Nick Drake

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Nick Drake
A 1967 photograph of Nick Drake, wrapped in a blanket, holding a harvest of mushrooms.
Background information
Birth name	Nicholas Rodney Drake
Born	19 June 1948 Rangoon, Burma
Died	25 November 1974 Tanworth-in-Arden, England
Genre(s)	Folk
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, Guitarist
Instrument(s)	Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Clarinet
Years active	1969 – 1972
Label(s)	Island
Website	Bryter Music

Nicholas Rodney Drake (June 19, 1948 – November 25, 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician best known for his acoustic, autumnal songs. His primary instrument was the guitar, though he was also proficient at piano, clarinet, and saxophone. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has grown steadily in stature, to the extent that he now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.^[1][2][3]

Drake signed to Island Records when he was twenty years old, and released his debut album Five Leaves Left in 1969. By 1972 he had recorded a further two albums, although none sold more than five thousand copies in their initial releases, while his reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Drake battled with depression and insomnia throughout his life, and the topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of the prescribed antidepressant, amitriptyline.

There was residual interest in Drake's music through the mid-1970s, but it was not until the 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree that his back catalogue came to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s, Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the U.K. and U.S. charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake.^[4] By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of 'doomed romantic' musician in the UK music press, and was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller, and The Black Crowes.^[5] Drake's first biography was written in 1997, and was followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Amongst Us. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within one month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous thirty years.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

[edit] Childhood

Nicholas Rodney Drake was born on 19 June 1948, into an upper middle class English family living in Rangoon, Burma. His father, Rodney (1908–1988), had moved there in the early 1930s to work as an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation.^[6] In 1934, Rodney met the daughter of a senior member of the Indian Civil Service, Mary Lloyd (1916–1993), known to her family as Molly. Rodney proposed in 1936, though the couple had to wait a year until Molly turned twenty one before they were allowed by her family to marry.^[7] In 1950, they returned to Warwickshire^[8] to live in the country estate of Far Leys. Drake had one older sister, Gabrielle, later a successful film and TV actress. Both parents were musically inclined, and they each wrote pieces of music. In particular, recordings of Molly's songs which have come to light following her death are remarkably similar in tone and outlook to the later work of her son.^[9] Mother and son share a similar fragile vocal delivery, and both Gabrielle and biographer Trevor Dann have noted a parallel sense of foreboding and fatalism in their music.^[9][10] Encouraged by Molly, Drake learned to play piano at an early age, and began to compose his own tunes, which he would record on a reel-to-reel tape recorder she kept in the family drawing room.^[3]

In 1957, Drake enrolled at Eagle House School, an English preparatory boarding school in Berkshire. Five years later, he went on to public school at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all attended. He developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished sprinter (his record for the 100 yards dash still stands)^[11] and captain of the school's rugby team for a period. School friends recall Drake at this time as having been confident and "quietly authoritative," while often aloof in his manner.^[12] His father Rodney remembered: "in one of his reports [the headmaster] said that none of us seemed to know him very well. All the way through with Nick. People didn't know him very much."^[13]

Drake played piano in the school orchestra, and learned clarinet and saxophone. Sometime between 1964 and 1965, he formed a band with four other school friends. He mainly played piano, and occasionally contributed alto sax and vocals. Titled The Perfumed Gardeners, the group performed Pye covers and jazz standards, as well as numbers by The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann. The line-up briefly included Chris de Burgh, but he was soon ejected as his taste was seen as "too poppy" by the other members.^[14] Drake's academic performance began to deteriorate, and while he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough he began to neglect his studies in favour of music. He attained seven GCE O-Levels in 1963, but this was fewer than his teachers had been expecting, and he failed 'Physics with Chemistry'.^[15] In 1965, Drake paid £13 for his first acoustic guitar, and was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques.^[16]

[edit] University

In 1966, Drake won a scholarship to study English literature at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, beginning in February 1967. While in Aix, he began to practise guitar in earnest, and to earn money would often busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, and that spring he travelled with friends to Morocco, because, according to travelling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot."^[17] Drake likely took his first LSD trip while in Aix,^[18] and lyrics written during this period - in particular for the song "Clothes of Sand" - are suggestive of an interest in hallucinogens.^[19]

