Nick Drake (20 page)

Nick's parents also sensed a new alienation in their son, which they felt dated from his move to Haverstock Hill. Rodney:
‘Bryter Layter
he wrote in this room he took out in Hampstead. He shut himself off
in this room and it was rather difficult to get at him …' Molly: ‘We worried so much about him.'

Bryter Layter
drew reviews of the praiseworthy sort which generally attached themselves to Boyd-produced, Island Records releases. The reviews were respectful, if a little baffled: nobody seemed quite sure exactly what to make of Nick Drake.

It was little more than a year since Nick had dropped out of Cambridge, and he still kept in touch with university friends like Brian Wells: ‘I once asked him if he'd go on
Top Of The Pops
, and he said just: “No way.” I asked him a year later, and he said: “Yeah, why not?” I think he saw himself as part of a sort of James Taylor, Van Morrison movement rather than The Stones. People who emanated from Dylan, and folk and blues.'

Apart from the odd one-paragraph album review, music press interest in Nick Drake during his lifetime was focused in a single issue of
Sounds
, dated 13 March 1971. It cost 5p, and boasted ‘Music Is The Message'. Neil Young was on the cover, as were the names of Mike Vernon's Blues, Harvey Mandel, Graham Bond, Ian Matthews and Ric Grech. But for Nick's name you had to look inside, where as well as Jerry Gilbert's interview with Nick and his review of
Bryter Layter
, there was an ad for the album.

Gilbert was a leading writer on the folk scene at the time: ‘I joined MM late '69. I'd bought
Five Leaves Left
, and loved it. When
Bryter Layter
came out, it was a combination of that lush sound, the beautifully cultured songwriting, the open-tuned guitar, and I guess what became the Joe Boyd production sound.' By 1970 he had joined the fifth weekly music paper,
Sounds
, where he achieved the distinction of being the only journalist ever to interview Nick Drake.

The single-column interview, under the headline ‘Something Else For Nick?', began: ‘Nick Drake is a shy, introverted folk singer who is not usually known to speak unless it is absolutely necessary …' The page was swelled by a profile of Gerry Rafferty and a quarter-page ad for
‘Suicide
, an explosive new album from Stray'.

Through no fault of the writer, the interview revealed absolutely nothing about the artist; but as this was destined to remain the only interview Nick Drake ever gave, even the vaguest of answers are of interest. Asked why he shied away from live work, Nick replied: ‘I think the problem was with the material, which I wrote for records rather than performing. There were only two or three concerts that felt right, and there was something wrong with the others. I did play
Cousins and one or two folk clubs in the North, but the gigs just sort of petered out.'

Of recent appearances at prestigious venues like the Festival Hall, Nick explained: ‘I was under some obligation to do them, but it wasn't the end of the world when I stopped. If I was enjoying the gigs it would have made much more sense.' About the recently released
Bryter Layter
, he said: ‘I had something in mind when I wrote the songs, knowing that they weren't just for me. The album took a long time to do, in fact, we started doing it almost a year ago. But I'm not altogether clear about this album — I haven't got to terms with the whole presentation.'

The interview winds down with the perennial favourite about future plans: ‘I think there'll be another album and I have some material for it, but I'll be looking around now to see if this album leads anywhere naturally. For the next one I had the idea of just doing something with John Wood, the engineer at Sound Techniques.'

And did he plan any gigs to promote the album? ‘I don't think that would help — unless they were done in the right way. I'm just not very sure at the moment, it's hard to tell what will turn up. If I could find making music a fairly natural connection with something else, then I might move on to something else.'

Bryter Layter
was the thirteenth album reviewed in
Sounds
that week. It was a fairly quiet week for album releases, but there were compilations by The Rolling Stones, The Everly Brothers, Family, Dion, Procol Harum, T. Rex and The Move. Also considered were an Incredible String Band album, Tony Joe White's debut (‘swamp rock at its best'), and Barclay James Harvest's second album,
Once Again
.

