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| (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) |
He struggled during his short life with depression and the inablility to connect with others. It is said that he only had relationships with two women in his lifetime, neither of them consumated. He was reclusive and chose to compartmentalize his friends in the attempt to enable him to lead a relatively normal social life amongst one group, whilst able to disappear and recuperate with another. He masked his illness to as many as possible, as he felt that this would protect him from being found out as a person of unstable mental disposition. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. As an even bigger testament to his lack of desire to display himself publicly, no footage of the adult Drake exists; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood.
Drake formed a band, The Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, the group performed Pye covers and jazz standards, as well as Yardbirds and Manfred Mann numbers. The line-up briefly included Chris de Burgh, but he was soon ejected as his taste was seen as "too poppy" by the other members. Drake's academic performance began to deteriorate, and while he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough, he began to neglect his studies in favor of music. In 1965, Drake paid £13 for his first acoustic guitar, and was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques.
In 1966, Drake won a scholarship to study English literature at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, beginning in February 1967. While in Aix, he began to practice guitar in earnest, and to earn money would often busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, and that spring he travelled with friends to Morocco, because, according to travelling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot". Drake likely took his first LSD trip while in Aix, and lyrics written during this period — in particular for the song "Clothes of Sand" — are suggestive of an interest in hallucinogens.
While attending Cambridge, Drake was particularly drawn to the works of William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Henry Vaughan. He developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished sprinter (his record for the 100-yard dash still stands) and captain of the school's rugby team for a time. He was also Head of House in C1, the College's largest house. School friends recall Drake at this time as having been confident and "quietly authoritative", while often aloof in his manner.
In September 1967, he met Robert Kirby, a music student who went on to orchestrate many of the string and woodwind arrangements for Drake's first two albums. By this time, Drake had discovered the British and American folk music scenes, and was influenced by performers such as Bob Dylan, Josh White and Phil Ochs. He began performing in local clubs and coffee houses around London, and in February 1968, while playing support to Country Joe and the Fish at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, made an impression on Ashley Hutchings, bass player with Fairport Convention.
Hutchings introduced Drake to the 25-year old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions. The company was, at the time, licensed to Island Records, and Boyd, as the man who had discovered Fairport Convention and been responsible for introducing John Martyn and The Incredible String Band to a mainstream audience, was a significant and respected figure on the UK folk scene. He and Drake formed an immediate bond, and the producer acted as a mentor figure to Drake throughout his career. A four track demo, recorded in Drake's college room in the spring of 1968, led Boyd to offer a management, publishing, and production contract to the 20-year old, and to initiate work on a debut album.
Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and made only three albums. The first, "Five Leaves Left", was produced in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums - "Bryter Layter" and "Pink Moon". None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release, and his first single was not released until 2004. In that year more of his records were sold than all those purchased between 1969 and 2003.
In June, 1970, Drake decided to retire from music, and even considered a career in the Army. His regular drug use and partying had taken it's toll, and he was slowly withdrawing from everyone around him. He had difficulty communicating verbally, often coming across as being distant and aloof, and was physically deteriorating. That summer, Drake gave one of his final live appearances at Ewell Technical College, London. Ralph McTell, who also performed that night remembered that "Nick was monosyllabic. At that particular gig he was very shy. He did the first set and something awful must have happened. He was doing his song 'Fruit Tree' and walked off halfway through it. Just left the stage."
His frustration turned to depression, and in 1971 Drake was persuaded by family to visit a psychiatrist at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He was prescribed a course of antidepressants, but he felt uncomfortable and embarrassed about taking them, and tried to hide the fact from his friends. He knew enough about drugs to worry about their side effects, and was concerned about how they would react with his regular marijuana use. Prior to his death, his parents stated that he seemed relatively happy and content, and had even planned to move back to London to restart his music career. Despite seeking treatment, though, he was unable to make music as time went on and made a last and failed attempt in 1974.