Upon returning to England, he moved into his sister's flat in Hampstead, London, before enrolling at Cambridge that October. His tutors found him to be a bright student, but unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself to study.^[20] Dann notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow pupils alike, and points out that official matriculation photographs from this time reveal a sullen and unimpressed student.^[21] Cambridge placed much emphasis on its rugby and cricket teams, yet by this time Drake had lost interest in playing sport, preferring to stay in his college room smoking cannabis, and listening to and playing music. According to fellow student Brian Wells: "they were the rugger buggers and we were the cool people smoking dope."^[21] In September 1967, he met Robert Kirby, a music student who went on to orchestrate many of the string and woodwind arrangements for Drake's first two albums.^[22] By this time, Drake had discovered the British and American folk music scenes, and was influenced by performers such as Bob Dylan, Josh White and Phil Ochs. He began performing in local clubs and coffee houses around London, and in February 1968, while playing support to Country Joe and the Fish at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, made an impression on Ashley Hutchings, bass player with Fairport Convention.^[23] Hutchings recalls being impressed by Drake's skill as a guitarist, but even more so by "the image. He looked like a star. He looked wonderful, he seemed to be 7 ft."^[13]

Hutchings introduced Drake to the 25-year old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions. Witchseason were, at the time, licensed to Island Records,^[24] and Boyd, as the man who had discovered Fairport Convention and been responsible for introducing John Martyn and The Incredible String Band to a mainstream audience, was a significant and respected figure on the UK folk scene.^[13] He and Drake formed an immediate bond, and the producer acted as a mentor figure to Drake throughout his career. A four track demo, recorded in Drake's college room in the spring of 1968, led Boyd to offer a management, publishing, and production contract to the 20-year old, and to initiate work on a debut album. According to Boyd: "In those days you didn't have cassettes—he brought a reel-to-reel tape [to me] that he'd done at home. Half way through the first song, I felt this was pretty special. And I called him up, and he came back in, and we talked, and I just said, 'I'd like to make a record'. He stammered, 'Oh well, yeah, okay'. Nick was a man of few words."^[13] In a 2004 interview, Drake's friend Paul Wheeler remembered the excitement caused by his seeming big break, and recalled that the singer had already decided not to complete his third year at Cambridge.^[13]

[edit] Five Leaves Left

Nick Drake, c. 1969. No moving images of the adult Drake exist; he was only ever captured in still photographs.^[25]

Drake began recording his debut album Five Leaves Left later in 1968, with Boyd assuming the role of producer. The sessions took place in Sound Techniques studio, London, with Drake skipping lectures to travel by train to the capital. Inspired by John Simon's production of Leonard Cohen's first album, Boyd was keen that Drake's voice would be recorded in a similar close and intimate style, "with no shiny pop reverb".^[26] He also sought to include a string arrangement similar to Simon's, "without overwhelming...or sounding cheesy".^[26] To provide backing, Boyd enlisted various contacts from the London folk rock scene, including Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson.^[27] He recruited John Wood as engineer, and drafted Richard Hewson in to provide the string arrangements.

Initial recordings did not go well; the sessions were irregular and rushed, taking place during studio downtime borrowed from Fairport Convention's production of their Unhalfbricking album. Tension arose between artist and producer as to the direction the album should take—Boyd was an advocate of George Martin's "using the studio as an instrument" approach, while Drake preferred a more organic sound. Dann has observed that Drake appears "tight and anxious" on bootleg recordings taken from the sessions, and notes a number of Boyd's unsuccessful attempts at instrumentation.^[28] Both were unhappy with Hewson's contribution, which they felt was too mainstream in sound for Drake's songs.^[29] Drake suggested using his college friend Robert Kirby as a replacement, although Boyd was skeptical at taking on an amateur music student lacking prior recording experience. However, he was impressed by Drake's uncharacteristic assertiveness, and agreed to a trial.^[30] Kirby had previously presented Drake with some arrangements for his songs,^[24] and went on to provide a spare chamber music quartet score associated with the sound of the final album.^[31] However, Kirby did not feel confident enough to score the album's centerpiece "River Man", and Boyd was forced to stretch the Witchseason budget to hire the veteran composer Harry Robinson, with the instruction that he echo the tone of Delius and Ravel.

