For someone who has so many fanzines and websites dedicated to him, someone who is cited by REM, Everything But The Girl, Paul Weller and Kate Bush as being a huge influence on their work, and for someone who made some of the most impossibly beautiful music ever to come out of Britain, Nick Drake remains mysterious and elusive. Drake was 26 when he died in 1974 - some say accidentally - of an overdose, but while his records only sold an average of 10,000 when he was alive, in death he has become something approaching an icon.
Although a child of the hippy era, there was nothing psychedelic, prog-rocky or "experimental" about Drake's music. More a mixture of Nick Cave and Tindersticks (in the modern parlance) his wonderfully-crafted acoustic masterpieces were out of step with just about everything else going on at the time and attempts to mould him as the "English Dylan" were unwise in the extreme.
While his life (and death) is shrouded in mystery, what we do know is that he came from an affluent ex-colonial family and grew up in a quiet village in the Midlands. Influenced as much by Vaughan Williams as he was by Dylan, he first started composing while studying at Cambridge. There was a raw and fragile aspect to his early work, and his use of open-tuned guitar playing always made his albums distinctive and idiosyncratic. Lyrically he was more inspired by the 19th-century Romantic poets than by contemporary life.
His first album Five Leaves Left (1969), named after the message you used to get towards the end of a Rizla packet, received very encouraging reviews on release - but Drake's fear of playing live, and reluctance to promote his album, resulted in poor sales. This was followed up by Bryter Layter (1970) and Pink Moon (1972), both of which brought him rapturous critical acclaim but little else. Drake's music was quintessentially English, not just from his folky leanings but also because of its Olde Worlde-type lyrics. Strangely enough, not long before he died, he was about to be launched on the American market where David Geffen (once of the label of the same name, now of Dreamworks) was enthralled by Drake's music and wanted to manage him.
It never happened, between one thing and another, and Drake retreated into himself. His early death brought a premature close to one of the brightest songwriting talents of the last 30 years. His status and record sales have steadily increased over the years since his death and now he is rightly regarded as an originator and an instigator. Expect lots more about the man, the myth and the legacy over the next few months, as an anthology of his work has just been reissued, a biography published, and there are advanced plans for a tribute album and a documentary. Avoid the bandwagon and investigate now.
Way To Blue - An Introduction To Nick Drake (a compilation album) is on the Island Records label. Nick Drake - The Biography written by Patrick Humphries has just been published by Bloomsbury.
The Tom Dunne thing was just me mentioning in passing that there wasn't that much great Irish stuff out there - and in his professional capacity as one who knows about these things, here's his top ten totally Irish. And, yes, there is really good stuff in there. 1. Judas Steer - The Great Western Squares; 2. Volume 1:Sound Music - Afro Celt Sound System; 3. Pop - U2; 4. No More Apologies - A House; 5. A Short Album About Love - Divine Comedy; 6. Grand Parade - Frank And Walters; 7. Between Trapezes - Nick Kelly; 8. Jet - Katell Keinig; 9. Pure - Wired To The Moon; 10. Butterfly Effect - Sack.
