Nick Drake: The Life

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The remaining years of Molly and Rodney’s lives were dominated by their son’s death, she says: “They talked, I know, to parents in similar situations, trying to help them.” Viewed thus, the book is a continuation of their work. “I thought that it might just be of use to people going through similar problems. My brother once said to my mother, ‘If only I could feel that my music had helped anyone at all …’ and I just wish he would have known how many people have said to us over the years how his music had helped them.”

Nick Drake by Richard Morton Jack review: a troubled genius Nick Drake by Richard Morton Jack review: a troubled genius

Boyd had left Britain to take a job in America. Bereft of his guidance, Drake arranged with the engineer John Wood to record what would be his third and final album, the starkly beautiful Pink Moon, over just two sessions between 11pm and 2am. They were the only slots Wood could find, but Wood thought he would anyway get the best out of Drake when nobody else was there. “He wasn’t in good shape. He didn’t look healthy.” Like its predecessors, the album vanished leaving barely a trace. An open-top car glides through the moonlit Californian night, its passengers gazing out at the star-filled sky. It pulls up at a beach house where a rowdy party is being thrown. The four young people in the convertible look at each other and, silently agreeing that it's just not their scene, drive on. The first two – Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter – sold only modestly, around 5,000 copies each, making Drake, who had depression, retreat into himself even further. He felt Wood was one of the few people he could trust. “One day,” recalls Wood, “he just rang up and said he wanted to go into the studio.” Girls adored him. He was tall, good-looking, diffident, quietly well spoken, with none of the faux-Americanisms or affected glottal-stops of most musicians of the day. His shyness and gentleness – “it was impossible to imagine him being angry or unpleasant”, says one friend – were captivating. Yet despite his achingly romantic songs, it seems Drake never had an intimate relationship with anyone. “I would almost describe him as asexual,” one friend remembers. “I think he had a romanticised, even poetic view of women rather than a carnal one.” His greatest infatuation was with Francoise Hardy; there was a suggestion she might record one of his songs. They met in Paris, and it came to nothing but later, but as his mental condition worsened, he travelled to France trying, and failing to, see her.

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Fortunately, one of those which accepted the offer was the Koutoubia Palace, Tangier’s most exclusive nightspot, which is done up in the style of a Moorish palace. I couldn’t help feeling a little out of place, but all the same I played for about quarter of an hour. The reception was extraordinarily good and we all got stood rounds of drinks, which was rather pleasant.” Actually I've read the Indonesian translation version. Read this book as an attempt to understand the interplay between musicians and depression: why are musicians prone to depression? And what is the best strategy to fight it. The author interviewed 200 people from all areas of Drake’s life and was given access to his family's private papers. His research suggests that, contrary to what some believe, the musician was not a heroin addict; he was not gay; he had not been abused at school; and conflict with his father was not at the root of his problems. Drake’s third and final album Pink Moon is a bleak, minimal affair, seemingly wrenched from the depths of mental illness. As shown by the reactions of his family and contemporaries, it’s a reflection of his brilliance and the uncomfortably intimate nature of the material

Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack review – folk’s

You believe that the problem of turning yourself from an amateur into a professional can be solved merely by transferring yourself from Cambridge to somewhere where you are surrounded by, and under the influence of, professionals in your chosen field. From what you say I take it that you must believe that it was the prospect of returning to Cambridge for eight-week periods during the year that prevented you, in the long summer vac, from getting into the swim, so to speak, and of starting to acquire the professionalism which you are rightly seeking. This book filled in lots of gaps although I now understand how many questions have remained unanswered. I liked the approach of the author in avoiding more myth building and attempting to recognise the human achievements of this exceptional musician. That may have upset some worshippers but I think it was a fair and balanced approach. He would be forgotten but for this tragically romantic biography, the simplicity and beauty of his music and the influence he had on songwriters and performers who discovered him after he died.After the VW advert, according to US music journalist Amanda Petrusich's 2007 book on Pink Moon, sales of the album "increased nearly 500% during the first 10 weeks of 2000, when Drake shifted more than 4,700 copies of Pink Moon, compared to 815 in the same period in 1999". The New York Times reported in 2001 that sales had jumped from about 6,000 copies a year to more than 74,000. What followed was unexpected. “It was a much more intimate recording,” says Wood. Gone were the mournful strings and the jaunty brass and in their place was simplicity: just Drake and his guitar. “I think he wanted to make a very direct and personal record. I thought, after the first couple of songs, that we would probably augment it a bit. Not a lot, but I was expecting him to get Danny Thompson in maybe.” (Thompson is the double bass player who co-founded Pentangle.) “After the second number, I said something and he just replied, ‘No, that’s it. That’s all we’re doing.’ And that was it.” So it is that Drake has gone from relative obscurity during his lifetime to appearing on the cover of music magazines, being the subject of a Radio 2 documentary presented by Brad Pitt, and having his music appear in mainstream Hollywood movies such as A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood and hit TV shows such as Normal People. He's even had a beer named after one of his songs by a Californian craft brewery.