Nick Drake

Karl
Not sure if it is still in print but I got a Japanese SHM multi-disc cd set which is exceptional.

Hi

Thanks for all the advise.

I have ordered Way to Blue (SHM) CD, and Around in Circles. I will listen to these first then decide on the Fruit Tree box set (cheapest I have seen so far sealed is £60 +pp).


Cheers Karl

What is this, virtually reverence, when it comes to Drake?

There have been any amount of singer-songwriters over the years, what makes him so special? I've heard some of songs but he's just another one to my ears.

Roy Harper, yep. John Martyn, great. Bob Dylan, obviously. Karine Polwart, sure. Drake? Nope...

steve

You might like to look at this past thread Nick Drake 200gm Japanese Vinyl Re-pressings.

I particularly remember with great affection a lovely afternoon at tonym's geekily comparing several different vinyl versions!

James

If I were going to buy some Nick Drake albums then I'd buy

Five Leaves Left
This is surely one the most complete and beautiful albums that any singer/songwriter ever made. It is simply outstanding. Of course Nick was not the best songwriter of all time, of course he was not the greatest singer, he probably wasn't even the greatest guitarist (though I'm not sure about that - his guitar playing is certainly among the best to listen to - think Robert Johnson meets Bert Jansch), but put the parts together and the sum is far greater. Hardly any of his songs come from the University of Life (which we can all be thankful for), the characters in his songs are in his mind, his invention and all the better for it. The songs just work - Fruit Tree, 'Cello Song , Time Has Told Me and River Man, but only when performed by Nick.

Bryter Layter
Almost as good as the above and strings that work. It also contains the songs Hazy Jane I and Northern Sky and these are wonderful songs that seem timeless. Of Bryter Layter, producer Joe Boyd and engineer John Wood say it was the only perfect album they ever made and expected to make Nick a star. Nick's band are none other than Dave Pegg (bass), Dave Mattacks (drums), Richard Thompson (lead guitar) and John Cale (celeste, piano and organ).

Pink Moon
This is very hard to listen too. It is a stark album and you can tell something was going wrong in his life when he made the record. This is haunting elpee - just Nick on guitar and vocals, except for the opening track where he plays piano.

These are the three albums you should get - the rest are icing on the cake. You don't need Fruit Tree - although I have bought a copy myself (the day it came out), but then I'd buy anything by Nick Drake: I've never been disappointed. I bought the albums above while Nick was still alive back in the 70s - I wish a few more people had.

Nick was a solitary figure who spent the last years of his life in his room at his mother's home, but inside there was a true spark that led him to produce some of the greatest music ever recorded. He was never going to be a star as he hated performing, but his music will be around for a very long time.

Lifting the mask from from a local clown
Feeling down like him
Seeing the light in a station bar
And travelling far in sin
Sailing downstairs to the northern line
Watching the shine of the shoes
And hearing the trial of the people there
Who's to care if they lose.
And take a look you may see me on the ground
For I am the parasite of this town

ATB Rotf

Here's Hazy Jane I

John Martyn wouldn't claim to have recorded anything as great as Nick's three albums (I've heard him say as much in an interview) - he was Nick's best friend and wrote the superb Solid Air about Nick - yes I like JM and Dylan and Karine Polwart and hats off to Roy Harper, but give Nick Drake another listen, as I think you're missing out.

BTW Francis Rossi is a huge Nick Drake fan

Karl - CAIMAN__USA will supply the CD Fruit Tree box set at a much more reasonable price.

Karl, I'd get Five Leaves Left first, then Bryter Later.

quote:

Originally posted by Chief Chirpa:
Karl, I'd get Five Leaves Left first, then Bryter Later.

Munch, Paper Plane is perfectly entitled to his point of view.

This forum would soon die off if everyone thought the same, right? I hope you're joking.

Rotf, that wasn't a deliberate spelling mistake (by me, I mean) !

Layter,
CC

quote:

Originally posted by Chief Chirpa:
Rotf, that wasn't a deliberate spelling mistake (by me, I mean) !

Chief - I hadn't noticed the spelling - just noted that you had recommended exactly what I recommended - great minds and all that ....

