THE ENDLESS COLOURED WAYS: The Songs Of Nick Drake

Considering the esteem in which Nick Drake is now held, there is a paucity of albums by various artists covering his songs. Perhaps it’s because they are a bit tricky to play and sing, or maybe too personal. Some years ago, I bought one called Way To Blue which features recordings from concerts in Melbourne and London, assembled by Joe Boyd, Drake’s original producer, which is superb. Now, along comes another, The Endless Coloured Ways, which is equally lovely.

        Available in a variety of formats, which suggests Chrysalis is rather milking the concept, The Endless Coloured Ways is quite different from Way To Blue insofar as almost all these cover versions are designed to enhance, as opposed to replicate, the originals. It offers 25 Drake songs in total, across two CDs, in four ‘episodes’, A, B C and D, designed to create a seamless flow, all performed with instructions from producer and Drake estate manager Cally Callomon to the artists to ignore the original versions and perform them in their own styles. “We asked the contributors to adopt each song as if it were their own,” writes Calloman in the accompanying booklet. “Not only do the songs stand up as great songs in themselves, regardless of the original recordings by Nick, we believe the results are typical of each performer.” 

        Which is precisely what the artists do, in some cases turnings songs inside out, in others adding layers of inventive instrumentation, in others taking turns where Nick stayed straight. The most notable feature to these ears, though, is how the lyrics seem clearer in almost every song. While veneration of Nick Drake appears endless, if there was a flaw in the 60-odd recordings he made during his lifetime it was his uncertain enunciation. This tendency to mumble meant the words were lost amidst the maestro-like guitar picking and orchestration, so on many songs, oblique as they are, we can’t grasp what he’s singing about. Without exception on this tribute set, all the singers involved, many of them women, enunciate with far greater clarity. Most of them aren’t from the UK either which makes it all the more intriguing. 

        As a prelude, we hear an a cappella verse from ‘Voice From A Mountain’ before Fontaines DC rattle off ‘Cello Song’/’Strange Face’, drums establishing a brisk pace behind a distorted guitar, with Nick or Robert Kirby’s cello part now a choral backdrop as part of a 90-second prologue before the vocals enter. Accustomed over time to hearing Nick’s rather plummy accent, it comes as a bit of a surprise to hear Grian Chatten’s Irish brogue. An extended outro replicates the intro. French singer Camille follows with a delightfully fragile ‘Hazy Jane II, backed by guitar and what sounds like a plucked cello. 

        Elbow’s Guy Garvey interprets ‘Saturday Sun’ in the blunt drawl he applies to his day job, the tempo so slow it almost grinds to a halt with a minute to go, followed by a coda of Lennon-like dissonant noise. ‘Road’, by Bombay Bicycle Club & The Staves, is another brisk outing, enhanced by a lovely acoustic guitar figure, while ‘From The Morning’ by Let’s East Grandma is set to a drum machine and synths, Jenny Hollingworth’s vocal soaring over the top.

        David Gray sings ‘Place To Be’ over a stark accompaniment, as does Stick In The Wheel’s Nicola Kearey on a spooky stab at ‘Parasite’. Aside from when he sings in a higher register towards the end, Ben Harper’s turn on ‘Time Has Told Me’ is one of few tracks that differ only slightly from Nick’s recording, while Emile Sandé skates nicely through ‘One Of These Things First’, complete with metronomic programmed drums. This is followed by a truly lovely reading of ‘Northern Sky’ by Scotland’s Karine Polwart and Kris Drever, perfect harmonies enhanced by a melancholy trumpet. 

        Of all the songs that Nick Drake wrote and recorded, none are bleaker than ‘Black Eyed Dog’, a meditation on depression that dances around a simple guitar figure, at least by Drake’s standards, with spare lyrics and sparser instrumentation that foresee imminent mortality. Nick sang this song in a high, plaintive voice that left little doubt he was singing about his own isolation, the incessant harmonic of his ringing strings and occasional frayed note adding to the tension. Over now to Craig Armstrong featuring Self Esteem who add plenty of echo to the haunting guitar lines, taking the song from its skeletal blueprint into something altogether richer, with double-tracked, whispered vocals, a false ending to herald a slide back to the start, and that nagging guitar figure which on this reading somehow reminded me of U2’s ‘Bad’ from The Unforgettable Fire. 

