Nick Drake Appreciation - Album By Album & All Things Nick Drake*

Actually it wasn't on Pink Moon that Nick was unable to sing and play at the same time...Joe wasn't there for Pink Moon, he was in California at his new job. Nick didn't want Joe there. He wanted to do this one by himself without Joe's strong hand in the mix. Nick told John Wood he wanted to do a new album. John said let's get some musicians in. Nick quite vehemently said NO. This will be just me. John was skeptical but said ok.

Many months later it was Joe and John who brought Nick in to try to get Nick out of his deep depression and said: let's get you in for a session. It wasn't until then, at a midnight session, that they were quite shocked to find that Nick was in such a bad state that he couldn't play and sing at the same time. The midnight session was booked to save money as they weren't sure that Nick could pull it off and funding wasn't there for a new album. This session was, in a way, actually concocted by Joe and John to try to get Nick back out of his deep funk, for kind of therapy session as much as a recording session for a new album. Nick said I have these four new songs, sadly his last, for a new album...I think he really did want to come out of that deep dark fog...

 

In the film, Joe Boyd explicitly talks about being there at the session at which Nick couldn't do both at the same time. That's all I know!

 

I know and saw it too, but Joe was not involved in the Pink Moon Sessions at all. So it may have been out of context. John Wood said it was specifically at that last Black Eyed Dog sessions that Nick couldn't cut it. I'll have to check it all out again as I do not doubt you as to what Joe said. I remember also that bit by Joe but have since read more that discounts that being the Pink Moon sessions. Which makes sense. But since we weren't there we can only take what we hear and read decades later...with a grain of salt.

Some more help here from members please...?

 

No indication here that Nick was in such bad shape for Pink Moon...
Memories are a strange & fragile thing, Joe seems to have got it wrong.


"Drake appeared to have made a decision before recording his third album that it would be as plain as possible and free of the numerous guest musicians that had been employed on Bryter Layter. In his autobiography, Joe Boyd, producer of Drake's first two albums, remembered that as they were finishing the recording of Bryter Layter Drake had told him that he wanted to make his next record alone,[5] and in his only interview, published in Sounds magazine in March 1971, Drake told interviewer Jerry Gilbert that "for the next [album] I had the idea of just doing something with John Wood, the engineer at Sound Techniques".[6]

After a brief hiatus in Spain spent at a villa belonging to Island Records' head, Chris Blackwell,[7] Drake returned to London refreshed, and in October 1971 approached record engineer and producer John Wood.[2] Wood had worked with Drake on his previous two albums and was one of the few people Drake felt he could trust. Wood has worked with other artists such as Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens, and Pink Floyd, and he often worked in partnership with record producer Joe Boyd. Boyd produced Drake's first two albums with Wood acting as sound engineer. Although Wood primarily focused on the engineering of an album, he often contributed as a producer.

When Drake reached out to Wood in 1971 expressing his interest in recording another album, the ensuing process was significantly pared down compared to Drake's other two albums. The album was recorded at Sound Techniques studio in London in late October 1971 with just Drake and Wood present.[8]

The studio was booked during the day, so Drake and Wood arrived around 11:00 p.m. and simply and quietly recorded half the songs. The next night, they did the same. In only two late night sessions, with just his voice and acoustic guitar, Drake created what is considered by many to be one of the "most influential folk albums of all time".[9]

Contrary to popular legend that Drake dropped the album off in a plastic bag at Island Records' reception and then left without anyone realising, Drake delivered the master tapes of Pink Moon to Chris Blackwell at Island.[2] In an interview for the Nick Drake fanzine Pynk Moon in 1996, Island's press officer David Sandison recalled that Drake's arrival at the record company had certainly not gone unnoticed, although there had been no indication that he was delivering them a new album:

"I saw him in reception after I came back from lunch and I was talking to somebody and I saw a figure in the corner on the bench, and I suddenly realized it was Nick. He had this big, 15 ips [inches per second] master tape box under his arm, and I said 'Have you had a cup of tea?' and he said 'Erm, yes', and I said 'Do you want to come upstairs?' and he said 'Yes, okay'. So we went upstairs into my office, which was on top of the landing, it was a landing that went into the big office with a huge round table where Chris and everybody else worked—very democratic—and there was a big Reevox (sic) and sound system there, and he just sat in my office area for about half an hour ... After about half an hour he said 'I'd better be going', and I said 'Okay, nice to see you', and he left. Now, he went down the stairs and he still had the tapes under his arm, and about an hour later the girl who worked behind the front desk called up and said 'Nick's left his tapes behind'. So I went down and it was the big sixteen-track master tape and it said NICK DRAKE PINK MOON, and I thought 'that's not an album I know'. The first thing to do was get it in the studio to make a seven and a half inch safety copy, because that was the master. So we ran off a safety copy to actually play, and I think twenty four hours later or so, it was put on the Reevox in the main room and we heard Pink Moon."[10]

The tapes of the Pink Moon session also included Drake's recording of "Plaisir d'amour" (translated from French as "The Pleasure of Love"), a classical French love song written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini. Although "Plaisir d'amour" was on the track listing of the Pink Moon master tape box as the first track of Side Two, when the tapes were presented they included a note in reference to the song which read, "Spare title – Do not use",[11] so the song didn't make it onto the album. The recording was less than a minute long, featured guitar with no vocals, and was eventually included as a hidden track on UK editions of the Nick Drake compilation A Treasury (2004). Had "Plaisir d'amour" been included on the Pink Moon album, it would have been the only song on any of his albums that Nick Drake did not write himself."
-wiki sources are annotated so it seems correct.

 

Short thread, sadly locked.

 

Wouldn’t somebody from Island not pick up PM master tape. Seems odd the master tape ( Island‘s property) is handed over to ND, starry eyed ( not laughing ).

Also, did Nick pick up his weekly retainer( Joe Boyd now in America) £££ from Island office ?

 

You are a very kind-hearted person, thank you very much for providing this information! You may be pleased to hear that I have snapped up an Ariston Acoustics Compact Disc Player Model: CDX – 720 [£20!], which has RCA jacks only! This should arrive during next week.
I have commemorated today by changing my Avatar image to reflect the first CD I have purchased [£2], and it also being eponymous for my introduction to Nick Drake in 2004, which changed my life forevermore.



I very much look forward to reconciling them both and hearing Way To Blue all the way through for the first time in 16 years.

 

Glad I could help-- so you needed an RCA jack unit too. You should get fine sound reproduction from the unit and here's to a fine time listening to Way To Blue.



Here's to a pint and a toast to fine music!

 

That was a pretty casual recording session between Nick and John, so the handing over of the tapes to Nick seems to be also. Maybe John felt he needed to empower Nick with the responsibility, and respecting that it was Nick who instigated the whole recording process...unlike the previous two records that were pretty much directed and controlled by Joe.

Still, as you said, strange and taking quite a chance with such precious cargo. Not because it was Nick, but just because...who does that? Hard to imagine very many artists placed in such a position of responsibility. To my mind it was like delivering gold bars to Fort Knox...in the most casual way imaginable!

 

Indeed, Nick was able to have his vocal and guitar lines recorded at the same time on the two nocturnal sessions for Pink Moon. Rather harrowingly, these sessions fell on Halloween in October, whether this was intentional or not is unclear to me. Interestingly, John Wood stated that he used FOUR microphones for Nick’s guitar, and presumably one for his vocal.
Furthermore, I sense Nick turned up on the first night with heavier gauge strings, and on the second night with a lighter gauge, probably customised for his Levin guitar, i.e. thicknesses and compositions of the strings not being commercially available as a set to the consumer, but rather each string would need to be bought separately.

A guitar tech would be adamant that equal tension as far as possible is required across all strings.
However, there is no need to go beyond a 6th string 60w; in fact 56w is perfect in my opinion.
The remaining 5 strings however should correlate to the above tensions for a multitude of reasons.​

Which Will is a step down from the CGCFCE above, in a profound BF#BEBD# tuning, which would have required a custom bottom-heavy set, whereas songs like Road in EADEBE we can hear a lighter custom set, however, leaving the third string in a heavy/medium gauge so as to remain at E tuning rather than G.

