Nick Drake died over thirty years ago having released a paltry three albums and leaving a fourth forever incomplete. Yet his legacy and his influence live on. He is revered as the boy genius, an influence to a multitude of singer-songwriters ever since.
Nick wrote songs from an early age and built up a sufficient repertoire to start performing live. It was at one such performance that Nick’s talent was recognised by Fairport Convention bass player Ashley Hutchings, who introduced the folk singer to their producer Joe Boyd of Island Records.
Nick’s first album, Five Leaves Left, was released in 1969, when he was twenty-one years old. It is pastoral in tone, and owes much of its conception to the folk influences and the innocence of Nick’s early life in the English countryside of Tanworth-In-Arden. There is a tremendous warmth at its heart, and a sense of sheer joy at lazy afternoons spent getting slowly stoned that are reflected in songs such as The Thoughts of Mary Jane, Man in a Shed and Saturday Sun. But there are also darker tones, hints of regret and suggestions of what was to come in Way to Blue and the arguably prophetic Fruit Tree. The album, although critically well received at the time, sold badly. This was partly due to Nick’s increasing reluctance to perform live to promote his music as he became steadily more withdrawn and introspective.
His second album, Bryter Layter, came out of his time in the city, and is an edgier, jazzier, less innocent experience. At the Chime of a City Clock and Hazey Jane 1 in particular stand in stark contrast to the rural warmth of Five Leaves Left. A standout track is Northern Sky, one of the most beautiful songs Nick recorded. Session musicians and arrangements by Robert Kirby added a subtlety and variety to the album.
Bryter Layter was arguably Nick Drake’s finest hour, and certainly his most commercial. But after the lukewarm response to its release, the clouds began to draw in around him, as the depression he suffered from throughout his mature life grew more debilitating. Frustrated with his lack of success, Nick decided to return to basics with his third, and what was to prove final, album, Pink Moon. Gone were the luscious instrumentals and subtle productions tones, in their place an almost unbearably bleak, raw acoustic collection of eleven songs that last little over half an hour. The whole album was recorded, just Nick, his guitar and a microphone, over two days. Only a few piano notes pepper the title track, Pink Moon. The album contains a few tracks of perfect beauty, notably Place to Be and Things Behind the Sun.
As his music continued to sell badly, Nick’s confidence continued to decline. He spiralled into despair and isolated himself from the world. The young man who had been so full of promise became lost in his own tortured mind, ravaged by severe depression. The great tragedy is that it was an illness he was never to overcome.
Legend has it that he journeyed to France a few months before his death, and possibly became engaged, but if so, it was to prove a temporary reprieve. One of his last songs, recorded a few weeks before his death, Black Eyed Dog, is a stark study of depression. It is Nick’s last desperate attempt to understand the illness that was killing him.
He died in 1974, a few months after turning twenty-six, from a suspected overdose of prescribed anti-depressants. He would never experience the great critical acclaim, the lasting influence, and the enormous popularity his music would steadily gain as the years following his death slipped by. His music endures because of its intense beauty, its richness of feeling, both melancholic and life affirming, but mostly for its true originality. His music will not sit easily in any genre, or in any time. Nick will always be the ageless, wispy, enigmatic and doomed boy with the great musical legacy. If Nick Drake touches your soul, he’s likely to stay with you forever. A few compilations have been released in recent years, but the best remains Way to Blue, An Introduction to Nick Drake.