        CD2 opens with another a cappella chant, this time ‘Road’, reprised by Bombay Bicycle Club & The Staves, followed by a gorgeous ‘Poor Boy’ by Nadia Reid and the ringing acoustic guitar of Christian Lee Hutson accompanying himself and Elanor Moss on a reverent ‘Which Will’. Skullcrusher & Gia Margaret offer up a delicate ‘Harvest Breed’, as does Katherine Priddy on ‘I Think They’re Leaving Me Behind’ and Norway’s Aurora (aka Njål Paulsberg) on a brief ‘Pink Moon’. 

        There is no better example of the clear enunciation I referred to earlier than Joe Henry and Meshell Ndegeocello’s lovely ‘Time Of No Reply’, enhanced by an alto saxophone. Famous Blue Cable, with Leslie Feist on vocals, tackle ‘River Man’ delicately, played largely on fretless baritone guitar with brushed drums. Liz Phair swings nicely through ‘Free Ride’, Radiohead drummer Philip Selway takes the vocals on ‘Fly’, fragile, almost spoken, and Icelandic John Grant takes us on a mysterious ride for ‘Day Is Done’ before the CD concludes with a reprise of ‘Voices’ from The Wandering Hearts.

        I’ve been playing this CD at home and in our car for the last two weeks, enjoying it more and more each time. If you like Drake you'll like this too. 

NICK DRAKE – THE LIFE by Richard Morton Jack

It is the summer of 1966 and Nick Drake is with friends in St Tropez, playing his guitar for passers-by late into the night. “He played beautifully and people would clap at the end of each song,” says one of the friends. “But he never looked up in any way to solicit their applause or adoration.”

        “It was as if he was playing for himself, and the appreciation of others was incidental,” adds Richard Morton Jack, establishing a theme that runs throughout his exhaustively detailed yet simultaneously gripping biography of the singer, songwriter and – most significantly – immensely gifted guitarist who died at the age of 26 after swallowing an overdose of tablets prescribed to combat depression.

In truth, Nick never did seek acclaim for his work, not in St Tropez nor anywhere else in the years that followed. It was his absurdly romantic notion that acclaim would come anyway, without his taking steps to achieve it, and while a lack of material success in his lifetime is mooted as the cause of his depression, fame is nevertheless unlikely to have sat easily on his fragile psyche. “Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound,” he sings in ‘Fruit Tree’, a chillingly prescient song from his debut LP Five Leaves Left. “It can never flourish, ’Til its stock is in the ground.”

        This is one of the many conundrums that Morton Jack wrestles with as he shadows Nick from his birth in 1948 in Rangoon, where his father worked as an engineer, to his death in 1974 in Tanworth-in-Arden in Warwickshire, to where the upwardly mobile family, dad Rodney, mother Molly, sister Gabrielle and infant son, relocated in 1952. 

This is a desperately sad book, all the more so because it opens with his passing, but the popular notion of Nick Drake as a friendless loner is put to the sword by Morton Jack’s scrupulous research. Although he tended to compartmentalise them, Nick had plenty of friends and admirers in both the music business and elsewhere, from his home in Tanworth, from school and college in Cambridge, and from the creative world in which he immersed himself in London. Morton Jack has tracked down dozens of them, and their testimony leaves no doubt Nick was loved and admired by many. Trouble was, hardly anyone bought his records, not until long after he lay in the ground. 

The book benefits from the co-operation of Gabrielle, an accomplished actor, now retired, and from Drake’s estate which has been astutely managed by Martin ‘Cally’ Callomon, whom I met many years ago as the designer of Pete Frame’s book Rockin’ Around Britain. In a heartfelt Foreword, Gabrielle points out that this is not an ‘Authorised Biography’ which to her mind translates as a ‘straightjacketed affair, tailored … to fit the desired image of the protagonist’. It’s certainly no whitewash, for Nick Drake is presented warts and all, with high praise for his music tempered by excruciating aspects of his otherworldliness as he passes through life utterly incapable of dealing with its practicalities. “Nick’s story has too often been overshadowed by the tragedy of his final illness,” writes Gabrielle. “There was nothing romantic about it: like most mental illnesses, it was grim, repetitive and relentless, and it cruelly robbed him of his creative muse.”  