 Music sample:

River man

"River man" is noted for its 5/4 time, harmonic changes and use of prosody. An early solo acoustic version recorded in Drake's Cambridge college bedroom appears on the 2004 compilation Made To Love Magic.^[32]

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

Post-production difficulties led to the release being delayed by several months, and the album was poorly marketed and supported when it finally arrived.^[33] Reviews in the music press were few and lukewarm. In July, Melody Maker referred to the album as "poetic" and "interesting"; NME wrote in October that there was "not nearly enough variety to make it entertaining".^[34] It received little radio support outside of BBC's John Peel, who would occasionally play tracks.^[35] Drake was unhappy with the inlay sleeve, which printed songs in the wrong running order and reproduced verses omitted from the recorded versions.^[36] His disappointment in the final result is reflected in an interview comment made by his sister Gabrielle: "He was very secretive. I knew he was making an album but I didn't know what stage of completion it was at until he walked into my room and said, 'There you are.' He threw it on to the bed and walked out!"^[24]

[edit] London

[edit] Bryter Layter

Drake ended his studies at Cambridge just nine months before graduation, and in autumn 1969 moved to London to concentrate on a career in music.^[37] His father remembered "writing him long letters, pointing out the disadvantages of going away from Cambridge...a degree was a safety net, if you manage to get a degree, at least you have something to fall back on; his reply to that was that a safety net was the one thing he did not want."^[9] Drake spent his first few months in the capital drifting from place to place, occasionally staying at his sister's Kensington flat, but usually sleeping on friends’ sofas and floors.^[38] Eventually, in an attempt to bring some stability and a telephone into Drake's life, Boyd organised and paid for a ground floor bedsit in Belsize Park, Camden.^[39]

In August, Drake recorded three unaccompanied songs for the BBC's John Peel show. Two months later, he opened for Fairport Convention at the Royal Festival Hall in London, followed by appearances at folk clubs in Birmingham and Hull. Remembering the performance in Hull, folk singer Michael Chapman commented: "The folkies did not take to him; [they] wanted songs with choruses. They completely missed the point. He didn't say a word the entire evening. It was actually quite painful to watch. I don't know what the audience expected, I mean, they must have known they weren't going to get sea–shanties and sing-alongs at a Nick Drake gig!"^[23] The experience reinforced Drake's decision to retreat from live appearances; the few concerts he did play around this time were usually brief, awkward, and poorly attended. Drake seemed unwilling to "perform", and rarely addressed his audience. As many of his songs were played in different tunings, he frequently paused to retune between numbers.^[40]

 Music sample:

Northern Sky

"Northern sky" features piano, organ and Celesta performed by John Cale. Drake was reportedly in awe of Cale's musical ability.

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

Although the publicity generated by Five Leaves Left was minor, Boyd was keen to build on what momentum there was. 1970's Bryter Layter, again produced by Boyd and engineered by Wood, introduced a more upbeat,^[41] jazzier^[42] sound. Disappointed by his debut's poor commercial performance, Drake sought to move away from his pastoral sound, and agreed to his producer's suggestions to include bass and drum tracks on the recordings. "It was more of a pop sound, I suppose", Boyd later said, "I imagined it as more commercial."^[43] Like its predecessor, the album featured musicians from Fairport Convention, as well as contributions from John Cale on two songs: "Northern Sky" and "Fly". Trevor Dann has noted that while sections of "Northern Sky" sound more characteristic of Cale, the song was the closest Drake came to a release with chart potential.^[44] In his 1999 biography, Cale admits to taking heroin during this period,^[45] and his older friend Brian Wells began to suspect that Drake was also using.^[46] Both Boyd and Wood were confident that the album would be a commercial success,^[47] but it went on to sell fewer than three thousand copies. Reviews were again mixed: while Record Mirror praised Drake as a "beautiful guitarist—clean and with perfect timing, [and] accompanied by soft, beautiful arrangements", Melody Maker described the album as "an awkward mix of folk and cocktail jazz".^[40]

