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Drake's three albums ultimately became recognised, only after his death, as peak achievements in both the British folk-rock scene and the entire rock singer-songwriter genre. Drake is commonly compared to singer-songwriter Van Morrison. However, Drake's breathy vocals and orchestral acoustic melodies bear more resemblance to Donovan, despite being darker and more disturbing.
Nick Drake was born in Rangoon, the capital of the Southeast Asian nation of Burma, to Rodney and Molly Drake. Drake's father worked as a medical doctor. Drake was brought up in Tanworth-in-Arden , a small village in the British county of Warwickshire. He went to public school in MarlboroughMarlborough is the name of several places: In Australia: Marlborough, Queensland In Canada: a neighbourhood of Calgary, Alberta In New Zealand: Marlborough, New Zealand In the United Kingdom: Marlborough, Wiltshire In the United States: Marlborough, Conne, where he learned to play the fluteThis article pertains to the musical instrument. For the sailing ship class that has a variant spelling using this word, see Fluyt. The flute (technically transverse flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. A musician who plays the flute is s. As a young adult, Drake enrolled in Fitzwilliam College in CambridgeThis article is about Cambridge, England; see also other places called Cambridge. The city of Cambridge is an old English University town and the regional centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. It lies approximately 50 miles (80 km) north of London and i to study English literatureThe term English literature can mean: Literature from England written in the modern English language or its antecedents (such as Middle or Old English). The rest of this article discusses this category. Literature composed primarily in the English languag.
Drake was a fan of British folk music and the emerging American folk music scene, including Bob DylanBob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman May 24, 1941, Duluth, Minnesota, USA) is widely regarded as America's greatest popular songwriter. Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams are among the few songwriters similarly revered for t and Phil OchsPhil Ochs ( December 19, 1940 April 9, 1976) was a protest singer of the early 1960s, perhaps best known for his songs "Power and Glory", "There But for Fortune", "Changes", "When I'm Gone", and "I Ain't Marching Anymore". He studied journalism at Ohio St. While a college student, Drake began performing in local clubs and coffee houses. He was discovered by Ashley HutchingsAshley Hutchings (born January 26 1945) is a folk musician. He has probably founded more groups than any other bass-player. The most famous are Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the ever-changing Albion. He made several thematic albums with session m, the bass-player of the folk rock supergroup Fairport Convention. Hutchings introduced Drake to the other members of Fairport Convention, folk singer John Martyn and producer Joe Boyd.
Drake’s associates convinced Island Records to sign the young singer/songwriter to a three album contract. At the age of twenty, he released his first album Five Leaves Left ( 1969), which featured a chamber music quartet on several songs and had a light, dour sound. Drake’s second album Bryter Layter ( 1970) introduced a more upbeat, jazzier sound, with keyboards and several brass instruments. Both albums were produced by Boyd and featured several members of Fairport Convention.
Drake was pathologically shy and resented touring. The few concerts he did play were usually in support of other British folk acts of the time, such as Fairport Convention or John Martyn and were often brief and awkward. Partially because of this, his work received little attention and sold poorly.
Severely clinically depressed and doubting his abilities as a musician, Drake recorded his final album Pink Moon ( 1972) in two two-hour sessions, both starting at midnight. The songs of Pink Moon were short (the album consists of eleven of them and lasts only 26 minutes) and emotionally bleak and Drake recorded them unaccompanied, in the presence of only a sound engineer (a piano was later overdubbed on the title track). Naked and sincere, it is widely thought to be his best work. After recording the album, Drake dropped-off the master tapes at the front desk of Island Records' office building and then swore he was retiring from performing music, planning to train to be a computer programmer and possibly write songs for others to perform.
However, none of Drake’s plans materialized. In the next few months, Drake grew severely depressed and maintained relationships only with close friends such as John Martyn, who wrote the title song of his 1973 album Solid Air for and about Drake, and French singer Françoise Hardy. He was hospitalized several times and lived with Hardy for a few months.
In 1974, Drake felt well enough to write and record a few new songs. However, on November 24, he died of an overdose of antidepressants. The coroner concluded that the cause of Drake’s death was suicide, although this was disputed by friends and relatives. Antidepressants of that time were quite lethal if ingested in any higher dosage than the one prescribed.