This makes the last 100 pages of the book fairly harrowing reading, with details of Nick’s descent into a private netherworld that involved extreme examples of behaviour we can euphemistically describe as eccentric. Rodney Drake noted all of this in a diary, to which Morton Jack had access, and it is fortunate for him too that the Drakes were not only dedicated letter-writers but also hoarders. Gabrielle evidently handed over a treasure trove of personal correspondence that, among other things, leaves no doubt as to the closeness of a loving family that supported Nick in every way to the very end, even if they were as baffled as to how to deal with their strange son as everyone else. “We could never get through to him either,” one friend told Rodney after the funeral.

The bare bones of Nick Drake’s life, his comfortable childhood, public school education, somewhat fortunate ascent to Cambridge, from where he dropped out to make records with producer Joe Boyd that were released via Boyd’s Witchseason production company on Island Records, is well told but not new. Patrick Humphries’ 1997 biography and Trevor Dann’s Darker Than The Deepest Sea in 2006 told much the same story, but both lack the immense detail that Morton Jack brings to his book, not to mention the personal touch afforded by the family archive. At times I felt I was sitting on Nick’s shoulders. 

        Similarly, Morton Jack lists just about every gig Nick performed – “a few more than thirty” – and speaks to many who saw him on stage. The common belief that almost all were disasters due to his lack of presentation skills is also dismissed, though some were, and he concedes that Island were at a loss as to how to promote him beyond sampler albums and the usual ads in the music press. Furthermore, with help from Nick’s musical collaborators, Morton Jack delves assiduously into the construction of his songs, the guitars that Nick used and the literary roots of his lyrics, scrutinising them with the proviso that his analysis is simply his interpretation and that no one can know for sure what Nick was singing about. That, of course, was his special genius and the reason why, almost 50 years after his death, Nick Drake is as revered as he is. 

Joe Boyd agrees. “He was a better [guitar] player than Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, John Martyn and Robin Williamson,” he says, a statement that took me aback somewhat. “I thought Nick was obviously a genius,” adds the producer who even now feels a twinge of guilt that he was unable to somehow help his protégé during the mental illness that devoured him. In this he is far from alone. 

Tenderly perhaps, Morton Jack does not dwell overlong on the aftermath, the posthumous recognition that in many ways softened the grief for Nick’s family and others. It is, after all, The Life, and it is a given that those who read the book will already know how Nick’s music reached out to and became enjoyed by millions in the decades that followed. This reticence on Morton Jack’s part somehow echoes the reticence of Nick himself, the introverted artist who in his own mind knew his capability but was somehow unable to communicate it to others. 

        Nick Drake The Life is a wonderful book, the last word on an enigma that, in equal measure, never ceases to fascinate and inspire. 

VINYL IN SAINSBURYS - Pink Moon, too

I have yet to embrace the current trend for expensive heavyweight vinyl but earlier today I felt a degree of warm satisfaction when I encountered a display of vinyl albums in my local Sainsburys, especially since one of the 14 albums on the rack was Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. Personally I’d have gone for Five Leaves Left but I’m not about to quibble over such details since the concept of Sainsburys, of all places, selling a vinyl album by Nick Drake, of all people, seemed truly remarkable. Nick Drake? Mainstream? In a supermarket? Well, knock me down with a ten-ton truck as Morrissey sings on another of the albums I clocked.

The other 13 vinyl albums on display were a bit more predictable though by no means uninspired. Bowie leads the field with three (Hunky Dory, Ziggy & Nothing Has Changed, the most recent hits compilation), followed by The Beatles (Pepper & Abbey Road), with one each from AC/DC (Back In Black), Eagles (Hotel California), Led Zep (IV), The Smiths (Queen Is Dead), Foo Fighters (hits comp), Nirvana (Nevermind), Bob Marley (Legend) and Adele (25), the only contemporary album they’ve chosen to stock. The prices ranged from £12 to £18.

