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Nicholas Rodney Drake was born on June 19th 1948 in Rangoon, Burma to Rodney and Molly Drake. His father had been working as a diplomat in Burma and had stayed on. His mother was a keen musician and songwriter and was often playing songs on the piano. Nick Drake's older sister Gabrielle went on to become an actress and played Lieutenant Gay Ellis in the sci-fi series UFO. |
Having moved briefly to Bombay, the Drakes settled back in England in Tanworth-in-Arden, a small village south of Birmingham. Nick was four years old. He appears to have been an excellent student at prep school, and later at public school in Marlborough, where he began playing the guitar. After Marlborough, he began reading English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University.
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Whilst at Cambridge, Nick was performing his songs at various local venues. It was at a charity gig at the Roundhouse in Camden that Ashley Hutchings from Fairport Convention saw Nick play. He introduced him to the producer Joe Boyd - who signed him to Witchseason Productions, which was afilliated with Chris Blackwell's Island Records. In 1968, work began on the first album, Five Leaves Left. |
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Five Leaves Left was released in 1969. It had received some good reviews but did not sell very well, mainly due to Nick's reluctance to promote the album by playing live after some bad gigs. However, work began on the follow-up album, Bryter Layter.
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Nick was now living in London, having left Cambridge without finishing his degree. The sound of the big city can be heard in the songs on this album, together with the prominent influence of John Cale, who played on many of the tracks. The album was released in 1970. |
Again, mainly due to a lack of promotion, Bryter Layter failed to sell in any great quantity. This possibly contributed significantly to Nick's already very apparent difficulties with depression.
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The third album, Pink Moon, is clearly not commercial at all. Very short and very bleak, it is just a recording of Nick on his own. When it was released in 1974, it went largely un-noticed. Nick appeared to retreat further into himself, becoming more depressed and isolated. |
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Two years later, Nick returned to the studio one final time to record five new songs - four of these were posthumously released on Time Of No Reply in 1979. By the time of recording in 1974, Nick had returned to his parents' house and had been prescribed antidepressants to help control his mental state.
On 25th November 1974, Nick Drake died from an overdose of his prescribed medication. Whether it was accidental or suicide is still a matter of some speculation. He was 26.
After Nick's death, the records started selling at a steadily increasing rate. This prompted Island to issue the Fruit Tree box-set in 1979, which included the three albums plus Time of No Reply (a collection of some early recordings, out-takes and four of the last songs from the 1974 session).
A couple of compilation albums followed, including Heaven In A Wildflower - An Exploration Of Nick Drake in 1985, and Way To Blue in 1994. There are also a few bootleg albums available of recordings made at his parents' house in Tanworth-in-Arden.
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In 2000, a short film was made about Nick's life (A Skin Too Few), and there have been a number of subsequent documentaries. The most notable of these was a BBC Radio 2 documentary entitled Lost Boy - In Search Of Nick Drake which was presented by Brad Pitt! There are around half a dozen tribute albums in existence, of varying quality. The recent album of out-takes, Made To Love Magic (2004), introduces the "lost" song Tow The Line from the 1974 sessions to an ever-increasing army of fans... |