| Coordinates | 51°19′″N18°22′″N |
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| Name | Nick Drake |
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| Background | solo_singer |
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| Birth name | Nicholas Rodney Drake |
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| Genre | Folk, folk rock |
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| Birth date | June 19, 1948 |
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| Birth place | Rangoon, Burma |
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| Death date | November 25, 1974 |
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| Death place | Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire, England |
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| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, guitarist |
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| Years active | 1969–1974 |
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| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, piano, clarinet, saxophone |
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| Label | Island |
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| Website | Bryter Music
}} |
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Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Best known for the sombre pieces composed on his primary instrument, the guitar, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has gradually achieved wider notice and recognition; he now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.
Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, ''Five Leaves Left'', in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—''Bryter Layter'' and ''Pink Moon''. None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Despite this, he was able to gather a loyal group of fans who would champion his music. One such person was his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records that ensured Drake's records would never go out of print. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these 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. There is no known footage of the adult Drake; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.
Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s but the 1979 release of the retrospective album ''Fruit Tree'' caused his back catalogue to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. 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.
His first biography appeared in 1997, was followed in 1998 by the documentary film ''A Stranger Among Us''. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from ''Pink Moon'' in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous 30 years.
Early life
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. 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 21 before her family allowed them to marry. In 1950, they returned to
Warwickshire to live in the country estate of Far Leys, near
Tanworth-in-Arden in west
Warwickshire, just south of
Solihull. 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. Mother and son shared a similar fragile vocal delivery, and both Gabrielle and biographer
Trevor Dann have noted a parallel sense of foreboding and
fatalism in their music. Encouraged by his mother, Drake learned to play piano at an early age, and began to compose his own songs, which he would record on a
reel-to-reel tape recorder she kept in the family drawing room.
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-yard dash still stands) and captain of the school's rugby team for a time. He was also Head of House in C1, the College's largest house. School friends recall Drake at this time as having been confident and "quietly authoritative", while often aloof in his manner. 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."
Drake played piano in the school orchestra, and learned clarinet and saxophone. He formed a band, The Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, the group performed Pye covers and jazz standards, as well as Yardbirds and Manfred Mann numbers. 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. 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". In 1965, Drake paid £13 for his first acoustic guitar, and was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques.
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 practice 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". Drake most likely began using LSD while in Aix, and lyrics written during this period — in particular for the song "Clothes of Sand" — are suggestive of an interest in hallucinogens.
Cambridge
Upon returning to England, he moved into his sister's flat in
Hampstead, before enrolling at Cambridge that October. His tutors found him to be a bright student, but unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself to study. Dann notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow students alike, and points out that official matriculation photographs from this time reveal a sullen and unimpressed young man. 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 marijuana, and listening to and playing music. According to fellow student Brian Wells (now leading psychiatrist Dr Brian Wells): "they were the rugger buggers and we were the cool people smoking dope." 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. 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. 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."
Hutchings introduced Drake to the 25-year old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions. The company was, at the time, licensed to Island Records, 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. 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 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.
Career
''Five Leaves Left''
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". He also sought to include a string arrangement similar to Simon's, "without overwhelming... or sounding cheesy". To provide backing, Boyd enlisted various contacts from the London
folk rock scene, including Fairport Convention guitarist
Richard Thompson and
Pentangle bassist
Danny Thompson (no relation). 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. Both were unhappy with Hewson's contribution, which they felt was too mainstream in sound for Drake's songs. Drake suggested using his college friend Robert Kirby as a replacement, although Boyd was sceptical 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. Kirby had previously presented Drake with some arrangements for his songs, and went on to provide a spare chamber music quartet score associated with the sound of the final album. 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.
Post-production difficulties led to the release being delayed by several months. It has been alleged that the album was poorly marketed and supported, though the inclusion of the opening track "Time Has Told Me" on the Island Records sampler ''Nice Enough to Eat'' brought him a very wide audience (a track from his second album was likewise included on the subsequent sampler ''Bumpers''). Drake was featured in full-page interviews in the pop press. In July, ''Melody Maker'' referred to the album as "poetic" and "interesting", though ''NME'' wrote in October that there was "not nearly enough variety to make it entertaining". It received radio plays from the BBC's more progressive disk-jockeys such as John Peel and Bob Harris. Drake was unhappy with the inlay sleeve, which printed songs in the wrong running order and reproduced verses omitted from the recorded versions. In an interview his sister Gabrielle said: "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 onto the bed and walked out!"