​

When I spoke to Chris Healy about Nick Drake’s technique, he concurred that Road was a painful song to play physically. What is also strange is that, although with headphones I can tell he is still using his Levin LS-18 guitar, he has done something intentionally wrong with it. The guitar is tuned too sharp with heavy gauge strings on half the songs, deepening the tone even further into the abyss, thus making the guitar harder to play; Nick makes so many mistakes on half the record it is unbelievable, and the chord shapes he uses are often, as I understand it, to inflict pain on his left hand by making the necessary stretches to get the composition across.
For instance, when I performed Road with Nya Shelly at The Annual Nick Drake Gathering, my left hand was aching from the relentless practice required to nail it down during the months prior, my fingers would often seize-up; By my hand constantly going from full stretch to compact then back to full stretch again, requires enormous elasticity thus is painful to play.

​

Half of the songs which were recorded with lighter gauge strings causes the guitar to tune a little off from a relative intonation, and sound rather ‘dead’ yet produces a unique clarity on certain bass notes. Very peculiar indeed, for his guitar must have been set up for custom ranging medium gauge strings, that I'm fairly sure of.
Sometimes I think he wanted it that way, to sound slightly odd; off pitch; imperfect; at odds with itself; difficult to make; painful to play; a mistake; a trial. As there are always two extremes, always an opposite, two ways to everything, the title 'Pink Moon' has ingeniously two known ways of interpretation. A reference to the illusion of dualism?

There are so many mistakes throughout the record; missed notes, bum notes, the guitar sounding sharp or flat, string buzzing and even the sound of Nick’s throat clearing, all are present and there to be heard; I find this lovingly bittersweet. It simultaneously has the closeness and intimacy of a butterfly land upon one’s hand, but with the bite of a cougar’s jagged teeth on the other, drawing blood, yet the two may cancel the other as if two pillars had crumbled to dust.

Now, this is where things become bizarre furthermore, for what was laid down in the din of those two a.m. hour sessions is what is usually referred to as a demo tape, either for Nick and his engineer to have a base from which to build on, or in light of lemonade kid’s post and links, a working tape / ‘works tape’ for another artist to listen to and report on songs they wanted to use for themselves, or changes they wished to take place - that is timbre, vocal key or passages, length etc. and why such a change needs to be done and how one should go about doing so…..

Things get pretty mysterious quickly, and quickly become mysteriously pretty!

 

Interesting regarding strings. But ..I’d imagine some tuning slippage the following day. Strings settling in .. keeping in tune.

 

Fantastic post, Narcussus.

Love all the details you related concerning his guitar strings, tunings, voicing and the difficulty in playing such songs; Nick performs what seems to be deceptively simple guitar picking--as you relate: NOT so. Music that was certainly executed with complete mastery employing the purposefully off-key, out of tune guitar strings (if not so much on purpose he certainly knew how to make up for the guitar's deficiencies), conveying a seemingly impromptu aura that adds so much to the mysterious and dark soundscape of this monumental recording.

A stunningly beautiful effort from Nick -- the whole Pink Moon album is a deeply intimate look at a genius, his music and his soul, who knew just how to manipulate his strings and voice to get exactly the right sonics...that pitch, intensity and timbre to form his unique sound. So glad Nick welcomed us all in.

 

That could very well be the case Alex - I didn’t think of that.
It seems a bit amateurish or lackadaisical, even, to not tune or set up a guitar correctly for something monumental. However, the result is monumental and necessary. So, either way it turned out fine.

That said, I feel there is still a missing puzzle piece as to why Pink Moon took two nights and the prior records over 9 months. My thoughts have not fully formed yet after lemonade kid’s post that I shall not comment any further for now.

