Nick Drake: The Life

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This painfully taciturn man lived for 26 years, the first three quarters in smooth upper-middle-class transit from early childhood in newly independent Burma through the English private school system to Cambridge, despite academic mediocrity.

Nick Drake: The Biography by Patrick Humphries | Goodreads Nick Drake: The Biography by Patrick Humphries | Goodreads

The author interviewed 200 people from all areas of Drake’s life and was given access to his family's private papers. The diaries chronicle the years of Nick’s depression at Far Leys, often uncommunicative, often disappearing without saying a word. In these exclusive extracts, we see the light and shade of Drake: his problems are laid bare, but so is his exquisite artistry. I think Nick’s sister Gabrielle gave permission and was willing to collaborate with me because a lot of the people who knew Nick are inevitably now in their 70s or older, and with them would die a lot of interesting and valid history,” he explains.It was a bit inconvenient to have to Google song lyrics to see what was being referred to at times, but I know that's not the author's fault as it was a legal issue.

‘I thought: This boy’s gone, we can’t reach him any more

Since his untimely death at the age of twenty-six in late 1974, the cult surrounding Nick Drake and his brief yet exquisitely beautiful discography continues to grow. Previous biographies and documentaries have given thorough accounts of his life and work, including one in 2014 by his sister, Gabrielle Drake, the actor.Morton Jack’s book is the first of its kind to be written in tandem with Drake’s family and seeks to bring an equal measure of light and shade to an English musical figurehead who has become uniquely mythologised.

Nick Drake: Why the mysterious British music icon who died Nick Drake: Why the mysterious British music icon who died

One of his gifts, I think, was the innate soulfulness of not just the lyrics and of his voice, but also of his chord changes.

The truth about Nick Drake, the most mythologised man in music A new authorised biography aims to tell the definitive story of the elusive musician. Humphries' dismisses the notion that Drake's decline was due solely to his lack of commercial success, and instead draws a more balanced conclusion lacking in both the speculation and romanticism prevalent among Drake's fanbase. This book wasn't so much bad as Nick Drake's life was so wildly unspectacular that there was hardly any story to tell/worth telling. Mostly Nick was uncommunicative and occasionally he’d become talkative and you hung on his every word even though, very often, one didn’t know what they meant because he’d talk in riddles.