Intrigued by the whole concept, when I got home I googled ‘vinyl records in Sainsburys’ and up came an item on their website that listed which vinyl albums would be stocked: all of the above plus Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black, F Mac’s Rumours, Led Zep’s first album and the debut albums by The Specials and Stone Roses. I can only assume that these have already sold out or were deemed unsuitable for Guildford. Interestingly, Hunky Dory wasn’t on the list (thought it was in stock) and I’m a bit surprised that Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon wasn’t there, maybe also Abba Gold or an Eagles hits comp.

A note on their website states that this is a ‘selection of 2016’s best sellers to date’. What they mean, of course, is ‘2016’s best selling vinyl albums to date’. Over in the CD racks a few weeks ago I was staggered to see about a dozen Bowie albums on sale, obviously catapulted into the charts by his recent death, and I’d have thought that Let’s Dance – if it’s available on vinyl – would have been a wiser choice than Hunky Dory if commercial potential is the criteria for selection.

At the bottom of the display, which I really ought to have snapped with my camera-phone, was a 3-speed portable turntable on sale at £80 on which to play your albums. I’m assuming the other two speeds are 45 and 78rpm. Does anyone really play 78s these days?

        Nevertheless, who would have thought that of all the many wonderful albums released by Islands Records during the seventies, the only one that would make it onto the shelves of a supermarket in 2016, in the same format as it was released it in 1972, would be Pink Moon, recorded solo in just two days by a singer songwriter who would be dead two years later – and which was probably Island’s least successful album of the decade.

NICK DRAKE - Five Leaves Left

A few years ago I acted as the guinea pig for a feature idea called ‘Every Home Should Have One’ that a friend of mine, Eddie Blower, was pitching to Record Collector magazine. The idea was that someone with a background in music would be interviewed about a favourite album, but not necessarily an obvious choice or even a record that had become a hit. I opted for Five Leaves Left by Nick Drake, which I didn’t discover until long after Nick died, and as it happened I played it in my kitchen last night as I was making a meal for my son Sam and myself. Sam and I share a high opinion of Nick Drake, as we do on a quite a few musicians nowadays.

         That has prompted me to post the entire interview that Eddie did, some of which I incorporated into another Drake piece on Just Backdated. Eddie’s feature idea didn’t take off by the way.

So Chris, when / how did you first hear about Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left?

I knew of its existence because of the Island sampler Nice Enough To Eat, but that was as far as it went until… sometime in the mid-eighties, ie about 15 years too late, I was having a conversation with Dave Lewis, whom I know because of his Led Zep fanzine and who at that time was the manager of the Our Price record shop in Bedford. I asked Dave if there were any relatively unknown artists whose albums he kept having to restock because they kept selling out. The reason I asked was because I was always thinking about which artists (beyond the obvious) to feature in Omnibus books, “Nick Drake,” he replied. “I’m always re-ordering Nick Drake albums. They just keep selling. All sorts buy them, young, old, girls, boys, all word of mouth I think.”

         “The folkie on Island?” I asked.

         “Yes, but he’s not really a folkie. He’s much more than that. He’s great.”

         So I went out and bought Way To Blue, a compilation of Nick Drake songs from the three albums he recorded for Island during his lifetime and Time Of No Reply which came out later, and I just loved it. Dave was right. Nick Drake wasn’t a folkie. The more I played Way To Blue the more I liked it and it was only a matter of time before I went out and bought all of Nick’s albums, and my favourite is the first, Five Leaves Left.

How long after that introduction did you own a copy?

About two months. What is unusual is that when I was on MM during the early 70s Island’s PR David Sandison and I became good friends, and he used to give me all the Island albums as promo copies… Traffic, Free, Fairports, Cat Stevens, Marley, you name it… but he never ever gave me a Nick Drake album. Maybe because I really liked Free and Traffic he thought I wouldn’t like Nick Drake much. Most PRs in those days and probably today just recommend stuff because they are paid to do so whether they like it or not themselves or whether it’s rubbish, but David was a good PR in that he didn’t try to oversell things and when he said something was good it probably was. He didn’t bullshit, he was sincere, so if he’d said Nick Drake was worth a listen I’d definitely have listened. But he didn’t. He never even mentioned him to me. I don’t know why or whether I would have liked Drake or not in those days because I was young and a big rock fan in the serious sense of the word, like I loved the Who as everyone knows, so I might have dismissed Drake as a ‘folkie’ who wasn’t my cup of tea. Maybe I wouldn’t have been mature enough to appreciate him then. I don’t know but I’d like to have tried. I liked Cat Stevens but I think I got into him because every single attractive girl I ever met in those days seemed to adore Cat Stevens so it was prudent to agree with them, but Nick Drake’s music was far more subtle than Cat Stevens or even Paul Simon. It demands greater attentiveness, harder work if you like, but I think it would have been worth the effort even then. I owned a Drake track on Nice Enough To Eat, but I overlooked it somehow. Great shame.

