Nick Drake: The Life

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It’s a terrible tragedy, and I think it’s nice to think of ways in which Nick’s life could have turned out differently. But Nick did materialise by Nigel’s side in a crowded room the following year and said, ‘I just want to say that I now understand what you were trying to do with that album cover, and I really like it’.

Rodney later wrote that it was made “when Nick was getting pretty bad, and it’s rather ‘way out’, as they say”. There was no suggestion by anyone that he was marginal, that he should have low expectations of his sales and the take-up of his work.Containing unseen photos, previously unreleased correspondence and the insights of the people who knew Drake best, it provides a rounded portrait of an artist whose recorded works continue to beguile and resonate. Photograph: Reproduced by permission of Bryter Music – The Estate Of Nick Drake View image in fullscreen ‘Deeply inward-facing’: Nick Drake at his parents’ house in 1967. I’m sure that our various conversations have made clear my general feelings … As far as performing is concerned, I am certainly no more than amateur.

And I don’t mean to sound insulting to these composers, I just mean the more overtly melodic parts of their work.When people are really ill they don’t know what they’re saying, they don’t hear what’s coming out of their own mouth. At the end of 1974, shortly after his death, his royalty statement for 1972-1974 was finally organised. He was convinced straight away that this was a rare talent, and has openly said that he doesn’t understand why others didn’t feel the same way. Of course, what I wanted to know most from the biography was what is most important about Nick Drake, and that is his songs and his acoustic guitar playing.

I think he was better known than he realised, and perhaps better known than posterity has acknowledged. The following morning Mike [Hill, usually the driver on the trip] whisked them the 370 miles to Marrakech. But then, of course, the whole cult surrounding his death contributed towards his mythology and status, and that process has never stopped. As a result, I think his parents thought, ‘We need to get him into Cambridge by hook or by crook, because his school has said this is a possible outcome for him.This was unfortunately refused in a similar fashion, and it was decided that my fortune should be made elsewhere.