibility. Richie Unterberger, writing the liners, is right on the pulse in describing Ackle's vision as a blend of 'rock instrumentation with a Brecht-Weillian theatrical sense and dark Americana. 'Montana Song's' mini-operatic reach appropriates themes from Aaron Copeland's,'Appalachian Spring'. Despite announcing at the outset that he's found what he went looking for, we sense the narrator's desperation as he seeks ancestral connexions on a remote and ruined farm, armed only with the family bible as a guide to the C19th. Ackle's voice, in great shape throughout, hits some of its tenderest notes as this anxious journey discloses generational repudiation of the land in favour of fin de siecle city lights. A poignant roarness emerges as the grandmother, Leantha McKinnon, becomes resigned to widowhood in 1921, echoing her husband's regret when his sons departed. The narrator is soothed by his discoveries. The bible entries are made more meaningful as he moves about in the prairie breeze. No matter how close the strings and horns follow the narrative, Ackle's emoting is closer to us and a little apart, so that the music swells, rolls, clouds and clears as landscaspe in dialogue with the narrator's conscience. His shifting tonalities save the story from cinematic schmaltz: a remarkable performance that will always live for me. This is an album of considerable rear vision.'Family Band', the eerie,'Ship of Fools','Another Friday Night', 'Waiting for the Moving Van' - the varied themes of each are shaped by a profound sense of loss. The raucous,'Midnight Carousel', and the cruel lament for,'Billy Whitecloud', with its cabaret mockery, expand Ackle's take on small town American misfits. He's successfully animated the woodworms in Grant Wood's stuffy, iconic skeletons, pressed close to us on the cover.
Montana Song rates it a 5, the rest is almost as good. December 3, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is one of those albums that is destined to be a critic's favorite but not a best seller. It is distinctly American in its subject matter, but to me sounds more European in its formality. It is a classic. It has elements of blues, country, gospel, and especially classical, but is probably too varied, idiosyncratic and intelligent to be number one on the charts. Montana Song is a song that could be make made into a movie; it addresses the universal longing of finding one's roots on a farm that is now foreign to the city boy who writes about it. It's music is sophisticated, classically based and is romantic in its poetry of finding lost generations in a place removed from the present reality. "California Song" sounds to me like it should be in a musical of some sort. "Love's Enough" is one of the prettier songs you will hear about the subject of being in love. There does tend to be a theme of loneliness throughout the songs, but there is also humor and hope to bring some emotional balance. If you are one into songs that are piano based, formal, sophisticated, varied, and yet still accessible, Ackles may be your man. It certainly is a great work looking for a broader audience, and deserves the critical praise it has received over the years.
Piano Bar/Lounge Singer June 22, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
OK, we all know that Piano Bar Lounge Singers are at the bottom of the food chain, mostly loud, boring and untalented. Bill Murray aped them very well during his Saturday Night Live days. When I listen to American Gothic, I can picture David Ackles playing these songs in a piano bar, and finding myself completely captivated by the performances. The songs feel close and personal, almost embarrassingly so, especially little gems like "One Night Stand," and "Waiting for the Moving Van." These songs are not all hummable, nor will the melodies necessarily stay with you. It is the overall performance that cuts through any initial resistance to his style of presenting songs. He is more a showman than a folksinger.
But if you listen, and close out the outside world, he has you. I end up wanting to hear more. Montana Song is a great magnum opus for closing this album - makes me want to go revisit the farm where I grew up. This is a kind of music that doesn't fit any popular classification, but if you let it in, you will somehow feel enriched.
 Not as cool as I remembered August 22, 2005
1 out of 10 found this review helpful
We bought this because we were talking about records we knew from college, and while we remembered enjoying it, we couldn't really remember any of the music. Now the music and lyrics seem sophomoric, embarrassing, and not really worth listening to again.
The Sgt. Pepper of American Rural Decay July 13, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like one of the other reviewers here, I first heard of Ackles, from reading about him in the book "American Troubadours". He was singled out as the only singer-songwriter in the book whose recorded output was consistently of the highest quality. Unfortunately, he never found a large enough audience as the foremost practicioner of what can only be called Ackles-rock. I would hope with the slough of films about obscure pop, rock or miscellaneous musicians, that have come out recently, someone will decide to tackle Ackles (this rhyme was accidental). His music and vision seem as literary as they are musical, and are satisfying as both. His music is like the little ant you see crawling on what had just a second-before been a wholesome and joyful pancake, drenched in glossy syrup. I think every song on this album is great, he seems to have quite a gift for deepening and extending a song's peak. I especially like the piano ballads which lure you in, and maybe on your second or third listen you'll realize that the shadow and lights in his world are given in equal proportion, and the lyrics have a wise and weary cynacism.
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