Drake was found dead in his parents’ house in Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire, on November 25, 1974. Allegedly, Drake was prescribed and currently using three different medications at the time of his death. Tryptizol - encourages sleep and alleviates anxiety in depression, Stelazine - used to treat severe mental disturbances and anxiety, and Disipal - an anticholinergic muscle relaxant used to relieve muscle pain. Interestingly, all of these medications included warnings that they were not to be combined with the others.
Drake's coroner stated that the cause of death was as a result of "Acute amitriptyline poisoning — self-administered when suffering from a depressive illness", and concluded a verdict of suicide. Though this has been disputed by some members of his family, there is a general view that accidental or not, Drake had by then given up on life. It is believed that he was also taking recreational drugs at the time of his death, such as heroin and that he most likely overdosed.
His parents are adament that he did not commit suicide, but instead the drug coktail he was prescribed was to blame. His sister, Gabrielle, preferred to believe it was a suicide because she would rather that he had the choice to die than for it to have been a tragic mistake. There was no suicide note, but there was a letter left on the desk for Sophia Ryde (ex fiance), along with an exercise book containing the lyrics of all his songs written in longhand. In 2006, Ryde came forward with the letter that Drake had written to her that was left on his desk, the afternoon before his death, expressing his heartbreak over the ending of their relationship, as she had told him she needed space. Drake’s mother Molly gave the letter to Ryde at his funeral.
By the mid 1980's, Drake was being cited as an influence by musicians such as R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Robert Smith of The Cure. Smith credited the origin of his band's name to a lyric from Drake's song "Time Has Told Me" ("a troubled cure for a troubled mind"). Drake gained further exposure in 1985 with the release of The Dream Academy's hit single "Life in a Northern Town", which included an on-sleeve dedication to Drake. His reputation continued to grow, and by the end of the 1980's, Nick Drake's name was appearing regularly in newspapers and music magazines in the United Kingdom. He had come to represent a kind of mythical doomed romantic hero in the eyes of many, an "enigma wrapped inside a mystery".
Drake's first biography was written in 1997. In early 1999, BBC2 aired the 40-minute documentary, "A Stranger Among Us — In Search of Nick Drake", as part of its "Picture This" strand. Also in 1999, "Pink Moon" was used in "Milky Way", a Volkswagen Cabriolet commercial directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and lensed by Lance Acord, leading to a large increase in record sales.The following year, Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens released a documentary titled "A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake", featuring interviews with Boyd, Gabrielle Drake, Wood and Kirby. Later that year, The Guardian placed "Bryter Layter" at number 1 in its "Alternative top 100 albums ever" list.
In recent years, several musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, Lou Barlow and Mikael Åkerfeldt have cited Drake as an influence. In 2004, nearly 30 years after his death, Drake gained his first chart placing when two singles ("Magic" and "River Man"), released to coincide with the compilation album "Made to Love Magic", made the middle reaches of the U.K. charts.
Nick Drake's songs have begun to appear prominently in popular movie soundtracks. In 2001, "Black Eyed Dog" and "Northern Sky" featured on the soundtrack to "Serendipity", starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, and the song "Fly" appeared in the film "The Royal Tenenbaums". In 2004, Drake's song "One of These Things First" appeared in the film "Garden State". A cover of "'Cello Song" by The Books and Jose Gonzalez also appears in the film "The Blind Side" (2009). Most recently, his song "From the Morning" has been used in a commercial for AT&T, and the song "Cello Song" was used in a commercial for the Australian coffee brand Vittoria. The advertisement featured actor Al Pacino and was directed by Barry Levinson.
I find it interesting that his mind was capable of producing such beautiful music, but a part of it kept him from sharing it with the world. Perhaps, now, in a time when "real" music doesn't seem to exist, this was meant to be. It doesn't matter how he died, whether from suicide or accidental overdose, but those who admire his music want to be able to relate to him and have some glimpse of who he was as a person. If we didn't know his story, we would simply appreciate his music for what it is.
Discography
