Nick Drake: The Life

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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.” While Drake’s career as a musician was characterised by diffidence, his youth wasn’t entirely devoid of high jinks. A road trip with some friends to north Africa, for example, saw a memorable encounter with some of his musical heroes

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

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 could have known how many people his music has helped.’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.” 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. Aug 07 - Tabs added for the "Far Leys" instrumental (appears on Family Tree as Sketch 1) and original guitar version of Made To Love Magic. 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 Jan 16 - Put the correct solo section in "Things Behind The Sun" / Mar 16 - "Cello Song" made less rubbish

Nick Drake: The Life by Gabrielle Drake | Hachette UK Nick Drake: The Life by Gabrielle Drake | Hachette UK

Gabrielle also discloses that her mother struggled with depression when she was young. Molly and Rodney had met in Rangoon before the war. He was an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, she the daughter of an officer in the Indian civil service. “Shortly after they were married, she had pneumonia and went through a depressive illness. But my father was a great stay and support. I think he helped her through it.”It was the same story with the next two; 1971's relatively upbeat Bryter Later and 1972's much starker Pink Moon. There was limited publicity and Drake’s eventual refusal to play live did not help. His last proper live performance ever was in 1970 and he played little more than 30 shows in his whole career. He simply didn't enjoy it. "There were only two or three concerts that felt right, and there was something wrong with all the others," he said in one of those two press interviews, in 1971 with Sounds magazine. He had champions in the celebrated producer Joe Boyd and in the Velvet Underground's John Cale, who had insisted on working with him, but it wasn't enough. Drake became seriously depressed and returned to live with his parents, telling his mother "I've failed in every single thing I've ever tried to do". He saw psychiatrists, spent five weeks in a psychiatric facility and was even treated with electroconvulsive therapy. But living alone in a barely furnished Hampstead bedsit – “like a cell, overlooking a neglected garden,” according to one visitor – he started slowly going to pieces, looking progressively more shabby, neglecting to wash his hair or clean his fingernails, passing his days playing the guitar, smoking joints, occasionally forraying out in search of a curry when he became hungry. Drake was musical from an early age, sporty as a school student, bright enough to study English literature at Cambridge but was troubled and subject to depression, got absorbed by his music, released three albums, withdrew from public performance after the third, Pink Moon (1972), retreated further into himself and died at 26 from an overdose of the antidepressant amitriptyline. Thus there is little of him on record, literally and metaphorically, beyond achingly poignant footage of him as a little by at the beach and photos as an adult, still beautiful. 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.

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

Pink Moon was the product of a period of intense, secretive songwriting, during which the singer’s behaviour became more erratic and his mental health deteriorated, much to the anguish of family and friends. It was a mark of the regard in which he was held by associates that the album was recorded with little warning, late at night, exactly as Drake prescribed by engineer/producer John Wood with no external input (the previous two LPs featured arrangements). The last third of the book is difficult to read – through no fault of the author’s, but because Drake’s final months are chronicled almost day by painful day. There is no ending other than that foretold.

Drake is now ensconced in myth as a doomed poet whose life ended at 26 through an overdose of antidepressants. Previous biographies and documentaries have given thorough accounts of his life and work, including one in 2014 by his sister, Gabrielle Drake, the actor. The work of their mother, Molly Drake, has been folded into the story. Her son had grown up to the sound of Molly composing songs at the piano; there are resonances in their bodies of work.

Nick Drake, the most mythologised man in music The truth about Nick Drake, the most mythologised man in music

I asked him what his influences were and he said Randy Newman and the Beach Boys’ … John Wood. Photograph: Courtesy: John Wood If Molly Drake’s song has a subtext,” writes her daughter in the book insightfully, “it’s surely that angst isn’t the sole domain of the young – should they be inclined to dwell on them, older generations have no shortage of accumulate compromises and regrets upon which to hang their anxieties.” 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. I was appalled by Pink Moon,” remembers Drake’s university friend Paul Wheeler. “I found it incredibly upsetting. I thought the songs were frightening. To this day I cannot ever imagine listening to it for pleasure. It’s like opening some terrible Pandora’s box.”

The headstone on Drake's grave in St Mary Magdalene churchyard, Tanworth-in-Arden, is inscribed with a From the Morning lyric. It says: "Now we rise and we are everywhere". Drake's intended meaning may be uncertain but the line is certainly true of his fans.