In his review Jerry Gilbert wrote: ‘I get the feeling that only a Joe Boyd-Paul Harris alliance could have produced such a superb album as this. And once again a great slice of the credit must go to Robert Kirby, whose splendid arrangements are as noticeable on this album as they were on Nick Drake's last album. On their own merits, the songs of Nick Drake are not particularly strong, but Nick has always been a consistent if introverted performer, and placed in the cauldron that Joe Boyd has prepared for him, then things start to effervesce. Also joining guitarist Nick Drake on various tracks are Dave Pegg, Richard Thompson, Ray Warleigh, Mike Kowalski, Paul Harris, Ed Carter, Lyn Dobson, John Cale, Chris McGregor, Pat Arnold and Doris Troy; it seems nothing has been spared to make this album a success, and Joe Boyd and Nick Drake have certainly succeeded in their intentions.

‘There has been a long gap between Nick's first and second albums, and anyone who has seen Nick performing at Witchseason concerts in the interim will recognise tracks like “Hazey Jane”. And this, like all his songs, does take time to work through to the listener, with help from the beautiful backing which every track receives.'

David Sandison was now installed as Island's Head of Press, after a lengthy spell in PR: ‘I joined Island in early 1970. We had Traffic, Mott The Hoople, Free, Cat Stevens … And because Joe had gone back to the States, we were looking after the Witchseason lot. We had in total – sales, distribution, marketing, A&R and the studios – a staff of something like thirty people, and we had 5 per cent of the UK album market for three years on the trot.

‘When
Bryter Layter
came out, the response was good; doing the follow-up: Have you got the album? Yes. Have you heard it? Yes. The general consensus was that it was really nice. But in three years at Island, I only had one phone call for an interview with Nick, and that was Jerry Gilbert. He called and said: “Any chance of meeting him?” So I called Anthea, who said: “I doubt it, darling.” So I said: “Can you ask?” and she said: “I don't know where the hell he is.” She finally came back and said yes. Jerry had done a very complimentary review, I think, of
Five Leaves Left
. Nick was clearly aware of that, and he'd agreed.

‘We sweated through three-quarters of an hour trying to get three words out of him that weren't “yes” and “no” or “um”. It didn't strike me as depressive; it was just incredibly vague.'

Gilbert remembers the interview only too clearly: ‘It was 1971, it took place in a flat in Swiss Cottage. It was a reluctant interview on all parts: Nick clearly didn't want to do it, but had a new album out … You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife … Nobody wanted to do it. I was unhappy doing it because I knew Nick would be. I don't think he once looked me in the eye. The questions were stilted, I was desperately trying to draw something from Nick. Nothing he said was in any way positive or upbeat … I suppose the interview was exactly as I thought it would be.

‘He was stooped, I don't remember what he was wearing, he had long hair, which he played with all the time. His answers were mainly feed answers, monosyllabic. He would never develop a subject. It was almost as if he was denying his very existence. There was a great new album … Him and John and Beverley were obviously coming up, working a lot of the same shows together.

‘Normally in an interview, there's a bit of chat before and after the tape was rolling, but there was none of that with Nick. As a
professional journalist, I hope I had a way of making people feel at home, giving them easy questions to establish a common bond. But with Nick, there was never any kind of meeting of minds, it was just an interview that petered out, because in the end, there were no more questions. He wasn't giving. Probably, it was an interview that should never have taken place.

‘I'd love to say that when he walked into the room there was this huge charisma that came with him, but there was absolutely not… just a chap with his head down, stooped, very shy, very self-effacing, not wanting to talk much about himself, really uneasy. As you'd expect from a public-school, Cambridge background, he was a very well-spoken guy. He spoke very clearly, albeit into his body, instead of at me.'

Four months after
Bryter Layter
was officially released, Andrew Means reviewed it for
Melody Maker
: ‘This is a particularly difficult album to come to any firm conclusion on. For one thing, the reaction it produces depends very much on the mood of the listener. It's late night coffee 'n' chat music. The ten tracks are all very similar — quiet, gentle and relaxing. Nick Drake sends his voice skimming smoothly over the backing. The range of musicians used is apt to catch one unawares. Among the talents employed are Dave Pegg (bass) and Dave Mattacks (drums) both of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson (ld gtr) ex-Fairport, John Cale (celeste, piano and organ) ex-Velvet Underground, Ray Warleigh (alto sax), Chris McGregor (piano) and Pat Arnold and Doris Troy (backing vocals).' Note the oft-employed ‘list all the backing musicians trick', used by hard-pressed hacks when a half-page Groundhogs ad has dropped out and they are given half an hour to review an album by someone they've never heard of.

