American Gothic.

It is Saturday evening. I have been indoors all day because of Storm Dennis. This is the second major storm in a week. We will have to get used to more extreme weather because of climate change. They didn’t give storms names until recently. Anyway, I haven't seen another living soul, but I have been quite happy, pottering about, reading and listening to music. I was pleased to see when I checked my emails that I have sold three books. They are The Trial by Franz Kafka, I Remain by Lew Welch and Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi. I’ll parcel them up tomorrow and post them on Monday. I listened to an album today that I haven’t played for a couple of years. American Gothic by David Ackles. I  enjoyed hearing it again. This is what I said about it when I bought it eight years ago...............

I wanted a rare gem from the past that I had missed first time round. I am always interested in artists who lived in obscurity and are only discovered decades later or had a brief flirtation with fame and disappeared. People like Anne Briggs, Jonathan Kelly, Vashti Bunyan or Karen Dalton. I vaguely remembered a friend years ago mentioning an album called American Gothic by David Ackles. Also, I had read that Elton John and Elvis Costello had hailed it as a masterpiece. It wasn't available in Britain, so I ordered a copy from Canada and two weeks later American Gothic hit my doormat.

I looked at the front cover and it was a man sitting in a boat and a woman sitting on the porch of a timber framed house. On the back cover she is wearing denim overalls and he is holding a garden fork which creates the feeling of a rural life in the olden days. I found it was based on a famous picture called American Gothic by Grant Wood that I never had heard of, so this is quite educational. I didn't know what to expect. I hoped it might be a bit like Astral Weeks or maybe a bit like a Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks collaboration. I was very surprised to find it was recorded in England and produced by Bernie Taupin. I also noted that most of the musicians were from the London Symphony Orchestra and there were three backing singers of Doris Troy, Madeleine Bell and Lesley Duncan who were the best female session singers in England at that time.

As the eponymous opening track started, I realised that this was something the likes of which I had never listened to before. The voice had nothing to do with rock music or folk. It sounded like musical theatre, a genre of music that I thought I didn’t like. As the album progressed, I saw that this music transcended the boundaries between styles. There were elements of classical, music hall and folk. The opening title track was about this couple called Molly and Horace Jenkins who couldn't stand the sight of each other but make the most of it, which a lot of people do. The second track I found initially the most accessible Love’s Enough which is a love song with the traditional song form that I was used to.

 I could hear that David Ackles was not a great singer, his forte was obviously as a songwriter and arranger, but the beauty is in the poignancy of the lyrics. Love’s Enough could have been a huge hit if recorded by somebody with a more distinctive voice. The same applies to One Night Stand, Another Friday Night is a great sad song. On first listen, I didn't like Midnight Carousel much but thought Waiting For The Moving Van was great, and Blues For Billie Whitehead. The tour de force on the whole album is Montana Song which is a ten-minute epic and worth the price of the whole album. It has shades of Van Dyke Parks It is all about discovering an abandoned farm and reading the gravestones of a pioneer family. This is classical music and if somebody put it on the stage I think the whole album would make a great musical. This classic needs to be re-discovered. The album flopped when it was released in 1972 and David Ackles was dropped by his record company, he made one more album and then disappeared. It is time his work got the recognition it deserves.