Nick Drake (19 page)

November 1969 saw the release of another Island sampler,
Nice Enough To Eat
, which included, as well as King Crimson, Mott The Hoople, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Traffic and Free, Nick's ‘Time Has Told Me'. It was on this album that the bulk of late-sixties record buyers first chanced upon the music of Nick Drake. With their roster growing, Island were confident enough to make their third sampler a double album:
Bumpers
was released in early 1970, featuring Nick's ‘Hazey Jane', and was followed in 1971 by
El Pea
, which included ‘One Of These Things First'.

These were the records which made their way into back bedrooms and student digs, to be played and replayed as the all-important decision was made: which full-price album to buy? The problem was that while Nick Drake was alive and well and releasing records, there were a lot of calls on the purse-strings of his potential audience. Aficionados of singer-songwriters had new albums by Leonard Cohen, Al Stewart, James Taylor, Tim Rose, Tim Hardin, Michael Chapman, Ralph McTell and Van Morrison all competing for a place on their turntable. Nick was only one of a number of new acts trying to break through, and if he was to stand any chance at all it was with
Bryter Layter
.

The album is Nick Drake's masterpiece.
Bryter Layter
is a record of timeless tranquillity and unimpeachable atmosphere, which merits comparison with Van Morrison's moody and meandering
Astral Weeks
and Love's unclassifiable and mysterious
Forever Changes
. Robert Kirby acknowledges a debt: ‘We were certainly listening to
Astral Weeks
heavily at that time … the string-bass playing, the violinist. It's funny, that's got a track about walking around Ladbroke Grove, and Nick's got “At The Chime Of A City Clock”. There are similarities. And yes, we were listening to it a lot at the time …'

Bryter Layter
extends beyond rock and folk. In its wistful mystery is a timeless, beatific calm; yet what chance did that have against the blitzkrieg steamrollering of the third album from Led Zeppelin? As an indication of what
Bryter Layter
was up against, among the albums which held sway on the UK charts during the twelve months from November 1970 were Simon & Garfunkel's all-conquering
Bridge Over Troubled Water, Motown Chartbusters Volume 5
, The Rolling Stones'
Sticky Fingers
, The Moody Blues'
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
, Rod Stewart's
Every Picture Tells A Story
and John Lennon's
Imagine
. A heady mixture of crowd-pleasing compilations, student favourites, and ex-Beatles.

Aside from the rock-steady rhythm section of Pegg and Mattacks, and the sterling lead guitar of Richard Thompson, one other intriguing name which appeared on the sleeve of
Bryter Layter
was that of ex-Velvet Underground founder John Cale. The Velvets had yet to be deified, but those in the know, knew their importance. Cale went on to a peripatetic solo career, and cropped up — like Woody Allen's Zelig — at all the crucial moments in rock 'n' roll history. The Velvet Underground's white-noise enthusiast, he kicked the door open for David Bowie's later experimentation (Bowie acknowledged the Velvets on the sleeve of his masterly
Hunky Dory)
. Cale was also there at the birth of Punk, producing the debut albums of Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman, either of which could lay strong claim to being the first Punk album. Cale was also there for Squeeze and The Happy Mondays; Brian Eno and Nico; Lowell George and The Stooges …

Cale already knew Joe Boyd, and came to
Bryter Layter
immediately after producing Nico's
Marble Index
album. In an interview with Mike Barnes for
The Wire
, Cale talked about his work on
Bryter Layter
: ‘I was doing a lot with Nico and it was on one of those trips that I met [Drake] … I had a 12-string and he'd never seen a D12 before, a Martin. And you know that very complicated picking he had? He just picked up the guitar and it was just like this orchestral sound coming out. He went nuts. He was sitting there stunned by it … I hardly ever dealt with him. I think it was Joe … One other way of developing what I did with
Marble Index
was to do Nick Drake and The Incredible String Band and whatever came around. Joe
seemed to appreciate what I was doing. Everything he showed me was very interesting.'

The lushness of
Bryter Layter
seemed to make a strong impact on Cale: certainly his best solo album, 1973's
Paris 1919
, was the most lavishly orchestrated of his career. Journalist Nick Kent remembers talking to him about his work with Nick Drake: ‘Cale said he was a genius musician, but you couldn't talk to him, he was like a zombie, like he just had no personality left.'