In the poppier
Record Mirror
, Lon Goddard was more convinced of Nick's abilities on
Bryter Layter
: ‘A beautiful guitarist – clean and with perfect timing – accompanied by soft, beautiful arrangements by Robert Kirby. Nick isn't the world's top singer, but he's written fantastic numbers that suit strings marvellously. Definitely one of the prettiest (and that counts!) and most impressive albums I've heard. Remember what Mason Williams did with “Classical Gas”? A similar concept here, but Nick does it better, it's refined. Happy, sad, very moving.'

Another contemporary review (probably from one of the hi-fi magazines) ran: ‘Nick Drake was discovered by Fairport Convention some time ago and
Bryter Layter
(Island ILPS 9134, £2.15) is his
second album. He sings his own very personal songs in a strange, deep vaseline voice, probably more suited to crooning, accompanied at times by a really funky backing. There's an amazing array of faces featured – Dave Pegg, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, Lyn Dobson playing flute on the title track, Chris McGregor and John Cale on lovely things like viola, harpsichord and celeste. An extraordinarily good hefty folk album. Quality – good. Value for money – good.'

Reading the music press of the time is to glimpse a world far removed from the artistic intensity and isolation of Nick Drake. As Nick persevered with his introspective and finely balanced balladry, the ‘serious' music papers – the fledgeling
Sounds
, the
NME
and jazz-heavy
Melody Maker
— were just beginning to sit up and take notice of the impact progressive rock was making, not only on the underground, but more significantly on the marketplace. The other two weeklies,
Disc & Music Echo
and
Record Mirror
, took their cue from the charts, paying only lip-service to the noises emanating from the underground.

Pete Frame remembers that when
Zig Zag
began in April 1969, the only music coverage was in the four weekly music papers: ‘The nationals didn't really write about pop. When Frank Zappa came to the Royal Albert Hall in September 1967, the
Guardian
did a review. The other papers weren't interested. There was a guy called Geoffrey Cannon on the
Guardian
who was quite hip — he was writing Velvet Underground articles for
Zig Zag
because no one else would take them.

‘Zig Zag
was intended to put a bit more weight into pop culture, into rock writing. I was a print freak. I'd read
Crawdaddy
. There were papers coming out of every city in America – the
LA Free Press
, the
San Francisco Oracle
, Atlanta's
Great Speckled Bird …
People were writing about these records as though they meant something, which of course they did. The music we were interested in was not just entertainment. We wanted it to be part of our lives … The pop papers in England did not understand that. They saw it as being entertainment… there was no kind of fanaticism or passion, none of that belief in a lifestyle.'

Leafing through
Melody Maker
around the time of the release of
Bryter Layter
makes for salutary reading. These were the days when Elton John was the opening act for Sandy Denny's Fotheringay; when you could see ‘Dave' Bowie at Acton's White Hall and Neil Young was being spoken of as ‘the American whom many feel will be the
superstar of the 70s'. These were the days when The Beatles were ‘considering' Lee Jackson (of The Nice) and Klaus Voorman as Paul McCartney's replacement, so that the group could continue; when Loudon Wainwright III was touted as ‘the new Dylan?'; John Lennon was in a ‘4-letter word row'; Ry Cooder was ‘the name to watch in 71'; and Lou Reed had quit the Velvet Underground ‘following a nervous breakdown'.

The eerie thing about skimming through those old copies of
Melody Maker
is the total and conspicuous lack of Nick Drake, as if someone had gone through the paper and excised his name from the yellowing pages. You would expect – if nothing else – to see details of live dates, announcements of tours, support acts, ticket prices, details of the new album … Even on the folk pages, Nick's name is absent – Mr Fox, Stefan Grossman, Ralph McTell, Humblebum Billy Connolly, Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra, Rab Noakes, Bridget St John, Midge & Clutterbuck are all present and correct, but no Nick.