“… One thing about that week in LA; I was sharing the bill
with David Ackles – I was topping the bill, but that seemed just unbelievable
to me - there was no way anyone could’ve
convinced me that I should be above David Ackles, but they explained to me that
he was almost unknown there. I was flabberghasted, but during that week I
discovered that people like Tom Paxton, and Ackles, and David Blue and so on are
disregarded in LA … they’re much better known here.
David Ackles was briliant … I made a point of watching him
every night, and he was just brilliant – and I heard that he only earned
something like 5.000 dollars in the whole 1970. At the end of the week, he
bought me a half bottle of Scotch and told me how much he’d enjoyed working
with me … which was utterly incredible, because I’d always been a number one
fan of his. To see that audience just chatting away while he was singing those
lovely songs just tore me apart … people were there because the buzz had got around
that I was the guy to see and they didn’t give a toss about a great person like
him.
One thing that did come out of that, however, was the album he’s
just put out; Bernie ( Taupin ) worked on the production of it … the songs are
amazing …”.
(Elton John, in ZIG ZAG Magazine # 26, Novembro 1972)
