60 year ago today Nicholas Rodney Drake, enigmatic British folk musician, was born. Today he lives only in myth, legend and allegory. Drake, who released three albums in his lifetime, Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and Pink Moon failed to find a wide audience thirty odd years ago, but since his death in 1974 has found a continuing growth in popularity and influence.
Nick Drake was twenty years old when he signed to Island Records, releasing his debut album Five Leaves Left in 1969. Over the next few years he recorded only two other albums, though none sold more than five thousand copies in their initial releases. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed no doubt contributed to his lack of commercial success.
Throughout his life Drake constantly battled depression. After the completion of his final album, 1972's Pink Moon, he ceased performing and recording, and chose to withdraw from society to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. Drake died from an overdose of the prescribed antidepressant, amitriptyline, on November 25th 1974.
There was no public announcement or notice of his death. Initially there was no effort to even reissue his three albums, but in 1979 the box set Fruit Tree, compiling his three completed albums plus a handful of home recordings and left over sessions, was released. However, once again, sales were poor, the album received little notice from the press, and by 1983 Fruit Tree was deleted from the Island Records catalogue. Still, a fanatical following and interest never ceased. Musicians such as Robert Smith, Peter Buck, Kate Bush, and John Martyn cited him as an influence. In early 1999, BBC2 aired a documentary, A Stranger Among Us—In Search of Nick Drake. And most notably in 2000, Volkswagen featured the song Pink Moon in a television commercial, and within one month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous thirty years.
part in here-- there's just so many of them. He was one of the first to arrange and manage European Jazz and Blues tours. He worked for Elektra and eventually formed his own production company called Witchseason. He booked an extremely successful club night in London in the 60s that hosted Pink Floyd and The Move, among many others. He went on to produce artists like Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.
The Newport Folk Festival when he was a stage manager and Dylan went electric. Reading that portion of the book made my heart race! If for nothing else, it's worth buying White Bicycles just to read about this momentous occasion in rock history from a fresh viewpoint. Boyd was truly a part of that evening and remembers it all! He really must have kept a journal. It answers some questions about who exactly was in a physical fight that night, who started what and if Pete Seeger did indeed cut the electricity with an axe. There really was an axe there that night, and that's all I'm gonna say!