Nick Drake: The Life

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Although Rodney and Molly Drake adored their son – and his music, in a strikingly modern, generation-gap-traversing way – and although they did everything they could to save him, something about the family dynamic feels stifling. When he was sectioned at a psychiatric institution not far from his home, his duty officer found him to be “muddled” as to his relationship with his parents, with “some guilt complex about leaving Cambridge” – which he had done, against his father’s wishes, upon the release of his first album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969 – and Molly and Rodney were advised not to visit so often. You believe that the problem of turning yourself from an amateur into a professional can be solved merely by transferring yourself from Cambridge to somewhere where you are surrounded by, and under the influence of, professionals in your chosen field. From what you say I take it that you must believe that it was the prospect of returning to Cambridge for eight-week periods during the year that prevented you, in the long summer vac, from getting into the swim, so to speak, and of starting to acquire the professionalism which you are rightly seeking.

This book is faultless in its detail, drawing on previously unseen family correspondence and the co-operation of Drake’s sister, the actress, Gabrielle, as well as the recollections of a compendious list of friends, musicians and fans, carefully taking the reader through the gestation and completion of virtually every song Drake recorded, and a few he didn’t. The Drake completist could ask for nothing more. And surely, nothing more of his brilliant and ultimately tragic life now needs to be said. Luxuriate in the body of his timeless work, and let him rest in peace.

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Fortunately, one of those which accepted the offer was the Koutoubia Palace, Tangier’s most exclusive nightspot, which is done up in the style of a Moorish palace. I couldn’t help feeling a little out of place, but all the same I played for about quarter of an hour. The reception was extraordinarily good and we all got stood rounds of drinks, which was rather pleasant.”

The last third of the book is difficult to read – through no fault of the author’s, but because Drake’s final months are chronicled almost day by painful day. There is no ending other than that foretold. Drake’s third and final album Pink Moon is a bleak, minimal affair, seemingly wrenched from the depths of mental illness. As shown by the reactions of his family and contemporaries, it’s a reflection of his brilliance and the uncomfortably intimate nature of the material Drake is now ensconced in myth as a doomed poet whose life ended at 26 through an overdose of antidepressants. Previous biographies and documentaries have given thorough accounts of his life and work, including one in 2014 by his sister, Gabrielle Drake, the actor. The work of their mother, Molly Drake, has been folded into the story. Her son had grown up to the sound of Molly composing songs at the piano; there are resonances in their bodies of work. While Drake’s career as a musician was characterised by diffidence, his youth wasn’t entirely devoid of high jinks. A road trip with some friends to north Africa, for example, saw a memorable encounter with some of his musical heroes This is not an authorised biography,’ begins the book’s foreword, penned by his only sibling, Gabrielle Drake, the long-time custodian of her brother’s legacy. ‘But it is true that this is the only biography of my brother than has been written with my blessing.’But living alone in a barely furnished Hampstead bedsit – “like a cell, overlooking a neglected garden,” according to one visitor – he started slowly going to pieces, looking progressively more shabby, neglecting to wash his hair or clean his fingernails, passing his days playing the guitar, smoking joints, occasionally forraying out in search of a curry when he became hungry.