Loving scrapbook270 pages long Patrick Humphries collects in this 1997 biography all he could find about the singer songwriter and put it together: anecdotes of rare performances, descriptions of ads in music magazines, a solid and complete discography, he talks with Francoise Hardy about her contact with Nick Drake and discusses every release (unfortunately only 3 albums of course) but also the records that are in the Island catalog numbered before and after Drakes albums! Humphries has an incredible eye for (sometimes seemingly unimportant) details and that has 1 cause and 1 effect. The main cause is that a number of very important people who knew Nick would or could not participate in this book. Nick's parents were deceased, Nicks sister did not want to participate and the same was true for producer Joe Boyd. Moreover, he wasn’t permit to use the lyrics of Nicks songs in the book. Definitely one shortcoming.This clearly did not deter the author, but did lead to the following effect: this book is above all (perhaps even exclusively) a book for fans of Nick Drake.It is bland and too easy to write only about what a book ISN’T. So…..The very first biography ever of Nick Drake really does have something to offer. In particular, the school period until his departure to London is an extremely readable part. Not only because of the (unexpected) picture of Nick outlined, but also because it pictures nicely how it was to grow up as a teenager in rural England in the 60's. The descriptions of Tanworth-in-Arden, where he grew up and died, are particularly excellent. A stark contrast to the somewhat meager passages about London, although it probably has to do with a lack of first-hand stories.Humphries writes with love about Nick Drake and makes (at the end of the book) it crystal clear that he doesn’t want to cooperate with the existing myths about Nick Drake: the brilliant artist who was depressed all the time and ultimately couldn’t escape his fatal end. Humphries shows a different and surprising side of Nick in his teens (funny, great athlete, etc.) that is at odds with the standard story. Unfortunately, Humphries can’t pinpoint in the end exactly what led to Nicks change in character. Was it drugs? Lack of success? Depression? A deadly cocktail of those 3? Or was there something else?On page 192 is a shocking story about Nick Drake that is exemplary for this book.Nick meets a girl into a house full of heroin addicts somewhere in 1974. He's clearly lost himself, when he is saying to her: "You remember me. You remember me how I was. Tell me how I was. I used to have a brain. I used to be somebody. What happened to me? What happened to me? "One of the many many anecdotes in this book, all lovingly collected by Patrick Humphries.That said, this story was already once published in 1975, in the NME, written by Nick Kent.
Ok, well may start by saying that while Patrick Humphries is a perfectly competent writer, I thoroughly believe that, (A) He knows nothing about Nick or his music and had absolutely no passion for the man or his music. And (B) He has done little or no research for this book. The content of this book seems to be largely the same tired old rehashed "Nick Drake was a legendary tortured soul who disappeared in to a world that didnt understand him" nonsense. What everyone seems to forget is that Nick was a person like everybody else. And i would say he is one of the few people that actually died before they had a chance to be really massively famous, who actually deserves the adulation they currently recieve today (the other being Jeff Buckley). So in closing i would say that this is obviously a book directed at Nick drake fans, but unless you know absolutely nothing about him, steer well clear of this one, because it wil tell you nothing you didnt already know.
Do You like book Nick Drake: The Biography (1999)?
I didn't actually like this book at all. It's hard to "like" books about nice young men from ordinary backgrounds who happen to be brilliant musicians and also suicidally depressed and so kill themselves. It's a perfectly fine book, but it proves two things very conclusively: 1)people who make beautiful music don't necessarily have exciting lives and 2)depression and suicide are not interesting, glamorous or romantic, they're just miserable and tragic. Not that I personally needed to have the latter fact confirmed, but if you do, here's the book for you.
—Polly
as someone coming at Nick Drake quite late on and with no real conception of the life the artist led apart from articles that talk of a doomed soul I found this book illuminating and of interest.to look at Nick as constantly tortured seems to neglect some early years of happiness which also made the man what he was and this book does a good job of unlocking the early years through archive family interviews plus interviews with peers both in the music business an in Nick' s life growing up.it has little new to offer from his family as at the time of th book going ahead I understand Nick' s parents had passed on and his sister withdrew from interviews as the author had interviewed Gabrielle before for a magazine publication he was able to include her and Nick' s parents voices within the wealth of information.the picture of Drake is a complex one here is someone who sought fame in his lifetime yet seemed to eschew the pursuit of it in the traditional sense thus always remaining a figure on the edges rather than centre stage.apart from one compilation I owned very little of Nick Drake' s material prior to this book,due to the enthusiasm of the author I have since bought more as the tales of how the three albums were created suggest an interesting and fairly diverse body of work for such what remains a small amount of released and available material.
—Andrew
Nick Drake is in the top 10 of my all time favorite singer-songwriters. 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. You can take a song like "Saturday Sun" and play it in a blues and contemporary gospel vein (as I do) and not have to do much in the way of chord substitution. The blue notes and the funk are already built into the chord changes of the song. I love him for that. I adore his use of really flavorful diminished and half diminished chords in many of his compositions. He always seemed to know the exact perfect moment to use them. The folk-sters claim Drake big time, but so do we funk-sters. This is book is well-researched. I appreciated reading about his university days, hearing about the germination of songs I love so much, and getting the perspective of his long suffering parents, but the book's subject still proves fairly elusive by the end. Each time I re-read this, I'm always sad all over again that the mental health resources that are so ubiquitous and considerably less tinged with stigma today were not really available to him.
—Philly Aesthete Brown
