Originally appeared on Radio 2 website as part of promotion for a documentary hosted by, of all people, Brad Pitt.
It's an oft repeated cliché that only 500 people (or something similarly insignificant) bought the first Velvet Underground album, but all of them went out and formed a band. The same may not be true of Nick Drake, but as his cult reputation has grown, so has the number of artists citing him as an influence on their own music.
The first major re-appraisal of Drake's work came with the release of the Fruit Tree box set, containing all three of his original albums, in 1979. This was a largely unprecedented move for an artist so obscure, and was a testament to producer Joe Boyd's continued faith in Drake's work - when he sold his Witchseason Production company to Island Records in the early 70s a precondition was that Drake's albums would never be deleted.
The albums gradually accumulated a small but dedicated band of admirers, including REM guitarist Peter Buck and ex-Television guitarist Tom Verlaine. In the UK, ex-Duran Duran member Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy called his band The Lilac Time after a line in Drake's song River Man. Dream Academy's Life in a Northern Town was dedicated to Drake, even as his albums continued to sell to an ever growing band of devotees who cherished his work like a family heirloom.
By the turn of the 90s Drake was being cited as an influence by artists as diverse as country rocker Lucinda Williams, Robyn Hitchcock and Mark Eitzel of American Music Club. However, actual covers of Drake's songs remained thin on the ground, apart from the fabled acetate of Drake songs recorded by Elton John as publishing demos in 1969 shortly before finding fame in his own right. Original copies are extremely rare – although you can find it on the Internet if you look hard enough.
The release of Island Record's Way to Blue compilation in 1994 was met with rave reviews, while Drake was rapidly becoming the hip name to drop. Paul Weller was introduced to Drake's music by his mates in Ocean Colour Scene, and the mellow pastoral vibe of his 1994 comeback album Wild Wood was directly inspired by it. Latterly, artists such as Turin Brakes, Kings of Convenience and Kathryn Williams have all come in for Drake comparisons, not always justified, as did Belle and Sebastian, largely thanks to Stuart Murdoch's breathy vocals. Perhaps the best known fan is Badly Drawn Boy, whose Hour of the Bewilderbeast album bore the unmistakable mark of Drake's influence. Norah Jones has also recorded a cover version of Nick's song Day is Done.
Drake's latter day renaissance has also been fuelled by television programmes, radio documentaries, numerous articles and a fine biography by Patrick Humphries. But perhaps the strangest appearance of this quintessentially cult artist was in 2000, when Volkswagen used Pink Moon in a US commercial, introducing thousands of new fans to Drake's music for the first time.
Mick Fitzsimmons
2 comments:
Hi Mick, have been reading your http://croymusicmiscellany.com/2011/04/27/the-music-we-deserve/ and found myself in agreement with you.
After countless discussions with like-minded people on this topic, we came to the conclusion that people, generally, no longer write music because they are artistic, creative and actually have something to say but because they have the means to do it.
Even as little as 15 years ago there seemed to be a mystique about bands, an other worldliness that was just out of grasp of the general public - seeing Blur and Oasis on TOTP seemed special. buying a CD and reading the liner notes was exciting. But since around 2000, anyone can record at home, put there songs on myspace, itunes or youtube, meaning that there is no quality control anymore, no need to prove your worthy of release, to toil in the clubs or get a record contract. These means those who and genuinely passionate, creative and worthy of being heard are given no greater importance than those who happen to have a microphone and a facebook account.
This, coupled with the media's love over anything new means that bands who may be considered great one year become a passing fad the next, the DJs can't distinguish between something that is good or bad, so to be 'down with the kids' they just saying anything trendy is great.
I'm not sure where I am going with this, but no one is going to convince me that Muse and The Killers are great bands or that the majority of music being made today is a patch on that between 1964 and and 1972. When songwriters had something to say.
Good, that feels better.
I think this debate could run and run. I know what you mean about mystique. I think we undervalue things now because everything is so readily available.
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