17 April 2010

Occasionally, little gems appear on TV and one discovers them by accident. Last night BBC 4 showed a documentary about young British singer/songwriter Nick Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974). Here’s a brief bio of the artist:

Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums - Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Despite this, he was able to gather a loyal group of fans who would champion his music. One such person was his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records that ensured Drake’s records would never go out of print. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972’s Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents’ home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.

The documentary was brief, informative, sensitive and beautifully filmed. In the above bio we are informed that he was reluctant to perform live, but from the documentary we learnt why. He had set out on an extensive tour but was (understandably) unhappy that people chatted while he played. He eventually cut his tour short and, it seems, never played live again. My wife and I would pay weekly visits to a friend’s flat in Mount Street, London. It was during one of those visits that we saw and chatted to Gabrielle Drake whom we recognised as an actress that had appeared on several TV dramas. Our friend followed and taught the beliefs of George Gurdjieff (”Gurdjieff’s teachings were transmitted through special conditions and through special forms leading to consciousness: Group Work, physical labor, crafts, ideas exchanges, arts, music, movement, dance, adventures in nature…, enabled the unrealized individual to transcend the mechanical, acted-upon self and ascend from mere personality to self-actualizing essence“) and we would meet regularly in a quest for self-awareness with other friends. During the documentary it emerged that Gabrielle was Nick Drake’s older sister which I had not realised, but thinking back we met her at around the time her brother died, and so she may have visited Gerald (our friend) for help to come to terms with her loss. I cannot of course be sure of this, but I found her the most gentle and friendly of people, and very beautiful.

I came across Nick Drake’s music several years after his death but hadn’t realised just how relevant it was to the young man’s life, character and inner demons. During the documentary Gabrielle described how her brother couldn’t understand why the media’s acclaim hadn’t translated into greater success (”If I’m so brilliant, why don’t people buy my records?”). His reponse was to withdraw into his shell, unable to tackle the ‘problem’ face on. Back in 2001, JJ and I interviewed Matthew Jay (10 October 1978 – 25 September 2003), a young British singer / songwriter,  who also met an untimely, and as yet, unexplained death at his home in Nottingham. Jay had been compared to Nick Drake and was certainly influenced by him. In 2003 he parted company with his record company, EMI, which may indicate that sales had not been as expected despite wide acclaim for his debut album, DRAW.

Jeff Buckley’s GRACE fell well short of Columbia’s sales target which placed massive pressure on him to deliver a ’seller.’ Two things strike me when considering the demise of such great, young talent: The manner they were treated by their record companies, and the level of airplay they deserved but probably never received (which of course would have restricted awareness and sales).  Now all three deaths may well have been accidental, or at least suicide was not the intention. Gabrielle Drake’s take on her brother was that he swallowed a handfull of perscribed pills, rather like tossing a coin, leaving it to the Gods whether he survived or not. Jay apparently fell from his apartment balcony and Buckley waded into a rubbish-filled, muddy tributary of the Mississipi for a late-night swim. Perhaps they all gambled and lost…