Soon after the release, Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records, and moved to Los Angeles to work with Warner Brothers in the development of soundtracks for film. The loss of this key mentor figure, coupled with the album's poor sales, led Drake to further retreat into depression. His attitude to London had changed: he was unhappy living alone, and visibly nervous and uncomfortable performing at a series of concerts in early 1970. In June, Drake gave one of his final live appearances at Ewell Technical College, London. Ralph McTell, who also performed that night remembered that "Nick was monosyllabic. At that particular gig he was very shy. He did the first set and something awful must have happened. He was doing his song, "Fruit Tree", and walked off halfway through it. Just left the stage."^[48] His frustration turned to depression,^[49] and in 1971 Drake was persuaded by family to visit a psychiatrist at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He was prescribed a course of antidepressants, but he felt uncomfortable and embarrassed about taking them, and tried to hide the fact from his friends.^[50] He knew enough about drugs to worry about their side effects, and was concerned about how they would react with his regular cannabis intake.^[51]

[edit] Pink Moon

Drake photographed by Keith Morris in November, 1971. "It was like intruding on private grief. Previously we'd made pictures together. On this occasion I recorded him."^[52]

Island Records was keen that Drake promote Bryter Layter through press interviews, radio sessions and live appearances. Drake, who was by this time smoking what Kirby has described as "unbelievable amounts" of cannabis^[53] and exhibiting "the first signs of psychosis", refused. By the winter of 1970, he had isolated himself in London.^[37] Disappointed by the reaction to Bryter Layter, he turned his thoughts inwards, and withdrew from family and friends. He rarely left his flat, and then only to play an occasional concert or to buy drugs. "This was a very bad time," his sister Gabrielle Drake recalled, "he once said to me that everything started to go wrong from (this) time on, and I think that was when things started to go wrong."^[54]

Although Island neither expected nor wanted a third album,^[55] Drake approached Wood in October 1971 to begin work on what would be his final release. The sessions took place over two nights, with only Drake and his engineer present in the studio.^[3] The bleak songs of Pink Moon are short, and the eleven-track album lasts only 28 minutes, a length described by Wood as "just about right. You really wouldn't want it to be any longer."^[13] Drake had expressed dissatisfaction with the sound of Bryter Layter, and believed that the string, brass and saxophone arrangements had resulted in a sound that was "too full, too elaborate".^[56] Drake appears unaccompanied on Pink Moon, save for a single piano overdub on the title track. "He was very determined to make this very stark, bare record", Wood later recalled. "He definitely wanted it to be him more than anything. And I think, in some ways, Pink Moon is probably more like Nick is than the other two records."^[57]

 Music sample:

Pink Moon

The piano overdub on "Pink Moon" displays a musicality absent from some of the barer tracks on Drake's final album.^[58]

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

Upon completion of the album, Drake delivered the master tapes to the front desk of Island Records' office building. He placed them on a receptionist's desk, and left without speaking to anyone. The tapes lay there over the weekend, unnoticed until later in the next week. An advertisement for the album placed in Melody Maker in February opened with "Pink Moon - Nick Drake's latest album: the first we heard of it was when it was finished."^[59] Pink Moon went on to sell fewer copies than either of its predecessors, although it did receive some favourable reviews. In Zigzag magazine, Connor McKnight wrote, "Nick Drake is an artist who never fakes. The album makes no concession to the theory that music should be escapist. It's simply one musician's view of life at the time, and you can't ask for more than that."^[60]

Island Records founder Chris Blackwell felt Pink Moon had the potential to bring Drake to a mainstream audience; however his staff were disappointed by the artist's unwillingness to undertake any promotional activity. A&R manager Muff Winwood recalls "tearing his hair out" in frustration, and admits that despite Blackwell's enthusiastic support, "the rest of us would have given him the boot."^[61] However, following persistent nagging from Boyd, Drake agreed to an interview with Jerry Gilbert of Sounds Magazine.^[62] In the only Drake interview ever published, the "shy and introverted folk singer" spoke of his dislike of live appearances, and very little else.^[63] "There wasn't any connection whatsoever", Gilbert has said. "I don't think he made eye contact with me once. If you wanted to be uncharitable, you could say he was just a spoiled boy with a silver spoon and went around feeling sorry for himself."^[63] Disheartened and convinced he would be unable to write again, Drake decided to retire from music. He toyed with the idea of a different career, even considering the Army.^[64]

[edit] Home again

[edit] Final years

Insert from the 2004's Made To Love Magic, a compilation of remixed tracks and rarities.^[65]

In the months following Pink Moon's release, Drake became increasingly asocial and distant from those close to him.^[66] He returned to live at his parents' home in Far Leys, and while he resented the regression, he accepted that his illness made it necessary. "I don't like it at home", he told his mother, "but I can't bear it anywhere else."^[9] His return was often difficult for his family; as his sister Gabrielle explained, "good days in my parents' home were good days for Nick, and bad days were bad days for Nick. And that was what their life revolved around, really."^[13]

