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#31
03-19-2018, 12:21 PM
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i read someone say they saw him perform live not to believeable...but saw him with a martin 0-15
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#32
03-21-2018, 12:43 PM
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He had a Levin LT-18 "Goliath" Dreadnaught guitar in home photos from 66/67. He may also have used the same guitar live into 1970.
The Levin LT-18 had a solid European spruce top with solid maple back and sides. The Levin "Goliath" models were very popular in the UK during the 60s when quality American instruments were hard to come by. Pete Townsend had one in the very early days of the Who. Peter Sarstedt played "Where do you go to my lovely" on one too.
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Guitars. 1980 Daion Heritage 78. 1982 Aria Pro II TA-60 Matsumoku. 1982 Fender Stratocaster Dan Smith with custom Mahogany Hardtail body. 1984 Ibanez JA500 Jumbo acoustic. 1994 Gibson J100 Xtra. 2008 Stanford Performer PSOM-10CEQ. 2017 Fender Telecaster 1961 replica in LPB. 2017 Faith Blood Moon Neptune. 2021 Martin OOO-15M.
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#33
03-21-2018, 01:36 PM
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To me it sounds like a Martin D28 with dead strings on it was used for those old recordings.
I never believed Drake used a small bodied guitar. He was a big guy well over six feet tall with huge hands. He would certainly feel more at home on a dread guitar or classical.
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#34
04-05-2018, 06:14 PM
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In 2003 John Pearse posted the following useful information regarding Nick Drake's string choice. Apparently he used Cathedral branded JP strings.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!ms...s/KlvwZfTIitsJ
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#36
04-06-2018, 05:49 AM
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This is an interesting video on youtube Showing Nick Drake and a few other famouse players of Levine guitars. They where sent to the USA under the Goya name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohLCgLCIWa4
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#37
04-06-2018, 07:04 AM
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Quote:
 While it clearly shows Nick playing a Levin Goliath it doesn't prove that he used it on his recording sessions. I wonder if he had possibly obtained a Martin D28 after owning the Levin? The Levin is very Martin like in appearance. Maybe the people who claimed he used a Martin were mistaking the Levin for a D28? The mystery continues...  
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#38
04-07-2018, 01:05 PM
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No,It do not prove he recorded with a Levin but it is proof he played one around the time he was recording and Levin Goliath X braced guitars are amazing sounding quality guitars.Anyway, We will never know what he recorded with but it does stand to reason he would play his guitar that he was comforatable playing in the studio.
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#39
04-10-2018, 01:22 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Guitars. 1980 Daion Heritage 78. 1982 Aria Pro II TA-60 Matsumoku. 1982 Fender Stratocaster Dan Smith with custom Mahogany Hardtail body. 1984 Ibanez JA500 Jumbo acoustic. 1994 Gibson J100 Xtra. 2008 Stanford Performer PSOM-10CEQ. 2017 Fender Telecaster 1961 replica in LPB. 2017 Faith Blood Moon Neptune. 2021 Martin OOO-15M.
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#40
04-18-2018, 05:26 AM
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Guitar mysteries
The Guild M20 can be dismissed as a Nick Drake guitar. Nice marketing for Guild, but nothing more. If people have a memory of Nick playing live/recording with a 'hog parlour guitar then, it's most likely a Martin parlour. However Nick was 6ft 3 with huge hands and a parlour guitar with its small nut width doesn't seem like a reasonable choice for Nick.