ATB Rotf

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
... after Poland put us out of the World cup in 72

I just said Gertcha!

I don't think Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter were released on Island in the US (I believe they were released on the Antilles label a bit later)-- however, what was released was an album (one record LP) called Nick Drake (Island, pink rim) that included songs from Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter-- good mix of songs and it sounds great (and cheaper to buy than pink rim copies of Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter). I'm not generally a fan of greatest hits types of compilations, but this record is well worth obtaining.

Pink Moon was the first Nick Drake I ever heard and remains my favorite, but both the other albums are super in their own and different ways.

At any rate, any and all of these records are worth tracking down on vinyl. (The earlier pressings are Island pink rim, the later pressings Island blue rim, then there's the antilles and Hannibal pressings, and the more recent re-issues)

I've read that the Simply Vinyl pressings of Pink Moon aren't that great (compared to the others), but haven't listened to them myself.

quote:

Originally posted by munch:

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
You might like to look at this past thread Nick Drake 200gm Japanese Vinyl Re-pressings.

I particularly remember with great affection a lovely afternoon at tonym's geekily comparing several different vinyl versions!

James

James,
Was it not John/JN that got the Jap vinyl pressings first?
They are bloody good but as i said in the above post ,They are a lot of money.

It was a great party! Tony and Mrs (kind and excellent hosts as always) - Fruit Tree vinyl box set; JN - Japanese vinyl all three; GML - Aussie pressed Five Leaves; me - blue-rim Island Five Leaves and Simply Vinyl all three; and Michael with two family members.

It is amazing just how different the various pressings sounded - people outside (and some inside) our mad hobby just wouldn't believe it!

James

EDIT - PS Provny's point about the Simply Vinyl. For me, it is Five Leaves which is the least successful SV, and I prefer my bog-standard blue-rim Island pressing.

This is a picture of the Nick Drake album (mix of songs from Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter) that I had mentioned in my previous post:



side one:
'Cello Song
Poor Boy
At The Chime Of A City Clock
Northern Sky

side two:
River Man
Three Hours
One Of These Things First
Fly

I don't get this guy either. He's OK no more than that.
Saying that I think like a lot of genres where start and work your way through artists, there comes a point of perhaps saturation and the next artist along doesn't "do it " for you.
I have the same problem with many of the female singer songwriters others here like, I have sufficient, anyone trying to get in will have to be pretty special.

quote:

Originally posted by Paper Plane:
What is this, virtually reverence, when it comes to Drake?

There have been any amount of singer-songwriters over the years, what makes him so special? I've heard some of songs but he's just another one to my ears.

Roy Harper, yep. John Martyn, great. Bob Dylan, obviously. Karine Polwart, sure. Drake? Nope...

steve

I first discovered Nick Drake through Pink Moon in 1995-- a writer friend suggested I listen to him. Pink Moon truly was magical! What struck me when I listened to it was not only the fact that the music was so majestic-- great (though seemingly effortless) guitar playing and singing that served the music perfectly, but even more than that-- was the sense that I was listening to pure expression-- the music sounded so unselfconscious, so egoless-- he was expressing what he was expressing, but with no artifice-- he gently gave the music its shape, its form-- what it needed in order to be expressed, but nothing more-- there's was nothing forced or contrived, nothing showy. It was like the music was shining down from heaven, and Nick Drake, although he was the one who was conveying it, wasn't doing anything to get in the way of it.

I listened to the CD over and over, then rushed out to get another copy of it, which I mailed to another writer friend, who was in an MFA program at the time and who was generally hard to impress (at least I didn't have much success impressing her). Anyway, I called her a short time after sending her the CD, and asked her what she thought of it. She said once she put it on and began listening, she was completely enthralled-- and listened to the CD all the way through, eleven times in a row...

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
...
Good to see you are back to your old self, without the Flu man...

Hallelujah!

quote:

Pink Moon
This is very hard to listen too. It is a stark album and you can tell something was going wrong in his life when he made the record. This is haunting elpee - just Nick on guitar and vocals, except for the opening track where he plays piano.

I am a recent convert to Nick Drake.