Thanks, I appreciate it.
And well put.
By the way, the image I posted of Francoise Hardy’s LP ‘ma jeunesse fout le camp…’ (1967) Is one of my favourite albums thus far in life. I posted it because it is a Chanson milieu arrangement akin to Nick Drake; the English of the Chansons’ milieu perhaps.

If you, reader, have not heard it yet, it may surprise you how rewarding a listen of the record can be. All the songs are invariably no longer than 3 mins. It is lush and hushed. But we are all on our separate courses in life, and music can creep up on us at unexpected times. Nick Drake is where are rivers meet.

It would be no surprise to me if Nick & Francoise were planning an album together, which today would have been like Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett’s ‘Lotta Sea Lice’ in terms of a successful pairing of shy outcasts!

Any thoughts on what their Album would be called?

 

Sure I read somewhere that he liked to use used strings ie the same year old strings on his guitar so he has better control of their tone, dead sounding.

 

Puzzle?

Well the other two were big productions, musicians, backing singers .. string arrangers etc

 

Plaisir d’Amour. It is no accident that this short instrumental track appears on the master tape for Pink Moon. I don’t believe Françoise Hardy ever recorded this classical French love song, but I can very much imagine her doing so.

 

Hi stepeanut. Nice to hear from you. I completely agree with you and I think the story of the two of them dining together often is the tip of the iceberg.

Hey alexpop, hope you are well. You may wish to go back and read my research I presented on page 38 = Nick Drake Appreciation - Album By Album & All Things Nick Drake*of this thread where I feel I explained away the dead string myth fairly well. I'm not the best at explaining things clearly but I'm happy to try to answer any questions you may have regarding this if I have been unclear?
As for the puzzle, Pink Moon is essentially a demo tape so yes the other two were massive undertakings in comparison...

 

Demo tape?
Brave of Island Records to put it out.
As his previous 2 albums didn’t sell a lot.

Enjoying your posts btw.

 

We’ll never know for sure about Nick’s romantic life, but I cannot see there being anything between him and Hardy, other than a mutual admiration and, perhaps, Nick fancying her.

We do know that he was friendly with several women, and that the closest two, Sophia Ryde and Linda Thompson, have both gone on record that their relationships with Nick were unconsummated.

Even his sister, Gabrielle, has said that she, “Has no idea,” if Nick died a virgin.

All this is to say that I believe Plaisir d’Amour would have been an appropriate title for a Drake & Hardy collaboration, but I did not mean to infer anything more than that.

 

Thank you!
In comparison to to Five Leaves Left & Bryter Layter, Pink Moon is essentially akin to a demo tape, yes!

Oh, I didn’t mean to infer anything either! Apparently, Nick hardly said a word to her at the several restaurants they would frequent in Paris. I meant they had plans for an album together… hope that is clearer now.
Indeed, 'Plaisir d’Amour' would have been perfect!

Take care both of ya'

 

Information bump.

 

Wonderful, Sam. Beautiful setting too. One of my favorite Drake songs too. Your playing of that classic Levin actually sings! If I let my mind deeply wander I can actually the voicings.

 

Quite beautiful, Sam. I've never understood the disdain for the instrumental tracks from Bryter Layter by Joe Boyd and some fans.
This is sublimely wonderful in the setting you chose.

Chills.

I would never wish such a devastating fire on anyone...like the one you experienced. But your positive attitude about new beginnings is quite inspiring. I don't know that I could be so accepting if I lost all my 800+ vintage vinyl and my art. It must have been a bit hard at first, but we survive, and you did so... quite well. The Levin must have helped ease the pain a bit.

Here is haunting guitarist singer/songwriter in Tom Rapp/Pearls Before Swine...you all may like:

Another Time
Another Time -- Pearls Before Swine -- Tom Rapp - lyrics in description

 

Before there was rap, there was Rapp.

Have most of his albums.

 

Nick, being able to pull of the full Pink Moon sessions in just two midnight sessions with John Wood at the controls to my mind...shows that Nick was fully in control of all his skills, completely prepared and ready to record this one. Must have been recorded , incredibly, with only one or two takes each track.
Phenomenal.