Girls adored him. He was tall, good-looking, diffident, quietly well spoken, with none of the faux-Americanisms or affected glottal-stops of most musicians of the day. His shyness and gentleness – “it was impossible to imagine him being angry or unpleasant”, says one friend – were captivating. Yet despite his achingly romantic songs, it seems Drake never had an intimate relationship with anyone. “I would almost describe him as asexual,” one friend remembers. “I think he had a romanticised, even poetic view of women rather than a carnal one.” His greatest infatuation was with Francoise Hardy; there was a suggestion she might record one of his songs. They met in Paris, and it came to nothing but later, but as his mental condition worsened, he travelled to France trying, and failing to, see her. Gabrielle also discloses that her mother struggled with depression when she was young. Molly and Rodney had met in Rangoon before the war. He was an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, she the daughter of an officer in the Indian civil service. “Shortly after they were married, she had pneumonia and went through a depressive illness. But my father was a great stay and support. I think he helped her through it.” You believe that the problem of turning yourself from an amateur into a professional can be solved merely by transferring yourself from Cambridge to somewhere where you are surrounded by, and under the influence of, professionals in your chosen field. From what you say I take it that you must believe that it was the prospect of returning to Cambridge for eight-week periods during the year that prevented you, in the long summer vac, from getting into the swim, so to speak, and of starting to acquire the professionalism which you are rightly seeking. Pink Moon is often described as “desolate” and “bleak”, with Drake’s lyrics interpreted in light of his mental health. Place to Be contains the lines: “And I was green, greener than the hill / Where flowers grew and the sun shone still / Now I’m darker than the deepest sea/ Just hand me down, give me a place to be.”

Nick Drake by Richard Morton Jack review – genius remembered

Drake was musical from an early age, sporty as a school student, bright enough to study English literature at Cambridge but was troubled and subject to depression, got absorbed by his music, released three albums, withdrew from public performance after the third, Pink Moon (1972), retreated further into himself and died at 26 from an overdose of the antidepressant amitriptyline. Thus there is little of him on record, literally and metaphorically, beyond achingly poignant footage of him as a little by at the beach and photos as an adult, still beautiful.It was the same story with the next two; 1971's relatively upbeat Bryter Later and 1972's much starker Pink Moon. There was limited publicity and Drake’s eventual refusal to play live did not help. His last proper live performance ever was in 1970 and he played little more than 30 shows in his whole career. He simply didn't enjoy it. "There were only two or three concerts that felt right, and there was something wrong with all the others," he said in one of those two press interviews, in 1971 with Sounds magazine. He had champions in the celebrated producer Joe Boyd and in the Velvet Underground's John Cale, who had insisted on working with him, but it wasn't enough. Drake became seriously depressed and returned to live with his parents, telling his mother "I've failed in every single thing I've ever tried to do". He saw psychiatrists, spent five weeks in a psychiatric facility and was even treated with electroconvulsive therapy.

Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack review – folk’s

I hope you can perhaps appreciate that the idea of having my music as a ‘vacation hobby’ for another year-and-a-half is not a particularly happy one. It seems that Cambridge can really only delay me from doing what at the moment I most need to do.” He was so congenitally mellow that hanging out with the Rolling Stones seemed normal to him Julian Lloyd Raby Jan 16 - Put the correct solo section in "Things Behind The Sun" / Mar 16 - "Cello Song" made less rubbish But I doubt this very much and I would regard as far more likely reasons your reticence (which you must overcome), your difficulty in communicating (which you must overcome), and your reluctance to plunge in and have a go (which you conceal from yourself by self-persuasion that more solo practising and solo listening are required before the move is made) … If I am right in what I say, and the real trouble is that you have not yet overcome your weaknesses (and God knows we all have them), then you may well find that you have thrown over Cambridge simply to continue indefinitely on the outskirts of what you are looking for. After the VW advert, according to US music journalist Amanda Petrusich's 2007 book on Pink Moon, sales of the album "increased nearly 500% during the first 10 weeks of 2000, when Drake shifted more than 4,700 copies of Pink Moon, compared to 815 in the same period in 1999". The New York Times reported in 2001 that sales had jumped from about 6,000 copies a year to more than 74,000.This book is faultless in its detail, drawing on previously unseen family correspondence and the co-operation of Drake’s sister, the actress, Gabrielle, as well as the recollections of a compendious list of friends, musicians and fans, carefully taking the reader through the gestation and completion of virtually every song Drake recorded, and a few he didn’t. The Drake completist could ask for nothing more. And surely, nothing more of his brilliant and ultimately tragic life now needs to be said. Luxuriate in the body of his timeless work, and let him rest in peace. Pink Moon was the product of a period of intense, secretive songwriting, during which the singer’s behaviour became more erratic and his mental health deteriorated, much to the anguish of family and friends. It was a mark of the regard in which he was held by associates that the album was recorded with little warning, late at night, exactly as Drake prescribed by engineer/producer John Wood with no external input (the previous two LPs featured arrangements).