 Music sample:

Black Eyed Dog

"Black Eyed Dog" from one of Drake's final recording sessions in February, 1974. The title was inspired by Winston Churchill's description of depression as a black dog.^[67]

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

He lived a frugal existence, his only source of income being a £20 a week retainer he received from Island Records. At one point he was so poor he was unable to afford to buy a new pair of shoes.^[68] He would often disappear for days, sometimes turning up unannounced at friends' houses, uncommunicative and withdrawn. Robert Kirby described a typical visit: "He would arrive and not talk, sit down, listen to music, have a smoke, have a drink, sleep there the night, and two or three days later he wasn't there, he'd be gone. And three months later he'd be back."^[69]

Referring to this period, John Martyn (who in 1973 wrote the title song of his album Solid Air for and about Drake) described him as the most withdrawn person he'd ever met.^[70] He would borrow his mother's car and drive for hours without purpose on occasion, until he ran out of petrol and had to ring his parents to ask to be collected. Friends have recalled the extent to which his appearance had changed.^[71] During particularly bleak periods of his illness, he refused to wash his hair or cut his nails.^[64] Early in 1972, Drake suffered a nervous breakdown, and was hospitalized for five weeks.^[46]

In February 1974, Drake again contacted John Wood, stating he was ready to begin work on a fourth album.^[72] Boyd was in England at the time, and agreed to attend the recordings. This initial session was followed by further recordings in July. In his 2006 autobiography, the producer recalled being taken aback at Drake's anger and bitterness: "[He said that] I had told him he was a genius, and others had concurred. Why wasn't he famous and rich. This rage must have festered beneath that inexpressive exterior for years."^[73] Both Boyd and Wood noticed a discernible deterioration in Drake's performance. According to Boyd: "It was chilling. It was really scary. He was so... he was in such bad shape he couldn't sing and play the guitar at the same time. We put down the guitars and overdubbed the voice. It was all one day, we started in the afternoon and finished about midnight—just for those four tracks."^[46] However, the return to Sound Techniques studio raised Drake's spirits; his mother later recalled, "We were so absolutely thrilled to think that Nick was happy because there hadn't been any happiness in Nick's life for years."^[46]

[edit] Death

By autumn 1974, Drake's weekly retainer from Island had ceased, and his illness meant he remained in contact with only a few close friends. He had tried to stay in touch with Sophia Ryde, whom he had first met in London in 1968.^[74] Ryde has been described by Drake's biographers as "the nearest thing" to a girlfriend in his life, however she now prefers the description 'best (girl) friend'.^[75] In a 2005 interview, Ryde revealed that a week before he died, she had sought to end the relationship: "I couldn’t cope with it. I asked him for some time. And I never saw him again". Similar to the relationship Drake had earlier shared with fellow folk musician Linda Thompson, Drake's relationship with Ryde was never consummated.^[76]

In the early hours of 25 November 1974, Nick Drake died at home in Far Leys from an overdose of amitriptyline, a type of antidepressant. He had gone to bed early the night before, after spending the afternoon visiting a friend. Around dawn he left his room for the kitchen. His family was used to hearing him do this many times before, but during this instance, he didn't make a sound. They presumed that he was eating a bowl of cereal. He returned to his room a short while later, and took some pills "to help him sleep".^[77] Drake was accustomed to keeping his own hours; he frequently had difficulty sleeping, and would often stay up through the night playing and listening to music, then sleeping late into the following morning. Recalling the events of that night, his mother later stated: "I never used to disturb him at all. But it was about 12 o’clock, and I went in, because really it seemed it was time he got up. And he was laying across the bed. The first thing I saw was his long, long legs."^[78] There was no suicide note, although a letter addressed to Ryde was found near to his bed.^[79]

Drake's gravestone is inscribed with the epitaph 'Now we rise/And we are everywhere', taken from the final song on his final album.^[80]