So, was your initial interest because of the artist or the music?

The music, absolutely 100%. I didn’t know the first thing about him, but like almost everyone else who’s become a late(ish) Drake fan I became fascinated by his story. It’s an extraordinary thing, like a great painter who was ignored until after his death… like Van Gogh.

What is it about the music on Five Leaves Left that has held you over the years?

Nick Drake was a singer, songwriter and guitarist of unusual skill and depth, thoughtful, poetic, enigmatic, dreamy and mysterious, complex yet potentially commercial (as has now been proved) to a perceptive market, certainly addictive, certainly sophisticated, an absolute natural talent, and quite unlike anyone else I’ve ever heard. Just a massive overlooked talent who was criminally, almost freakishly, overlooked during his lifetime.

Can you describe your emotional attachment to Five Leaves Left?

It’s one of those records I can listen to again and again now and never get bored. Indeed I can probably listen to the song ‘River Man’ over and over again and never get bored. It’s the illusive quality I think, forever interesting. With most artists you know what you’re getting but it’s not like that with Nick. You can listen over and over again and still not quite get it, so you listen again and it’s still magical. The same actually applies to the other two albums that were released in his lifetime to a certain extent (and also, most especially, to the later song ‘Black Eyed Dog’). It’s that dreamy, laid back quality to the music and the gentle sound of his voice, and the guitar playing which is so delicate and intricate, enormously skilful and complex, and the different tunings. The recordings are very ‘alive’. If you close your eyes while you are listening he could be in the room with you. He sounds incredibly romantic, a bit sad most of the time, weary, and very English, very middle-class, cricket on the village green, slightly posh (which he was) and almost from another world, absolutely timeless too.

Why do you think it failed to sell?

He wasn’t promoted which isn’t entirely Island’s fault as he was chronically shy and didn’t like performing. Everyone who sold records played live in those days and Nick didn’t.  It seems he couldn’t bring himself to promote his music in the means available to artists in those days, and yet at the same time he was crushed by its failure to sell.

How many people do you think you have recommended it too?

Dozens but it’s a no brainer these days as he’s become very popular, well popular to a cultish audience who probably think like I do. He seems to command real devotion which is partly to do with his music and partly the tragedy of it all. What is interesting is that you occasionally come across people who love him whom you might not expect to. Last summer I was asked to bring my iPod and dock speaker to a garden party in our village, an annual event for the people who live in our road, so that neighbours young and old can all get to chat to each other and drink wine. I’d made a playlist of what I thought was acceptable stuff (including Chopin, Spanish guitar and Glen Miller!) and put on a song or two from Five Leaves Left and the wife of a friend of mine, a well-to-do young mum who lives nearby, came over and told me how much she loved Nick Drake. I’d no idea she had the slightest interest in popular music, let alone anything as deep as Nick.

Have you ever got into an argument over this record?

Never. I can honestly say that I have never met anyone who doesn’t like Nick Drake. I’ve met people who are unfamiliar with him, sure, but no one has said he sucks!

Can you name any other (known) true supporters of this LP?

Too many to mention now. I think any great guitarist, from Richard Thompson on downwards, will appreciate his guitar skills.

How does the music stand up today?