The FG-180 had 'hog back and sides and according to my Island Records insider Nick used one (not exclusively) that was a shared guitar. Also it was common for guitarists to remove the Yamaha branding from the guitars to disguise that it was Japanese made guitar. Japanese goods coming into the UK in the late 60's were looked down upon! John Martyn certainly did just that! That makes identification tricky from a casual observers point of view. Nick also posed with a Yamaha G-50 (NOT G-50A or G100 as I have seen Ebay sellers claim) classical guitar, which he never recorded with, for photographers Keith Morris and Tony Evans. Why not the guitar he actually used, one has to ask? The Levin LS-18 guitar has Levin in prominent white lettering on the headstock so surely would have been easily identifiable by those present, yet no one ever mentions him recording with it. I think his Martin 000-28 seen in RFAW was used from Bryter Layter onwards. Josh Turners video is interesting but I believe John Pearse about Nick's strings. Josh also says Nick's r/h hand position must have been in the classical style but the pictures of him playing show him not using the classical r/h position. We don't know what guitars he put on the bonfire in the family garden..... Finally, there is a receipt in RFAW showing Nick also bought a Levin Deluxe semi acoustic guitar and that has never been seen! I love a good mystery 
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"It shouldn't sound this good, but it does...." Last edited by RedLabelJohn; 04-18-2018 at 09:44 AM.
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#41
04-18-2018, 09:41 AM
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Quote:
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"It shouldn't sound this good, but it does...."
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#43
09-07-2018, 06:25 PM
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Quote:
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#44
09-07-2018, 06:43 PM
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Even if you identify precisely what make and model guitar that Drake recorded on, that is not going to make you play like he does any more than if someone identified what guitar Robert Johnson recorded on will make them be able to play "Sweet Home Chicago" like he does.
Identify something that sounds close to the recordings, and get to work playing it. That might do it.
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#45
12-21-2019, 03:45 PM
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Thank you ‘Compuphonic’ for quoting me from the Nick Drake Forum. It is from your act of kindness that I find myself here and reading through this wonderful thread, now compelled to write something, and hopefully add something, no matter how little.
I may go back in time briefly first to establish a genesis; I hope you don’t mind and find something of interest along the way! The small pool of photographs cited surfaced on the long defunct forum around 2010, and shortly thereafter my now good friend Arthur, whom used the avatar ‘Bmore’, was able to establish the headstock adorned the ‘Levin’ insignia. Then came the matter of scouring through many archival Levin catalogues to reconcile the guitar cosmetically to a LS-18, as the user ‘RedLabelJohn’ must have also done so here. This was the last of ‘LS’ prefixed models before the ‘LT-18’ ensued, with the cosmetic difference from its predecessor only being the bass side pearled block inlay. Perhaps it may be of interest to note here that Levin exported guitars to America under the name ‘Goya’. Thus, the Goya ‘S-18’ range had the same specifications as the ‘LS-18’ line of guitars. This would be their undoing… In my opinion, ‘Compuphonic’ has quoted the most reliable source in Robert Kirby. Not only was Robert a firsthand source, he was a dear friend of Nick Drake’s from his Cambridge years, is known to have observed closely each note Nick was playing on his guitar in order to transpose them for arrangements, and worked closely alongside him in the studio on his first two records. Thus, when Robert is quoted as saying “I never saw Nick play anything other than a Martin D-28" I read into this differently… From my research, the Martin Guitar Company (CF Martin) were not at all pleased when Levin broke the American market. The Guitars which Sweden’s Levin factory produced were deemed to be of superior craftsmanship and sound quality. As user ‘RILEY13’ pointed out, they were quite the pioneers with use of X-bracing. Levin were already lauded in Europe and such a reputation propelled them into the class of highly sought-after instruments. So, Martin pounced and ‘merged’ with Levin before completely absorbing the company. The reason I mention this is due to a 1974 poster I found from around said ‘merger’ period, depicting a Martin D-18 alongside a Levin Super Goliath;  Although the image above does not depict the exact guitars in question, to me it is not inconceivable for these closely tied guitar manufacturers, producing the LS-18 and D-28 respectively, to be mistaken for the other, especially