Nick Drake - Made To Love Magic (Reissue, 2014) LP

This talented musician passed away too early, without feeling the well-deserved recognition of his listeners. During his short career, he released only three albums, but, nevertheless, his melancholic works were worthy examples of British folk. Nicholas Rodney Drake was born on June 19, 1948. During his studies, Nick mastered the piano, saxophone and clarinet and even played in the school orchestra. By the end of the first half of the 60s, he and his friends organized The Perfumed Gardeners group, which performed both jazz standards and songs from the Yardbirds and Manfred Mann repertoire. In 1965, Drake bought his first acoustic guitar and after a while became interested in folk music.
Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan, Josh White and Phil Ochs, Nick began performing in London coffee shops and during one of the concerts caught the eye of Fairport Convention bass guitarist Ashley Hutchings. Ashley introduced the 20-year-old musician to producer Joe Boyd ("Fairport Convention", "Incredible String Band"). He listened to several of Drake's songs and arranged for him to sign with Island Records.
In the spring of 1969, the debut album was recorded with the participation of Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention and Danny Thompson from Pentagle. On "Five Leaves Left", Nick managed to create a vaguely mystical atmosphere, sometimes decorated with baroque strings. Melancholic-depressive lyrics were hidden by Drake's soft vocals and lush, magnificent melodies. Unfortunately, neither the public nor the press took this work properly. NME magazine noted "Five Leaves Left" as "not diverse enough to enjoy" and only Melody Maker considered the album "poetic" and "interesting". In the fall of 1969, the musician gave a series of club concerts, but other folkers did not accept him into their midst, and as a result, Nick decided to give up performing.
Despite the commercial failure of "Five Leaves Left", Boyd, who saw in his ward an outstanding creative potential, undertook to produce Drake's second album. This time Joe persuaded Nick to move away from the pastoral sound and make a jazz-oriented record. Drake even sacrificed the text material, and in places there were just instrumental orchestral miniatures on the disc.
Despite all the tricks, "Bryter Layter" also did not find a mass audience and caused contradictory reviews in the press from "excellent work with beautiful arrangements" in "Record Mirror" to "an indigestible cocktail of folk and jazz" in "Melody Maker". Shortly after the release of this album, Boyd moved to Los Angeles, and Drake, who had lost his mentor, fell into a deep depression. His already rare concerts stopped altogether in the mid-1970s, and in addition to his long-standing acquaintance with cannabis, Nick began to use heroin. Drake shut himself off from the whole world and stayed in his apartment for a long time, but in October 1971 he decided to make another album. Unlike previous works, "Pink Moon" was recorded by an unaccompanied musician and contained a selection of short acoustic tracks with a total duration of 28 minutes.
At the end of the sessions, Nick became even more withdrawn and, after leaving London, went to his parents. He was hospitalized several times on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but in the summer of 1974 he contacted his employers from Island Records and expressed a desire to record another CD. Unfortunately, the work that had begun could not be completed, since Drake died on November 25, 1974. The cause of death was an overdose of antidepressants.