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| MUSTHEAR REVIEW: |
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| Just as our memories of such film stars as James Dean and Marilyn Monroe limit us to experiencing them in the past tense-through their films, through the photographs taken of them at their physical zenith, and before age, slowing careers, or personal hardships diluted their peak intensity—four records are all we can know about Nick Drake. The British folksinger, who died in 1974, has become the object of cult worship since his death: his albums have been boxed, his songs individually analyzed, and his life story told and retold to the point of attaining near-mythology. He has been the subject of a tribute album (Brittle Days, on England's Imaginary Records, 1992), and even his practice tapes have been studied, analyzed and covered bya guitarist who admired Drake's instrumental ability (Nine of Swords by Scott Appel, on Kicking Mule, 1988). He is a performer who sold very few albums during his lifetime, whose work never appeard on any album sales chart, but whose influence grows yearly—and isn't likely to decrease in the future. Born in Burma in 1948, the son of prosperous parents, Drake grew up in Tamworth-in-Arden, a small village near Coventry, England. By one account, he listened to performers like Van Morrison, Tim Buckley, and Randy Newman while attending college in Cambridge, where he began performing during his first year. Fairport Convention member Ashley Hutchings saw Drake and recommended him to producer Joe Boyd, an American who headed up a British recording company called Witchseason Productions—home to John Martyn, the Incredible String Band, and Fairport's Richard Thompson, among others. Boyd called and asked Drake for a tape, and the ultimate result was the album Five Leaves Left, issued in 1968, when he was 20. The music of Five Leaves Left was—and is—utterly spellbinding: Drake's soft, bassy voice, typically accompanied by his acoustic guitar and occasional orchestration, sang songs that were gentle, dreamy, and often melancholy; his lyrics, tied to no specific time or lyrical theme, might have been written a century ago yet still instantly pulled the listener in. By the next year's equally impressive Bryter Layter, Drake's spirits in some ways seemed to be picking up; the memorable "Poor Boy" featured a backing female chorus and jazz piano by noted South African player Chris McGregor, and "Hazey Jane I" was as close as Drake would ever come to a love song. Still retaining its melancholic tinge, Drake's music was alluringly rich and captivating. Personally troubled and prone to serious depression, Drake sought psychiatric help following the making of Bryter Layter and was prescribed antidepressants. He reportedly recorded his third album, 1972's Pink Moon in only two days; the lushness of his prior albums was replaced by the stark sound of only the singer's voice, guitar, and occasional piano. The lyrics were equally spare, and sometimes harrowing. The brief "Know" featured only one short verse ("Know that I love you/Know I don't care/Know that I see you/Know I'm not there"); more oblique, but no less revealing, was the snipped from "Things Behind The Sun" in which Drake sang, "And the movement in your brain/Sends you out into the rain." After committing himself to a psychiatric hospital for five weeks, Drake returned to the recording studio one final time to record four songs, none of which would be issued until after his death. To some, the songs' lyrics seem more a cry for help than anything else he'd yet recorded; most chilling was the simple imagery of "Black Eyed Dog," in which Drake seemed to moan, helpless and dispirited, "I'm growing old and I wanna go home/I'm growing old and I don't wanna know." According to writer Arthur Lubow, Drake told studio engineer John Wood at the time, "I can't think of words. I feel no emotion about anything. I don't want to laugh or cry. I'm numb—dead inside." Drake died at his parents' house on November 25, 1974, of an overdose of the antidepressant Tryptizol; the coroner's office declared the death a suicide, though no note was left. The four songs that Drake had recorded in 1974 emerged on Fruit Tree, a boxed-set of Drake's complete works released in 1979. The same set was reissued and expanded in 1986, when Hannibal took those four tracks and added 10 other previously unreleased ones to make the posthumous Time Of No Reply, included in the new box with the singer's three original albums. Predictably, a new generation of critics and consumers were enchanted by the singer's work. A tragic hero maybe, but a brilliant singer and songwriter most assuredly, Nick Drake will not be forgotten.  Buy or Hear It Now... Tracks: 1. Time Has Told Me 2. River Man 3. Three Hours 4. Way to Blue 5. Day Is Done 6. Cello Song 7. Thoughts of Mary Jane 8. Man in a Shed 9. Fruit Tree 10. Saturday Sun Players: |
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