under the climate of mergers and dissolution that followed. The user ‘bluesfreak’ alludes to the similarity of the two guitar models. I hope you come to understand that I mean no disrespect to Robert Kirby’s memory, in fact I feel his memory of Nick’s guitar to the most accurate of all disparate recollections I have read or heard. Does this make sense to you? So, perhaps while on the subject memory it would be best to quote from another of Nick Drake’s close friends to address this; “The first pitfall that presents itself is the risk of conflating bona fide details of occasional meetings and aspects of character, with received assumptions based on fragments of recovered memory which might have been suggested by others within their own written or recorded assessments. These chimerical mistakes can filter down into the record of the individual and become part of the established version of the recollected image. All that one can hope to extract, from even the most thorough piece of biographical research, on a person as highly reclusive in their own thoughts as Nick Drake, will be an impressionistic pastiche, containing certain glittering pointers of factual experience to light the path forward.” David, Earl of Dudley. NICK DRAKE, Remembered For A While - pg.103. Tracing through time and piecing things together can become obsessive. Yet, however far reaching my interest goes, it is the primary and firsthand evidence that I love most of all in this enthralling mystery. The next reliable source for me has been Nick’s father Rodney Drake, and from his diary entries upon his son’s return home, we read of the destruction of two guitars and the purchasing of a new one post Pink Moon, again in 'Remembered For A While' pg344 & pg351; "Friday 25 May 1973 Nick down at a reasonable hour and went out for a short time during the morning arriving back in time for lunch. Having heard from Naw that he had broken a guitar, went to inspect and found that he had broken both. Obviously in a fit of frustration and despair. He now only has his electric guitar. This is bad…" "Tuesday 16 April 1974 I had a bonfire day today and found to my surprise that yesterday evening Nick had taken his two old broken guitars and thrown them on the heap ready for burning. Duly cremated them." From these entries I deduced the Levin LS-18 was one of the two guitars destroyed, leaving his Levin Deluxe as his sole guitar, before purchasing a Martin, all as ‘RedLabelJohn’ had posted. The second may have been a classical, alas I’m speculating. For several years now I have toyed with the idea of writing about this at length, perhaps in an article or blog, however, I felt that I could not stand behind my words unless I had something behind me to push these thoughts and assertions through me to beyond reasonable doubt. Procrastinating in short. An unfortunate time in my life led to the destruction of all my worldly belongings in 2018. But from the loss of guitars, records and all else, comes an opportunity to start anew… In January of this year I purchased a 1962 Levin LS-18. The back had come away from the body so needed work, hence rather affordable. By the end of February, it was repaired… What is unusual about this dreadnought sized guitar is its single-ply Maple wood back and sides. The tone wood is the densest of all tone woods, looks beautiful, and is characteristically reserved for the likes of violins. In the world of guitars, it can be found on several Jumbo-sized models, with few and far between over the years. However, Levin coupled this tone wood with a four-ply spruce top. By doing so, each string sings distinctly from one-another, almost to the point of sounding dry or ‘dead’ in comparison to a mahogany/spruce counterpart. As suggested within this thread, and relating to other sources, Nick’s string choice would have been Nickle/Bronze beyond doubt. However, the fascinating thing with the LS-18 is, once the initial shine of a new set of Nickle strings has worn off after several days to two weeks of good use, there is the distinctive sound and character of the tone-woods, ‘drying up’ the tone to such a gradation where one would assume they were as much as a year or two old. It may well be true that Nick loved to keep his strings on his guitar for a very long time, yet the same tone is present with relatively new strings on the Levin LS-18. What is also distinctive is the crisp punch of the 5th and 6th strings. In Nick Drake’s oeuvre, when he strikes the 6th string with his thumb nail for his anchoring bass notes, there is a popping sound unlike anything else heard on a record. This is present throughout the three records, I find, but maybe most evident on Bryter Layter, in songs such as ‘Introduction’ and ‘Hazey Jane I’ where the bass notes from the 6th string make a ‘Clopp’ or ‘Pock’ type of sound. ‘Road’ and ‘Which Will’ from Pink Moon also stand out as best representative of this distinguished bass timbre. Has anyone else found this to be true? Well, I best leave it there. I hope there was something of interest here for you. Take care.
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