Nick Drake

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Joe Beamish

His music is consistently lovely. But I don’t listen often or at length because it tends to be a downer, a bit depressing.

The exception is his second album, Bryter Layter, which I find invigorating. It breathes with the sea breeze airiness of coastal Britain and is well paced and beautiful.

"Bryter Later" is my favorite Nick Drake album too, though I like all of them, even the home-taped cover songs.

As to the melancholy. I have a suspicion, fortified with reading (and adopting) a lot of English poetry, that English culture has a strong strain of that, in the same way American culture has a strong strain of "Blues." I put Blues in quotes there, because the American Blues to my reading is not sorrowful songs or melancholy songs. The typical blues outlook is that stuff that's afflicting the singer's life is painful, stupid, unfair, cruel fate, unjust, ridiculous, and so on--but the singer will endure it and maybe even exact their revenge, even if only in song. The sorrowful, melancholy song on the other hand notices closely, even when it's by implication and undercurrent, those slings and arrows and how they are experienced with the element of overcoming them subdued, sometimes mysterious. Obviously, a very rough summary and a gross case of cultural stereotyping there, but...

Both the Blues and the melancholy song can work for me, thus my love of Drake. But I'll say my life/experience aligns with your in that there are times when it's better for me to think Blues.

[Mandobart]

I'm still checking out Nick Drake. Searched a lot about his life and music on-line. Listened to his stuff through my stereo as opposed to computer speakers and it is of course much better. Then the new Fretboard Journal arrived - There is a good article by Brian Saunders describing how Brian Wolfe has been discovering the music and life of Nick Drake since 1977.

[valleyguy]

For Nick Drake fans, Sun Kil Moon is channeling some of Nick's vibe. Check him out:

[Daniel Grenier]

Older thread but since I'm on a bit of Nick Drake kick these days (an on & off thing for about ten years now), allow me my 2 cents on whether he was a "Genius" (or not).

So. The man suffered from serious, sometimes severe depression. It eventually killed him at the very young age of 26 (not clear if it was an accidental overdose or on purpose). Despite being often crippled by mental health issues, he did compose dozens of songs, recorded several albums, played guitar in a unique and beautiful way, and composed said songs in over a dozen Alt tunings. All this in his very early 20s.

So yeah, I'd say the man was a musical Genius in his own right. How many of us here had accomplished that much by age 26? If you have, raise your hand so we can recognize you as a Genius too. As for me, my hand is firmly staying put well below my waist line on this topic.

And that was my 2 cents. Now, my 000-28 is tuned BEBEBE so I think I'll go play "Fly" and thank Nick Drake for a stellar contribution to music.

[The Watchman]

You have to look and listen to people like Nick Drake, within the context of the time and place he was in. Back then, for a period of time, deep, sad, & self-reflective (the tortured artist effect), music was popular. It wouldn't fly now. Only musicians heard the unique and interesting guitar playing going on.

There used to be a local radio show in Kansas City, that focused on "good" rock music, old & new. One show in the early '90s featured several cuts from Bryter Later and talked about his story. That's when I first heard of him.

[Inyo]

It's another undead (AKA, zombie) thread, folks...but, at least bountiful benefits accrue here from the fortuitous opportunity to present to AGFers once again perhaps the greatest enduring mystery that has ever confronted humanity: What guitar did Nick Drake use? We can solve this, folks.

See the thread over at https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=389083 , for example.

[dwalton]

I'm really glad this was revived - I had a vague memory of Drake, but listening to many of his songs this morning, I'm swooning.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by The Watchman

You have to look and listen to people like Nick Drake, within the context of the time and place he was in. Back then, for a period of time, deep, sad, & self-reflective (the tortured artist effect), music was popular. It wouldn't fly now. Only musicians heard the unique and interesting guitar playing going on.

There used to be a local radio show in Kansas City, that focused on "good" rock music, old & new. One show in the early '90s featured several cuts from Bryter Later and talked about his story. That's when I first heard of him.

I'm not sure about the generalizations about times and musical tastes are beyond dispute* (grin, one can dispute most things...) but you bring up what I think is an interesting question. Why did Drake fail almost completely in the marketplace '69-'72 and then have a fairly decent early 2000's bloomlet?

It's not the "died too young" thing. Most "He's hot, he's sexy, and he's dead"** stories are artists that had reasonable to highly-successful pre-death carriers. The only other case that I can think of off hand that's anything like Drake's is Eva Cassidy.

*Yes, the appeal of deep and sad music/singers usually has a minority appeal that sometime rises to a larger proportion than other times. Early 21st century probably liked that sort of thing as much as the Sixties did, maybe more. My reading is that the sad pop (including indie) song is now back to a lower proportion. But generalizations. I've also widely generalized that the British Isles culturally is attuned to an unrelieved melancholy song while in American what we have inherited in that has been mixed with "The Blues" -- which despite it's name isn't so much a sorrowful tune, but a statement that "I'm wise to what did me wrong and I'm still here to tell you about it."

**per Rolling Stone, is a rare moment of perception, summing up the Jim Morrison revival in 1981.