''Bryter Layter''
Drake ended his studies at Cambridge nine months before graduation, and in autumn 1969 moved to London to concentrate on a career in music. 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." 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. 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.
In August, Drake recorded three 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 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.
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, jazzier 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." 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. In his 1999 biography, Cale admits to using heroin during this period, and his older friend Brian Wells began to suspect that Drake was also using. Both Boyd and Wood were confident that the album would be a commercial success, but it went on to sell fewer than 3,000 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".
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." His frustration turned to depression, 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. He knew enough about drugs to worry about their side effects, and was concerned about how they would react with his regular marijuana use.
''Pink Moon''
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 marijuana and exhibiting "the first signs of
psychosis", refused. By the winter of 1970, he had isolated himself in London. 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."
Although Island neither expected nor wanted a third album, 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 Wood present in the studio. 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." 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". Drake appears on ''Pink Moon'' accompanied only by his own carefully recorded guitar 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."
Drake delivered the tapes of Pink Moon to Chris Blackwell at Island Records, contrary to a popular legend which claims he dropped them off at the receptionist's desk without saying a word. 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." ''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."
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 without Blackwell's enthusiastic support, "the rest of us would have given him the boot." However, following persistent nagging from Boyd, Drake agreed to an interview with Jerry Gilbert of ''Sounds Magazine''. The "shy and introverted folk singer" spoke of his dislike of live appearances and very little else. "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."
Final years
In the months following ''Pink Moon'''s release, Drake became increasingly asocial and distant from those close to him. 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." 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."
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 could not afford a new pair of shoes. 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."
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. 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. During particularly bleak periods of his illness, he refused to wash his hair or cut his nails. Early in 1972, Drake suffered a nervous breakdown, and was hospitalised for five weeks.
In February 1974, Drake again contacted John Wood, stating he was ready to begin work on a fourth album. 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." Both Boyd and Wood noticed a discernible deterioration in Drake's performance, requiring him to overdub his voice separately over the guitar. 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."
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. Ryde has been described by Drake's biographers as "the nearest thing" to a girlfriend in his life, but she now prefers the description 'best (girl) friend'. 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.
At some time during the night of 24/25 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. His mother claimed that, 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 did not 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". 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 lying across the bed. The first thing I saw was his long, long legs." There was no suicide note, although a letter addressed to Ryde was found close to his bed.
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, there is a general view that accidental or not, Drake had by then given up on life. 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." 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". 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". 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..."
On 2 December 1974, after a service in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Tanworth-in-Arden, Drake's remains were cremated at the Solihull Crematorium and his ashes later interred under an oak tree in the adjoining graveyard of St Mary's. The funeral was attended by around 50 mourners, including friends from Marlborough, Aix, Cambridge, London, Witchseason, and Tanworth. Referring to Drake's tendency to compartmentalise relationships, Brian Wells later observed that many met each other for the first time that morning. Molly recalled "a lot of his young friends came up here. We'd never met many of them." His public profile remained low throughout the mid and late 1970s although occasional mentions of his name appeared in the music press. By this time, his parents were receiving an increasing number of fans and admirers as visitors to the family home in Far Leys. Island Records, following a 1975 ''NME'' article written by Nick Kent, stated "...we have no intention of repackaging Nick's three albums (which remained available), either now or at anytime in the foreseeable future" but 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 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.
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"). 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. By 1986 the very first biography of Nick Drake was published (in Danish). 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: he had come to represent a kind of mythical doomed romantic hero in the eyes of many, an "enigma wrapped inside a mystery".
In 1999, Pink Moon was used in "Milky Way", a Volkswagen Cabriolet commercial, leading to a large increase in record sales.
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. In recent years, several musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, Lou Barlow and Mikael Åkerfeldt have cited Drake as an influence. 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.
Musical and lyrical 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." A self-taught guitarist, Drake achieved his guitar style through the use of
alternative tunings to create
cluster chords. These are difficult to achieve on a guitar using
standard tuning; Drake used tunings which made cluster chords available using more conventional chord shapes. In many songs he accents the dissonant effect of such non-standard tunings through his vocal melodies.