Absolutely timeless, as I say. This is surely proved by the fact that Nick sold his millionth album a year or two ago, or so I read. In his lifetime it’s doubtful he sold more than 5,000 of any of his albums, probably less. Tragic really. In this respect I can’t help but think that back in the early seventies I was possibly in a position to have changed this, to have written about him in MM and maybe turned people on to him. But none of us did, barring Gerry Gilbert on Sounds who certainly tried but no one on MM picked up on him, or NME whose reviewer of Five Leaves Left compared him unfavourably to Peter Sarstedt of all people. That can’t have helped Nick’s frame of mind. Almost all contemporary reviews of his albums were fairly cursory to say the least. Nick Kent was just that bit too late in his appraisal really but he deserves a pat on the back for trying to expose Nick to a wider audience before anyone else. The late great Ian McDonald subsequently wrote a brilliant 16,000 word appraisal of his work, a large portion devoted to ‘River Man’, which in my opinion elevated Nick to his rightful place among the greats. This is the critical yardstick nowadays. It’s all hindsight but for me, it’s one of those classic ‘if onlys’ that everyone has… well, with me, it’s if only I’d heard Nick Drake in 1970 and asked David Sandison if he’d set up an interview, but then again it would probably have been like Gerry Gilbert’s interview, ie Nick wouldn’t have said a thing. But I’d like to have tried.

So Chris, in your opinion, why should every home have one?

Because if you really love the best popular music of the second half of the 20^th century and take pleasure in seeking out the very best, getting into Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left and also all his other work, is simply as rewarding as our kind of music gets. 

NICK DRAKE - The River Man

Like almost everyone else I discovered Nick Drake far too late to save him. What is unusual is that when I was on MM during the early 70s the Island Records’ PR David Sandison and I became good friends, and he used to give me all the Island albums as promo copies, Traffic, Free, Fairports, Cat Stevens, Marley, you name it, but he never ever gave me a Nick Drake album, never even mentioned him to me. I don’t know why or whether I would have liked Drake or not in those days because I was young and a big rock fan in the serious sense of the word so I might have dismissed Drake as a ‘folkie’ who wasn’t my cup of tea. Maybe I wouldn’t have been mature enough to appreciate him then. I liked Cat Stevens but I got into him because every single attractive girl I ever met in those days seemed to adore Cat Stevens so it was prudent to agree with them, but Nick Drake was far more subtle than Stevens or even Paul Simon. His songs demanded greater attentiveness, harder work if you like, but I think it would have been worth the effort even then. In truth I was turned on to him in the mid- 90s by a friend who managed an Our Price record shop, who mentioned that he was always re-stocking Nick Drake albums. Later I became fascinated by his sad story. It’s an extraordinary tale, like a great painter who was ignored until after his death, like Van Gogh.

            Nick Drake was a singer, songwriter and guitarist of unusual skill and depth, thoughtful, poetic, enigmatic, dreamy and mysterious, complex yet potentially commercial (as has now been proved) to a perceptive market, certainly addictive, certainly sophisticated, an absolute natural talent, and quite unlike anyone else I’ve ever heard; just a massive overlooked genius who was criminally, almost freakishly, ignored during his lifetime. I can probably listen to ‘River Man’ over and over again and never get bored. With most artists you know what you’re getting but it’s not like that with Nick. You can listen over and over again and still not quite get it, so you listen again and it’s still magical. His recordings are very ‘alive’. If you close your eyes while you are listening to him through speakers he could be in the room with you. He sounds incredibly romantic, a bit sad most of the time, weary, and very English in a middle-class, cricket on the village green, warm beer sort of way, slightly posh (which he was) and almost from another now-forgotten world.

            Nevertheless, Drake’s music is absolutely timeless. This is surely proved by the fact that he sold his millionth album a few years ago, or so I read. In his lifetime it’s doubtful he sold more than 5,000 of any of his three albums, probably less. The late great NME writer Ian McDonald has written a brilliant 16,000-word appraisal of his work, a large portion devoted to ‘River Man’, and this lovely quote from the opening section of his essay sums up the song and the man far better than I can: “To listen to Nick Drake is to step out of this world of pose and noise, and enter a quiet, oak-panelled room, dappled with sun-light – a room opening, through French windows, into a lush green garden, equally quiet because we’re in the country, far from the sound of the city. It’s summer, bees and birds are abroad in the shade, and, beyond the nearby trees, a soft tangle of voices and convivial laughter can be felt, along with the dipping of languid oars in a rushy river that winds through cool woods and teeming meadows hereabouts: an English landscape with an acoustic guitar playing gently beyond the hedgerow in jazzy 5/4: ‘River Man’.”

            That’s just perfect.