Richard Thompson's playing on
Bryter Layter
was singled out for praise, but he was dissatisfied with it. Talking to Connor McKnight in
Zig Zag
, while Nick was still alive, Richard talked about working with Nick: ‘He is a very elusive character. It was at Trident, I think, and I asked him what he wanted, but he didn't say much, so I just did it and he seemed fairly happy. People say that I'm quiet, but Nick's ridiculous. I really like his music, he's extremely talented and if he wanted to be, he could be very successful.'

Linda Peters, who would later marry Richard, was at that time going out with Joe Boyd: ‘I remember being at the Nick Drake session, and it was difficult, because Nick didn't talk, and Richard didn't talk. I think that Richard felt that his work was very perfunctory on it … There was definitely a bit of rivalry there too, because Nick was Joe's darling.'

Anthea Joseph, who knew both Nick and Richard, also observed some tension: ‘The rivalry between Richard and Nick … it was very difficult because they were all such babies – terribly young. They did get jealous … And Joe had made a great deal of Richard, quite rightly so, because he was so good, you could see it — a little jewel. But Nick required serious, hands-on looking after. And he trusted Joe, he trusted him implicitly, and I think that was really the base of their relationship. Joe was an extraordinary man, warts and all, and he took Nick on because he knew he'd got something rare …

‘Joe lavished himself on these people, and Nick in particular. But it was that sort of late teenage “He's mine”, “No he's not, he's mine”, you know. Joe never showed any favouritism to anybody — but both the kids did feel — because they were both songwriters, good-looking … And they were at that rather tender age.'

Linda Thompson, who went out with Nick for a while, was another who noticed how much he and Richard had in common: ‘It was funny, going out with Richard and going out with Nick, there were those similarities. They were both very withdrawn and very remote, and they both had these glamorous older sisters, both very
outgoing. When Richard would do a solo on Nick's album, Nick would smile, he would like that.

‘There was a point when I thought Richard could go Nick's way … Richard used to walk around with uncashed cheques, he never changed his clothes, he didn't speak … I think it was very hard for him to pull himself out of that, but he's a survivor, Richard, and he latched on to people who were outgoing, outgoing enough to pull him out of it. I think he made a definite effort to do that, and Nick didn't. Couldn't.

‘There are people I know, like Sandy [Denny], who died young, and there are countless stories … But it's a bit of a blank page with Nick.'

Dave Pegg remembers Nick as easy to work with: ‘The only thing was, you never really knew what he thought about it, whether he was happy or not, because he would never communicate. Probably Joe knew whether he was happy or not … It all went down fairly quickly. There were never any occasions where stuff was never going to work, where we had to completely redo the track in a different way, or try for a different feel.

‘The people they chose to play on those tracks were all from different backgrounds, that made it really exciting stuff to do … It must have been quite strange for Nick, because he'd not have had the experience of working with that many people, all in the same studio, all at the same time. Myself and DM had done lots and lots of sessions
… Bryter Layter
was certainly one of my best and most enjoyable experiences at Sound Techniques.

‘In a day we'd do three or four tracks, it was all very quick, everything was in those days, there didn't seem to be all the faffing about that you get nowadays. In a three-hour session, you'd be doing two tracks. DM and I would go off and do things with Paul & Barry Ryan … I think we used to get £17 for a session, and then you got three quid porterage if you carried your own gear.'

Nick's lack of communication, even about the music, was something that struck Danny Thompson too: ‘He was not very communicative about anything musically, which isn't unusual. A lot of people, either because they're in awe of you or something, they stand back in the studio. I reckon I'm a pretty normal geezer, I don't think I'm very difficult to get on with; you just think, well, it's their problem, whatever it is. There's a shyness, and there's something else – a deeper one.'

