Five Leaves Left ? Hard to believe the recording started July, 1968…. Final product, released over a year later. Even Sgt Pepper took six months.
For Iain Mathews and Plainsong fans....BIG news! In Search Of Plainsong In Search of Plainsong : Route Online New book! By Ian Clayton In the autumn of 1972, Plainsong released their beautiful debut album In Search of Amelia Earhart. It was the height of the golden era of English folk rock. The record received universal critical acclaim for its musicianship and sublime singing, but just three months after its release the group disbanded in acrimony. How could a group capable of such exquisite harmonies disguise such disharmony within themselves? In the fifty years that have followed the album’s release, what we know about the original incarnation of Plainsong has been shrouded in myth and misinformation. In Search of Plainsong tells the true story of the group and their classic album for the first time. It is a cautionary tale told through the voices of the key protagonists and those who were lucky enough to see Plainsong in full flight or bought the album first time round. In Search of Amelia Earhart remains a folk-rock classic. For those who don’t know it, it might just be the greatest debut album you never heard. ‘A group that doesn’t come up and sock you in the eye, all decibels blaring, but kind of sneaks up and insinuates itself into your psyche almost before you have begun to notice it. By that time you are hooked by its gentle genius.’ – Karl Dallas, Melody Maker ‘In Search of Amelia Earhart is, and let us not mince words, the finest display of gentle, sometimes liltingly so, English folkiness and rockabilly to surface in a long while.’ Cameron Crowe, San Diego Door ‘A startlingly fine album.’ Charles Shaar Murray, NME Foreword by Clinton Heylin This book will go on general release in Autumn 2022, but we will be releasing advanced copies of special signed and numbered Deluxe Edition in Spring 2022 exclusively from this website. The Deluxe Edition comes with a CD of a previously unheard Plainsong concert, recorded at the Folk Fairport cafe in Amsterdam in April 1972. (More on CD here)
Iain Matthews was sure busy post Fairport founding/recording with various groups... as was Ashley Hutchings. Plainsong was a bit like Sandy Denny's Fotheringay in that they had started on a second album but it was not completed but was there was did get released long afterward on CD (also some BBC stuff). That book is a great idea! Lucky to see it get done.
This surprising cover of Nick Drake by an early music ensemble is brilliant. Taken from the Album"Requiem for a Pink Moon" by Ensemble Phoenix Munich. Is there anyone that he didn't influence?
River Man has always been a favorite with its cool classic jazzy notes and feel. Brad Mehldau (Trio) gives it the piano jazz treatment it deserves in an instrumental cover.
Yes indeed...I've shared them doing Nick before but well worth a revisit... Here is the above with an introduction on the genesis - An Elizabethan Tribute to Nick Drake (1948-74)
The vocalist is stunning in is treatment of Pink Moon & Horn. Pink Moon & Horn - Nick Drake / Ensemble Phoenix Munich: Requiem for a Pink Moon
"This is a song that I wrote for Nick..." Ocean - Joel Frederiksen / Ensemble Phoenix Munich: Requiem for a Pink Moon Live concert "Requiem for Pink Moon", An Elizabethan Tribute to Nick Drake (1948-74). This is a song that I wrote for Nick, reflecting on some of his themes and on his life. I think of it as going full-circle.... In this program we sing Elizabethan songs, combine and re-define them with or beside Nick's songs, and with this piece I wanted to give back something new.
Thanks Lemonade kid A great jazz interpretation. I don’t know what it is about Riverman, but every time a hear those first few bars, I tear up slightly - surely one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.
Nick Drake & Despair In this follow up post to that of the insights of Anthea Joseph, I wish to present the writing of William Styron to best express the malady that an “already damaged” Nick Drake was experiencing to varying degrees when entering the studio for all three and a half records. Also, as a person who has suffered long through the malady in its most unforgiving, I feel the words of Styron in his book Darkness Visible are representative of that which is frightfully hard to put into words... “Of the many dreadful manifestations of the disease, both physical and psychological, a sense of self-hatred – or put less categorically, a failure of self-esteem – is one of the most universally experienced symptoms, and I had suffered more and more from a general feeling of worthlessness as the malady progressed” pg 3 “Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self – to the meditating intellect – as to verge to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode, although the gloom, “the blues” which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of everyday existence are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the inllness in its catastrophic form” pg 5 “Gloom cowering in on me, a sense of dread and alienation and, above all, stifling anxiety” pg9 “Of its most famous and sinister hallmarks: confusion, failure of mental focus and lapse of memory” pg12 “I fell onto the bed and lay gazing at the ceiling, nearly immobilized and in a trance of extreme discomfort. Rational thought was usually absent from my mind at such times, hence trance. I can think of no more opposite word for this state of being, a condition of helpless stupor in which cognition was replaced by that “positive and active anguish.” And one of the most unendurable aspects of such an interlude was the inability to sleep… the disruption of normal sleep patterns is a notoriously devastating feature of depression; to the injurious sleeplessness with which I had been afflicted each night was added the insult of this afternoon insomnia, diminutive by comparison but all the more horrendous because it struck during the hours of the most intense misery” pg 15&16 “Failure of even forced laughter and, at last, virtually total failure of speech. At this point the ferocious inwardness of the pain produced an immense distraction that prevented me my articulating words beyond a hoarse murmur; I sensed myself turning wall-eyed, monosyllabic…” pg 17 “It’s quite natural that people closest to suicide victims so frequently and feverishly hasten to disclaim the truth; the sense of implication, of personal guilt – the idea that one might have prevented the act if one had taken certain precautions, had somehow behaved differently – is perhaps inevitable. Even so, the sufferer – whether he has actually killed himself or attempted to do so, or merely expressed threats – is often, through denial on the part of others, unjustly made to appear a wrongdoer” pg 29 “The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne… through the healing process of time – and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases – most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer” pg 32
For those who love Nick's English pastoral folk song stylings...Scott Mathews is a fine one to explore. Scott Matthews is an English singer-songwriter from Wolverhampton, England.[1] Home Part 1 is the fourth studio release from Matthews. The album is the first to be recorded entirely by Matthews in his home studio. What the Night Delivers features guest performances by double bassist Danny Thompson (whom Matthews met whilst performing in Joe Boyd’s stage production of Way to Blue-The Songs of Nick Drake) and regular contributing musicians, Sam Martin, Danny Keane and Scott's brother, Darren Matthews who plays piano on two tracks; "The Clearing" and "The Night is Young". The album was followed by Home Part 2 in September 2016, released via Scott's own label Shedio Records. Tracks include "Black Country Boy", the title of which references the Black Country region of the West Midlands. The album was produced by Scott. Dear Angel from Home Part 1....ahhhh, so fine.
Scott Matthews, Elusive New album THE GREAT UNTOLD -- Released Spring 2018 on Scott's own Shedio Records label.
Don't know if it's already been posted but there's an authorised biography due in Sept according to Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-Drake...ords=nick+drake&qid=1647888656&s=books&sr=1-3
I have seen it noted by a few individuals but not in biographies etc that there seems a strong likelihood that Nick Drake was on the autistic spectrum. And he lived in a time where this wouldn't be understood and I think he lived in a world that he simply didn't fully understand. I am almost certainly convinced this was the case and that really he was extremely unlucky in how things went for him and this compounded into a horrible downward spiral.