The Abiding Influence of Nick Drake

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

Cat Stevens - A Musical Journey

Feature article written to promote Yusuf Islam's return to the spotlight. Interestingly, I met the former Cat Stevens as he was leaving a studio in Broadcasting House. I, and various others, were gathered round a small television set watching the second plane crash into the Twin Towers. The next day Yusuf Islam was all over the papers appealing for tolerance and calm. I have to say, I found him a thoroughly decent chap.

In late September 2001 Yusuf Islam gave one of the most revealing interviews of his career to Radio 2's Bob Harris. From his youth in London's West End, through his pop stars years and his subsequent conversion to Islam, it's a fascinating journey.

Cat Stevens was one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, with a string of best selling albums which virtually defined the concept of the sensitive singer songwriter. Albums such as Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman were classics of their genre, and his tours regularly sold out. Rising again after an abortive career as 60s pop star, Stevens' introspective and often highly personal songs connected with a huge audience and made him a star.

Then, in 1978, he turned his back on it all, embraced Islam and changed his name. For many of his long time fans, it was a baffling decision - why would a man who appeared to have it all throw it all away? Now, in a major interview for Radio 2, Yusuf Islam charts the long journey from pop stardom to religious enlightenment and reveals the reasons behind his decision.

Steven Giorgiou was born in London in 1948, the son of a Greek Cypriot father and Swedish mother. He was raised in the heart of London's West End where his parents ran a café, just round the corner from the then heart of the British music industry, Denmark Street. Young Steven developed two consuming passions, music and art, and initially fell under the spell of Bernstein's West Side Story when it opened in nearby theatreland in 1958. The arrival of The Beatles in 1963 inspired him to get his first guitar, but he was also listening to blues and folk music.

POP STAR
Early demos (one of which is included on his new boxed set) led to a deal with the fledgling Deram label. Along the way he changed his name to Cat Stevens and before long found himself a bona fide pop star, with hits such as Matthew and Son and I Love My Dog. However, sudden fame carried its own pressures. In February 1968, he was admitted to hospital suffering from tuberculosis.

"I felt I was on the brink of death," he tells Bob Harris in the programme. "At the same time I had incredible hope. I kind of made the best of it as much as I could. Now I had a break I could review myself and decide where I wanted to go and not necessarily where my agent felt I should go."

By the time Stevens left hospital he had started writing songs again. He told Melody Maker: "I think I will just use guitar as backing. I'm not doing a traditional folk thing, but a contemporary thing - my own version of folk, if you like." He had also started studying various religions, and his new material reflected this mood of reflection.

The first evidence of this new direction was the Mona Bone Jakon album, which emerged in May 1970. The new decade brought a new Cat Stevens, now sporting long hair and beard. The album reintroduced him to the charts, but it was the follow up, Tea for the Tillerman, which launched him onto the international stage and gave him his first top ten in the states. The follow up, Teaser and the Firecat, was even more warmly received, producing three hit singles.

THE TURNING POINT
Stevens' star would continue to rise, but within himself he was becoming increasingly troubled. Typically, this was addressed in songs such as Sitting or the Majik of Majiks, which contained the line "What kind of man can make me turn/and see the way I really am". The beginnings of an answer came to him when he was swimming in the Pacific near the home of record company boss Jerry Moss. Caught in a strong current, he found himself fighting to get back to shore.

"There was no-one on this earth who could help me and I did the most instinctive thing," he told Bob Harris. "I just called out and said 'God, if you save me I'll work for you' and in that moment a wave came from behind me and pushed me forward."

The following year his brother David gave him a copy of the Koran as a birthday present. Increasingly drawn to it, Stevens began losing interest in the music industry. In December 1977 he formally embraced Islam at Regent's Park Mosque and soon after changed his name to Yusuf Islam. The Back to Earth LP, released in November 1978, was the final Cat Stevens album - with no artist to promote it and no chance of a tour, it sold poorly, but by now yusuf had no interest in playing the pop star game.