At the inquest that December, Drake's coroner stated that the cause of death was as a result of "Acute amitriptyline poisoning—self administered when suffering from a depressive illness", and concluded a verdict of suicide. Though this has been disputed by some members of his family,^[1] there is a general view that accidental or not, Drake had by then given up on the world.^[40] Rodney described his son's death as unexpected and extraordinary; however, in a 1979 interview he admitted to "always [being] worried about Nick being so depressed. We used to hide away the aspirin and pills and things like that."^[76] Boyd has stated that he prefers to believe the overdose was accidental. He recalled that Drake's parents had described his mood in the preceding weeks as having been very positive, and that he had planned to move back to London to restart his music career. Boyd believes that this levity was followed by a "crash back into despair". Reasoning that Drake may have taken a high dosage of his antidepressants in order to recapture this sense of optimism, he said he prefers to imagine Drake "making a desperate lunge for life rather than a calculated surrender to death".^[81] Writing in 1975, NME journalist Nick Kent comments on the irony of Drake's death at a time when he had just begun to regain a sense of "personal balance".^[68] In contrast, Gabrielle Drake has said she prefers to think Drake committed suicide, "in the sense that I'd rather he died because he wanted to end it than it to be the result of a tragic mistake. That would seem to me to be terrible..."^[76]

On 2 December 1974, after a service in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Tanworth-in-Arden, Drake was cremated at the Solihull Crematorium and his ashes later interred under an oak tree in the adjoining graveyard of St Mary's.^[82] The funeral was attended by around fifty mourners, including friends from Marlborough, Aix, Cambridge, London, Witchseason, and Tanworth.^[83] Referring to Drake's tendency to compartmentalise, Brian Wells later observed that many met each other for the first time that morning.^[84] Molly recalled "a lot of his young friends came up here. We'd never met many of them."^[85]

[edit] Posthumous popularity

"During the early Eighties, I drifted away from the music scene. When I returned, I was surprised to find that Nick Drake was becoming famous."^[3]—Ian MacDonald

There were no press obituaries, documentaries or compilation albums in the wake of Drake's death.^[86] His public profile remained low throughout the mid and late 1970s, although occasional mentions of his name began to appear in the music press. Island Records initially saw little commercial value in his back catalogue, and following a 1975 NME article written by Nick Kent, stated "...we have no intention of repackaging Nick's three albums, either now or at anytime in the foreseeable future".^[87] By this time, his parents were receiving an increasing number of fans and admirers as visitors to the family home in Far Leys. In 1979, Rob Partridge joined Island Records as press officer, and commissioned the release of the Fruit Tree box set. Partridge was a fan of Drake's, and had seen him perform early in 1969: "The first thing I did when I got to Island was suggest we put together a retrospective—the studio albums plus what whatever else was there. I wasn't necessarily expecting massive vaults with millions of tunes, live recordings or whatever, but there was very little..." The release brought together the three studio albums, as well as the four tracks recorded with Wood in 1974, and was accompanied by an extensive biography written by the American journalist Arthur Lubow. However, sales were poor and the album received little press notice; in 1983, Island deleted Fruit Tree from its catalogue.^[16]

By the mid 1980s, Drake was being cited as an influence by musicians such as R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Robert Smith of The Cure. Smith credited the origin of his band's name to a lyric from Drake's song "Time Has Told Me" ("a troubled cure for a troubled mind").^[88] Drake gained further exposure in 1985 with the release of The Dream Academy's hit single "Life in a Northern Town", which included an on-sleeve dedication to Drake.^[89] His reputation continued to grow, and by the end of the 1980s, Nick Drake's name was appearing regularly in newspapers and music magazines in the United Kingdom,^[90] and though he was still largely a cult figure, he was no longer unknown. Drake had come to represent a kind of mythical doomed romantic hero in the eyes of many,^[91] an "enigma wrapped inside a mystery".^[37]

In early 1999, BBC2 aired a 40-minute documentary, A Stranger Among Us—In Search of Nick Drake, as part of its Picture This strand. The following year, Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens released a documentary titled A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, featuring interviews with Boyd, Gabrielle Drake, Wood and Kirby. Later that year, The Guardian placed Bryter Layter at number 1 in its "Alternative top 100 albums ever" list.^[70] In 2000, Volkswagen licensed the title track of Pink Moon to a commercial in the U.S., leading to a large increase in record sales,^[92] and a number-five placing for Pink Moon in Amazon.com's sales chart.^[93]

