Flash-Back Friday (No school like the old school)

Fly By Nick Drake

Nick Drake (Nicholas Rodney Drake, Rangoon, Burma, June 19, 1948 - Tanworth-in-Arden, England, November 25, 1974) was an English folk singer-songwriter known for his gentle, autumnal songs and his virtuoso right-hand finger picking technique.

           Although he recorded only three albums, critics and fellow musicians hold his work in very high esteem. Drake failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, and had a strong aversion to performing. Since his death, however, Drake’s music has gained a significant cult following.
          Drake was a fan of British and the emerging American folk music scene, including artists Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. While a university student, Drake began performing in local clubs and coffee houses.  Many accounts of Drake focus on his mythology, but a large part of his enduring popularity is due to his meticulous songwriting, prosody, odd guitar tunings and lyricism.

         Drake was pathologically shy and resented touring. The few concerts he did play were usually in support of other British folk acts of the time, such as Fairport Convention or John Martyn and were often brief and awkward. Partially because of this, his work received little attention and sold poorly. Whilst in the recording studio, he was so shy that he’d always play into the wall so as to avoid people’s gazes.

        Severely depressed and doubting his abilities as a musician, Drake recorded his final album Pink Moon (1972) in two two-hour sessions, both starting at midnight. The songs of Pink Moon were short (the album consists of eleven of them and lasts only 28 minutes) and emotionally bleak. Drake recorded them unaccompanied, in the presence of only a sound engineer (a piano was later overdubbed on the title track). Naked and sincere, it is widely thought to be his best work.

         Drake grew severely depressed and maintained relationships only with close friends such as John Martyn, who wrote the title song of his 1973 album Solid Air for and about Drake and French singer Françoise Hardy. He was hospitalized several times and lived with Hardy for a few months. 

         In 1974, Drake felt well enough to write and record a few new songs. However, on November 25, he died of an overdose of antidepressants. The coroner concluded that the cause of Drake’s death was suicide, although this was disputed by friends and relatives. Antidepressants of that time were quite lethal if ingested in any higher dosage than the one prescribed.  It’s unclear whether he took more pills to help him sleep or to take his own life. 

 

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