Nick Drake: The Life

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He was convinced straight away that this was a rare talent, and has openly said that he doesn’t understand why others didn’t feel the same way. Having established that they were staying in an old French colonial hotel, La Mamounia, they went there that evening. AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: My father-in-law was at school with Nick at Marlborough and doesn’t remember a single thing about him. The sadness inherent in the music had been veiled behind beautiful arrangements and an intriguing voice that drew you in.

It wasn’t a diary that he was writing of old – he started it in March 1972 because he recognised that Nick’s illness was severe and that it was, as he put it in one of his entries, ‘going to be a long job’ (which I used as one of the chapter titles). He knew that he couldn’t make Bryter Layter whilst at Cambridge, especially in his third year when he had finals and would have to do a bit of work: he couldn’t just keep coasting and expect to get through his finals. RU: Although Boyd and Drake worked really well together, it was like most producer-artist relationships, they had some disagreements which might have led to better results. RU: Before his musical career, in the school reports, the image of Nick is of someone very reticent and almost passive, so it was surprising to me in the book to learn that he had a fierce streak of ambition. RU: Another one – which appeared in the most unlikely place, a teen-oriented magazine, and contained some useful information.It was around double the length of the published version, and eliminating material from it was, I thought, going to be impossible because it was so intertwined. After I had been turned down very politely, Bob [Drake’s friend Rick Charkin, so nicknamed because he was thought to resemble Bob Dylan], whose nerves seem to stop at nothing, proceeded to ring up the Stones’ suite and ask if they might be wanting a little musical entertainment! There’s enough material on it with a sunny, radio-friendly quality for it plausibly to have broken through and made an impact. But speaking about Nick, I think it’s interesting to speculate, as a fantasy: had he been willing to play a concert in September, October 1974 and a promoter had said, ‘Yeah, sure’, what would the take-up have been?

Having discussed the matter at length with [his wife] Molly, Rodney sent him a considered reply the following week.And a final thing: Joe Boyd deserves an enormous amount of credit for making sure that Nick’s records were still in print, and that a boxed set was still in print. Listening to Neil Young, listening to Bob Dylan, listening to Joni Mitchell, listening to Nick Drake, it was all the same by then, in the UK at least. But I think Nick was probably quite a maddening person to be involved with as a young… well, he was always young, sadly, but as a teenager, because he obviously had talents, he obviously had abilities, he was charismatic and younger people respected him at school, this was recognised, he was a good leader and so on. I found it very interesting to read about the recording of his three albums, Five Lea

After interviewing them all I didn’t have to work out who to believe and how to navigate different versions of events. Morton Jack's book dispels the myth that he was always a depressive loner (though that is what he became in his last 3 years, his illness related in excruciatingly painful detail in the final chapters). It’s notable that – albeit egged on by his friends – Nick had the confidence to perform spontaneously. RMJ: I think the most important assumption or rumour about Nick that I wanted to clarify is the extent to which he took drugs. It’s not an easy read and I don’t think much would be gained from it being published in full, really.The reception was extraordinarily good and we all got stood rounds of drinks, which was rather pleasant.