I was playing Pink Moon the other day. Mrs S was in the room and said "What's this? It's not like your normal funereal stuff".

Keith James and Rick Foot are touring 'The Songs of Nick Drake'. Googling 'the songs of nick drake tour' will get their itinerary. I can recommend it. I'm going to the Lowry on Saturday.

Munch,
A few thoughts on your somewhat aggressive comments.
1. My remarks were made to the Forum in general. Not knowing you, I was unaware that Mr Drake was a personal friend of yours.
2. Your, to my mind, overreaction actually proves my surmise about the reverence issue. I was not “slagging him off” or intending to ‘dis’ (whatever that means, disparage maybe?). I merely said that I didn’t understand why he is held in such esteem.
3. Everyone has their own opinions; as someone once said they are like ars*h*l*s, everybody has one. The measured response of ROTF is more the sort of thing I expected from Forum members and, as such, is more likely to have an effect.
4. I will readily admit that I’ve never really been a fan of the “acoustic guitar playing singer-songwriter” genre. In the course of my work I have to listen to an awful lot of them and the emphasis is on the word awful.
5. Not that I’m immune to beauty in music such as in, say, Arvo Part, Miles Davis or Beethoven, it’s just that dolorous introspection has never been my bag. At heart I guess, in the words of the late Phil Lynott, I’m A Rocker. Perhaps that explains it.
6. I’m speculating that you have “grown up” listening to Drake’s music and any such material will have a meaning to you that it might not do to others. Myself, and possibly others here, are coming at it from a different angle, a, dare I say it, “intellectual” angle rather than the emotional one of yourself.
7. Along those lines, there is another issue. I am far to old to have any connection with existential teenage (for want of a better term) angst, so I am unlikely to ‘get’ any music of that ilk. As a general rule I don’t ‘do’ miserablism.
8. When it comes to liking music I like to make up my own mind. I will not be told that “(insert artist name here) is the greatest thing you’ll ever hear!” My initial reaction to that is to ignore it completely and go and look for something else. OK, I may miss out on an artist but I would rather come to them on my own terms, thank you very much.
9. I could recommend music that, to my ears, is exciting/moving/fascinating/whatever but I’m not going to say “You must buy this album because I say so”. Let the listener decide for themselves. I happen to drive a Saab and would heartily recommend them but I’m not going to tell someone who prefers an Audi or a BMW they’re an idiot for doing so.
10. To conclude, in future I will take everything you say on the Forum with an industrial sized pinch of sodium chloride or, quite possibly, ignore it completely.

steve (composed to the sound of Duke Ellington/Johnny Hodges "Play The Blues".)

Well, at least you don't drive a Volvo......

I love the Drake albums, and dont give a stuff whether anyone agrees with me or not.

My next long haul flight is earmarked for me to finally finish off the remix I am working on of "Place to be". Am adding a walking string bass line, and a quiet brushes-on-sidedrum shuffle.

A good way to learn the amazing software that is Apple Logic...

Oh, and at 2 minutes 42 seconds, its waaaaay to short for what is one of the most beautiful songs ever.

quote:

Originally posted by Lark:
I am after some suggestions as to which Nick Drake I should buy on CD and vinyl.
Cheers Karl

Karl,

I'd just buy all 3 original albums on CD and be done (it's not like trying to navigate the Sun Ra catalogue...). I doubt that the medium would drastically alter whether like the music or not. The CDs will be a fiver each.

Personally, I think all of them excellent in their own ways.

Later perhaps investigate the vinyl copies and give the Cds aways as presents. This is the icin on the cake. FWIW I didn't rate the Japanese LPs very highly, finding them a little musically stilted compared to the Simply Vinyl equivalents.

HTH

Three of my favourite albums, he was so sensitive, probably far too sensitive. He is one of few artists not alive that I would love to have heard more of their work. Clearly a young man with horrendous depression, but who left us with beautiful music.

I came very late to Nick Drake, I think sometime in the 90's. I remember hearing a track on a late night Johnny Walker show and hunting his music down after that. I even remember the road I was on when I heard it on the car radio for the first time.

Very very special.

Diccus