FAITH
In the years that followed he devoted himself to his faith. Initially he channelled his efforts into the establishment of the UK's first Muslim school, but by the mid-eighties he began giving lectures at universities throughout Britain. Increasingly he's been an articulate spokesperson for Britain's Muslim community - in the wake of the September 11 atrocity he was once more called upon to defend his faith, advocating peace and tolerance at a time of anti-Islamic hysteria. He's also made forays into recording again, with the spoken word album The Life of the Last Prophet in 1995. 2001 saw the release of a box set, collecting work from all the stages of his career.

Strange as it may have seem to many of his fans, Yusuf Islam is far happier today than he ever was at the height of his stardom in the seventies. He also seems to have come to terms with his former life, working with A&M in the production of the box set, writing some touching liner notes and contributing previously unreleased material.

"Being more mature now," he writes, "I've managed to make peace with my past, as it's making peace with me. Certainly there's a mutual gain for reflecting on both phases of my life and although I consider the here and now perhaps to be more important there are still many people who appreciate my past ephemeral stages and the lessons they represent."

Mick Fitzsimmons

The article can also be found, along with lots of other interesting stuff, on Yusuf Islam's official website.

Just out of interest, here are some more reviews written for the BBC Music Website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviewers/9vvr

I even got my own page and everything!

Summer Sounds

To almost paraphrase Captain Boyle from Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock", I look up at the sky and ask meself, "What is the sun?" As I look out the window we are in the midst of an unseasonal spell of sunshine. I am currently working my way through the almost 20 minutes of La Dusseldorf's "Cha Cha 2000", a shimmering electronic groovefest driven by Klaus Dinger's trademark motorik beat, and it strikes me that it's perfectly suited to the weather.

In fact, loads of music from the 70s seems to conjure up the sun for me. Perhaps it was the regular heatwaves, or perhaps its just the strange hindsight that renders everybody's childhood shiny and bright, but if it's a beautiful sunny day I find myself inexorably drawn to the music from that wonderful decade. And I don't mean disco (although that, of course, has its place.)

On the other hand, the 1980s for me are characterised by drizzle. And even "Club Tropicana" can't change that. In fact, it actually conjurs up images of sodden espadriles queuing up outside some shady Essex "nite spot", the whiff of hairspray and odour of Bezique heavy in the dreary air.

Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson Interview

Interview conducted with Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, Saturday 3rd August 2002, as they prepared for an appearance at that year's Cambridge Folk Festival.

Neither of you are strangers to the Cambridge Folk Festival. Can you remember the first time you played here?

Norma Waterson I was here at the very first Cambridge festival in 1965. It was small - one stage in a field and a few seats out the front. Paul Simon was on, and the Clancy Brothers. It was a pound to get in.

Martin Carthy I was on the second one and it wasn't much bigger. The first one he had to make a thousand pounds to break even. And he did and that's why it's still going.

NW The thing I really remember was the Clancy Brothers arriving on site in an open top jeep. They roared through the crowd in this open top jeep. Nowadays pop stars would come in on helicopters.

The most obvious change for Cambridge is the size, but do you think the atmosphere of the festival has changed much since the early days?

NW Yes. It's much more populist than it was. It used to be very much a straight folk festival, although it wasn't a traditional one in the sense that you could only get up and do stuff from your own country, but it definitely has got more poppy. But then I think the whole folk scene in general has become much more pop orientated than it was in the 60s.

Do you think people see folk music as a viable career option these days?

NW I think the media have got hold of it. Certainly since we've been singing there have been three or four occasions when nothing's been happening in the charts and someone's realised that there's this thing called traditional music happening - let's have a folk revival! Are there any young and pretty people that we can put pictures in our papers of? It's no bad thing if it gets people interested in folk music, though.

MC It's really bad news for us to be isolated. You get an awful lot of righteousness around, but not a lot of sense. And frequently not a lot of music either!