Drake studied English literature while in Cambridge, and was particularly drawn to the works of William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Henry Vaughan, and lyrics reflect such influences. Drake also employs a series of elemental 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. 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. Throughout, Drake writes with detachment, more as an observer than participant, a point of view ''Rolling Stone's'' Anthony DeCurtis described "as if he were viewing his life from a great, unbridgeable distance." This perceived inability to connect has led to much speculation about Drake's sexuality. 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. 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."
Discography
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Release date
! Title
|-
| 1969
| ''
Five Leaves Left''
|-
| 1970
| ''
Bryter Layter''
|-
| 1972
| ''
Pink Moon''
|}
References
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
Chartier, Henry (2008). "Nick Drake : l'abécédaire", Le Bord de l'eau (in French) ISBN 978-2-35687-002-5
Dann, Trevor (2006). ''Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake'', Da Capo Press. London. 2006. ISBN 0-306-81520-6
De Angelis, Paola (2007). "Journey to the Stars — I testi di Nick Drake", Arcana Editrice (in Italian)
Drake, Nick: Under Review DVD (2007) ASIN: B000TV4PZG
Hogan, Peter K (2008)''Nick Drake: The Complete Guide to His Music.''
Humphries, Patrick (1997). ''Nick Drake: The Biography'', Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 1-58234-035-8
Petrusich, Amanda (2007) ''33 1/3 Nick Drake's Pink Moon''. ISBN 978-0-8264-2790-8
Rasmussen, Gorm Henrik (1986). ''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
Notes
External links
Bryter Music: The Estate of Nick Drake Official website
Nick Drake.co.uk Website with information, interviews with related people, pictures, news, etc., in direct connection with the annual Nick Drake gathering
Annual Gathering web site for the annual gathering of musicians in Tanworth-in-Arden to celebrate the music of Nick Drake, with information, pictures and forum
Nick Drake guitar tabs Nick Drake guitar tabs
The Nick Drake Files features discography, lyrics, transcripts of interviews with Drake, accurate tab, etc.
Nick Drake Tabs features accurate tabs from the algonet site plus some new ones, updated regularly.
''Lost Boy – In Search of Nick Drake'' – BBC Radio Documentary
''Remembering Five Leaves Left'' - ABC Radio National Radio Documentary on Into the Music
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)
Three Records from Sundown: Joe Boyd Remembers Nick Drake English language audio documentary with Russian text translation.
Exiled from Heaven Essay on the life and music of Nick Drake by Ian MacDonald
*
Category:1948 births
Category:1974 deaths
Category:Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Category:Drug-related deaths in England
Category:Elektra Records artists
Category:English folk musicians
Category:English male singers
Category:English singer-songwriters
Category:English songwriters
Category:Fingerstyle guitarists
Category:Island Records artists
Category:Old Marlburians
Category:People from Tanworth-in-Arden
Category:People from Yangon
Category:Universal Records artists
Category:People educated at Eagle House School
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he:ניק דרייק
lv:Niks Dreiks
lt:Nick Drake
nl:Nick Drake
ja:ニック・ドレイク
no:Nick Drake
nn:Nick Drake
pl:Nick Drake
pt:Nick Drake
ro:Nick Drake
ru:Дрейк, Ник
fi:Nick Drake
sv:Nick Drake
tr:Nick Drake
![Ranchi About this sound pronunciation (help·info) (Hindi: राँची)(রাঁচি inbengali) is the capital city of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Jharkhand accounts for 40% of mineral resources of India. Alone Ranchi accounts for 50% mineral production of the state, nearing about 18% of nation's mineral production. For this reason Ranchi is also called the Manchester of the East. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement[1] for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Orissa,](http://web.archive.org./web/20120422063808/http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/26/3b/0941e85d5826cc558b6f64366156_medium.jpg "Ranchi About this sound pronunciation (help·info) (Hindi: राँची)(রাঁচি inbengali) is the capital city of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Jharkhand accounts for 40% of mineral resources of India. Alone Ranchi accounts for 50% mineral production of the state, nearing about 18% of nation's mineral production. For this reason Ranchi is also called the Manchester of the East. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement[1] for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Orissa,")