Nick Drake: The Biography by Patrick Humphries | Goodreads Nick Drake: The Biography by Patrick Humphries | Goodreads

Aug 07 - Tabs added for the "Far Leys" instrumental (appears on Family Tree as Sketch 1) and original guitar version of Made To Love Magic. But living alone in a barely furnished Hampstead bedsit – “like a cell, overlooking a neglected garden,” according to one visitor – he started slowly going to pieces, looking progressively more shabby, neglecting to wash his hair or clean his fingernails, passing his days playing the guitar, smoking joints, occasionally forraying out in search of a curry when he became hungry. Boyd had left Britain to take a job in America. Bereft of his guidance, Drake arranged with the engineer John Wood to record what would be his third and final album, the starkly beautiful Pink Moon, over just two sessions between 11pm and 2am. They were the only slots Wood could find, but Wood thought he would anyway get the best out of Drake when nobody else was there. “He wasn’t in good shape. He didn’t look healthy.” Like its predecessors, the album vanished leaving barely a trace. The last third of the book is difficult to read – through no fault of the author’s, but because Drake’s final months are chronicled almost day by painful day. There is no ending other than that foretold. Every time I finished listening to the album, I felt really moved by From the Morning, which ends it. It sounds so hopeful. This is obviously just my interpretation but it feels as though it’s about striving to live and appreciate life. It really resonated with me."The headstone on Drake's grave in St Mary Magdalene churchyard, Tanworth-in-Arden, is inscribed with a From the Morning lyric. It says: "Now we rise and we are everywhere". Drake's intended meaning may be uncertain but the line is certainly true of his fans.

Nick Drake, the most mythologised man in music The truth about Nick Drake, the most mythologised man in music

Fortunately, one of those which accepted the offer was the Koutoubia Palace, Tangier’s most exclusive nightspot, which is done up in the style of a Moorish palace. I couldn’t help feeling a little out of place, but all the same I played for about quarter of an hour. The reception was extraordinarily good and we all got stood rounds of drinks, which was rather pleasant.” This book filled in lots of gaps although I now understand how many questions have remained unanswered. I liked the approach of the author in avoiding more myth building and attempting to recognise the human achievements of this exceptional musician. That may have upset some worshippers but I think it was a fair and balanced approach. Drake is now ensconced in myth as a doomed poet whose life ended at 26 through an overdose of antidepressants. Previous biographies and documentaries have given thorough accounts of his life and work, including one in 2014 by his sister, Gabrielle Drake, the actor. The work of their mother, Molly Drake, has been folded into the story. Her son had grown up to the sound of Molly composing songs at the piano; there are resonances in their bodies of work. The first two – Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter – sold only modestly, around 5,000 copies each, making Drake, who had depression, retreat into himself even further. He felt Wood was one of the few people he could trust. “One day,” recalls Wood, “he just rang up and said he wanted to go into the studio.”So it is that Drake has gone from relative obscurity during his lifetime to appearing on the cover of music magazines, being the subject of a Radio 2 documentary presented by Brad Pitt, and having his music appear in mainstream Hollywood movies such as A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood and hit TV shows such as Normal People. He's even had a beer named after one of his songs by a Californian craft brewery. On the morning of the 25th November, he was found, lifeless, on his bed. At the coroner’s inquest, a pathologist stated that he had found evidence in Drake’s body of “a serious overdose”. The verdict was suicide.