But neither of you have ever been accused of being purist in any way…

MC I've never really understood what purist meant, honestly, because I don't really know what impure music is.

NW The music in England is a hybrid music anyway. In fact, most of the music in the British Isles is a hybrid - none of it is pure. To go back to pure you're going to have to go back to the ancient Britons.

MC Back to banging rocks…

You're playing with Blue Murder tonight, and there is a definite buzz about your appearance. Expectations are heavy.

NW I hope they're not disappointed!

MC It's very much a band that hits or misses. If it works it's fantastic, but it requires everybody to be on song. There's a lot of chances get taken and a lot of opportunities for falling off the wire, walking into the door and falling over your own feet. But we have a great time.

The way the group started was fairly informal, wasn't it?

NW In the 70s our local school in Robin Hood's Bay was bursting at the seams and needed a new room. We did a concert and all the money went to building this new room. We grabbed as many people as we could. There was Peter Bellamy and Swan Arcade and the Watersons and various other people. We did a concert and we did a few songs together at the end and really liked it.

MC Then in 1987 Iain Anderson asked The Watersons and Swan Arcade to put together a one off concert with an hour's worth of stuff. After the first gig we decided to call ourselves Blue Murder, but the party aspect took over from the music and it fell to bits basically. We had a fantastic time…

NW Rehearsals were very boozy!

MC We started being really industrious then got to talking, telling stories, drinking a bit of wine…

NW …you know, like folkies do.

MC It just got silly, so we gave it up for a while. Then when Jim started up with Lester and Barry we decided to give it another go and it's great fun, it really is. I mean, Barry Coope is a stupendous singer.

Shall you be leaving the boozing until after the gig tonight then?

MC Well, we don't do much of that now. I think 'cos we're older our livers have given up!

NW I think this is about the third time we've been together as Blue Murder. We did the 70s and 80s, but we missed the 90s.

Can we expect another Waterson: Carthy album in the near future?

NW It's finished already, but Tony at Topic didn't want it to clash with the Blue Murder album. You can't flood the shops! We were happy that the Blue Murder album came out first and our album, A Dark Light, comes out in September.

It's been a remarkable couple of years for you, Martin, what with the boxed set, the birthday concert and the honorary doctorate…

MC Yeah, that's astonishing…

…What's the betting on a knighthood?

NW There's no betting. He wouldn't accept it.

MC Knighted folk singers is silly. I mean, knighted rock and rollers is bad enough. Sir Elton John, Sir Cliff Richard… come on lads! To go on from there to knighted folk singers, I mean, what a ridiculous idea. Sir Mick Jagger is bad enough...

NW What would be really nice would be something like the French Legion of Honour, which is just your country recognising you've done something really good. But it's not going to happen in our lifetime.

So what about your solo careers? Can we expect more of that?

MC For the last few years I've been doing an instrumental album, but I'm not entirely happy with doing an entire album of guitar tunes, so it'll probably turn out half and half. I've no idea what I'm going to call it yet.

There's a lot of young talent emerging. When you look to the young talent does it give you hope for the future of the music?

NW Oh, yes. There's some young performers doing some really good stuff. John Boden and John Spiers, they take risks, which is what we did. It doesn't seem risky now, but when the Watersons came along, nobody was singing unaccompanied apart from the traditional singers and people like The Copper Family. We really like it when there's something wild about what the young people do, and there's a few around like that, which is great.

MC The only reservation I had about a lot of the crop of the new singers was that they were all tremendously accomplished and there was not one hint of a risk anywhere, and performing is about risk. But people like Boden and Spiers really are risky. They may make mistakes, but by God, the passion's there, and that makes up for a lot. But they both happen to be very good instrumentalists and very good singers.

NW What I do like is that the young performers specialise in English material. Irish and Scottish material is so lovely, it's easy to go that route, but English songs are weirder, they need more listening to. It really does please us that people have taken that route. It's very exciting.