In recent years, several musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, and Lou Barlow, have cited Drake as an influence. Folk artist Tom Flannery recorded an album in 2002 entitled Drinking With Nick Drake. In 2004, nearly 30 years after his death, Drake gained his first chart placing when two singles ("Magic" and "River Man"), released to coincide with the compilation album Made to Love Magic, made the middle reaches of the U.K. charts. Later that year, the BBC aired a radio documentary about Drake, narrated by Brad Pitt.^[40]

[edit] Musical style

Drake was obsessive about practicing his guitar playing, and would often stay up through the night, experimenting with tunings and working on songs. His mother remembered hearing him "bumping around at all hours. I think he wrote his nicest melodies in the early-morning hours."^[16] A self-taught guitarist,^[47] Drake's style is characterised by his use of cluster chords.^[94] Such chords are normally difficult to achieve on the guitar; Drake was able to get around this by detuning, so that the lower strings were tuned higher than the strings above them.^[37] In many songs he accents the dissonant effect of such non-standard tunings through his vocal melodies.^[94]

Drake studied English literature while in Cambridge, and was particularly drawn to the works of William Blake, William Butler Yeats, and Henry Vaughan. However, his lyrics do not invoke the metaphors and imagery typical of such influences.^[3] Instead, Drake employs a series of elemental^[95] symbols and codes, largely drawn from nature. The moon, stars, sea, rain, trees, sky, mist and seasons are all commonly used, influenced in part by his rural upbringing.^[3] Images related to summer figure centrally in his early work; from Bryter Layter on, his language is more autumnal, evoking a season commonly used to convey senses of loss and sorrow.^[3] Throughout, Drake writes with detachment, more as an observer than participant, a point of view described by Rolling Stone "as if he were viewing his life from a great, unbridgeable distance."^[95] This perceived inability to connect has led to much speculation about Drake's sexuality.^[96] Boyd has said he detects a virginal quality in his lyrics and music, and notes that he never observed or heard of the singer behaving in a sexual way with anyone, male or female.^[97] Kirby described Drake's lyrics as a "series of extremely vivid, complete observations, almost like a series of epigrammatic proverbs", though he doubts that Drake saw himself as "any sort of poet". Instead he believes that Drake's lyrics were crafted to "complement and compound a mood that the melody dictates in the first place."^[68]

[edit] Discography

Main article: Nick Drake discography

• Five Leaves Left (1969)
• Bryter Layter (1970)
• Pink Moon (1972)

[edit] Notes

[edit] Sources

• Boyd, Joe (2006). White Bicycles – Making Music in the 1960s, Serpent's Tail. ISBN 1-85242-910-0
• Cale, John (1999). What's Welsh for Zen, Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-7475-4383-6
• Dann, Trevor (2006). Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake, Da Capo Press. London. 2006. ISBN 0-306-81520-6
• Humphries, Patrick (1997). Nick Drake: The Biography, Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 1-58234-035-8

[edit] Further reading

• Rasmussen, Gorm Henrik (1980). Pink Moon - Sangeren og guitaristen Nick Drake, (in Danish), Forlaget Hovedland.
• Various sources (2003). Way to Blue: an Introduction to Nick Drake , Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-8179-5
• Various sources (2003). The Nick Drake Song Collection, Music Sales. ISBN 0-7119-4464-4
• Petrusich, 33 1/3 Nick Drake's Pink Moon (2007). ISBN 978-08264-2790-8
• De Angelis, Paola (2007). "Journey to the Stars - I testi di Nick Drake", Arcana Editrice (in Italian)
• Chartier, Henry (2008). "Nick Drake : l'abécédaire", Le Bord de l'eau (in French) ISBN 978-2-35687-002-5

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Nick Drake

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Nick Drake

• Bryter Music: The Estate of Nick Drake Official website
• The Nick Drake Files features discography, lyrics, transcripts of interviews with Drake, accurate tab, etc.
• NickDrake.com Unofficial website featuring lyrics, a guide to Nick's music and a forum for fans.
• Lost Boy – In Search of Nick Drake – BBC Radio Documentary
• Nick Drake 1948-74 features artist chronology, rare Interplay One mp3s, and a complete list of known recordings
• A Place To Be: Reflections of Nick Drake – "a collection, a celebration, in film, photography, painting, drawing and prose, of the impact the music of Nick Drake has had on other artists" (official "touring exhibition" site sponsored by the Estate of Nick Drake)