Bryter Layter
is a beguiling record. The three instrumentals may
teeter rather too close to Easy Listening, but otherwise the album is an enticing blend of folk stylings, jazz, blue-eyed soul and ballads. There is a fluency to Nick's playing throughout, the Fairport rhythm section is rock-solid, and Robert Kirby's arrangements enhance and enrich the musical textures. It is perhaps more than coincidence that John Cale appears on the album's two best tracks. ‘Fly', which is coloured by Cale's viola and harpsichord, also features Nick's most bruised and vulnerable vocal: faltering and stumbling, as if he is making it up as he goes along, the song gains a fragility and uncertainty which repays endless replays. The number begins with a plea, and there is a pleading note in Nick's voice which speaks of vulnerability and the knowledge that commitment can only lead to hurt.

Cale is also to be found swelling out the texture of ‘Northern Sky', which lays strong claim to being the finest song to which Nick Drake ever lent his name. Again sounding alone and vulnerable, ‘Northern Sky' has Nick pleading for the brightness to come and shatter the darkness of his night-time sky. The atmosphere is dense, suggesting silver moons sailing on a raven-black sea, wind lightly ruffling the hair of the treetops, all stoked by a crazy kind of magic; and the alchemy is fuelled by Cale's hymnal organ and soaring piano figures.

‘At The Chime Of A City Clock' is a big-city frieze, a fragmentary London portrait of the Soho streets Nick walked when he hitched down from Marlborough to the Flamingo and the Marquee. There is a sinuous melody, emphasized by Ray Warleigh's fat and sensual alto sax — the sound of a cat stretching itself awake.

A wash of strings, a crash of cymbals, like waves breaking on a distant shore, and Nick's deftly picked descending guitar figures usher in ‘Hazey Jane I'. But this is no love song: there is no tortured pleading, nor protestations of unrequited love; it is a baffled attempt to grasp the unattainable. And in the end, as the strings seep away like the setting sun, the bass rises and dies – and all the while, the guitar is plucked like a heart string.

There is a knowing, self-referential humour on ‘Poor Boy', as P.P. Arnold and Doris Troy coo on the chorus about the child who is so evidently sorry for himself. Nick knew that by setting the self-pitying lyrics to such a jaunty tune he could dilute the cloying nature of the introspection.

Listening to
Bryter Layter
, you are drawn to its atmospheres and textures. The appeal lies not in the angst, the lyrics or the deftness of Nick's playing, nor even in the subtlety of his melodies. But together,
all these factors combine to evoke and sustain a mood, an atmosphere, dense and inimitable. It is like sitting in a deserted attic room, tracing through the detritus of childhood, and as your fingers disturb the dust, the motes rise and float in drowsy shafts of sunlight.

Robert Kirby, who had worked closely on
Bryter Layter
, noticed a buoyancy about Nick just before its release. There was a confidence and optimism which would rarely again be obvious in Nick's life: ‘This was going to be the one with a single on it … I always rated “Poor Boy”, but they could have gone with “Northern Sky”, but nothing ever happened … I remember being down there to watch Chris McGregor put down his stuff for “Poor Boy”, Pat Arnold and Doris Troy wailing away, and Nick sitting there at the back, seeming quite happy.

‘Haverstock Hill, recording
Bryter Layter
, altogether quite happy times. Nick was quite high on it. The first one had got his name known. I think he felt this was going to be the one. We were told this was going to be the one.'

Paul Wheeler remembers having a meal with Nick just after
Bryter Layter
came out: ‘He said he'd assumed that it would be much more successful than it was. And I do remember being surprised, because I didn't think he was in it for that …'

Trevor Dann, who had taken over Nick's room at Fitzwilliam, remembered the first time he heard the second album:
‘Bryter Layter
I was horrified by. It was a bit like, oh God, Dylan's gone electric, what the fuck are these brass instruments doing here? It wasn't until I was at Cambridge, and I was in a band, and the bass player was really into
Bryter Layter
, and he hadn't heard
Five Leaves Left
, and one night I was round at his house, and it was foggy, the way that it gets in Cambridge, and it all suddenly became clear: first album, “Man In Shed”; second album, Man in London.

‘That's the difference.
Bryter Layter
is the horrible urban environment, and reacting to it. What I wanted was another acoustic album, but I'd got something different, but until then I'd never lived in a town … I didn't know what living in a town was like. To me, that's what those two records are about: the first one is very rural. It is about acoustic guitars and trees … it just feels pastoral. And
Bryter Layter
is the urban record, it's all about tube trains and city clocks, and the picture on the back, him on the motorway.'