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Nick Drake - Bio and Pics
Now through an unfortunate set of circumstances I have been turned on to Nick Drake. Heath Ledger's fascination intrigued me so I did a little research and listened to some sound clips of his songs. It sounds like the real deal and I will be purchasing some of his music. Below is a brief bio.
The following was culled from a variety of sources around the internet including wikipedia.org
Nicholas
Rodney Drake (Born June
19, 1948 – Died November 25, 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician
best known for his acoustic work on the guitar. Although he failed to find a
wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has grown steadily in stature,
to the extent that he now ranks among the most influential English
singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.
Drake
signed to Island Records when he was twenty years old, and released his debut
album Five Leaves Left in 1969. He recorded two other albums Bryter
Later in 1970 and Pink Moon in 1972, with little commercial success due in part
to his reluctance to perform live or be interviewed.
Drake battled with depression and insomnia throughout his life, and the topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Consider the following from his song Fruit Tree;
Safe in the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That's when they'll know what you're really worth
Forgotten while you're here
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 November 25, 1974, Drake died from an overdose
of the prescribed antidepressant, Amitriptyline. While listening to
classical music during one of his "up all night" insomnia sessions Nick
Drake mistook his bottle of anti-depressants with his bottle of sleeping
pills. One pill over the prescribed amount could be lethal. A
fact that no one cared to share with Nick or his parents.
By the
mid-1980s, Drake was being credited as an influence by contemporary artists. In
1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a
Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake.
In the
early 1990s Nick Drake was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush and The
Black Crowes. Drake's first biography was written in 1997, and was followed in
1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Amongst Us.
In
2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television
advertisement, and within one month Drake had sold more records than he had in
the previous thirty years.
Judging by the huge number of websites and fansites around the internet it is obvious that he does currently have quite the following. People talk about him with a huge amount of reverence that can not be attributed to many others.
In addition to being a tragic figure, he is a poetic figure and his memory
is touchingly romanticized by many. -----------------------------------------------
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