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Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician, known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work has gradually achieved wider notice and recognition.〔"(Nick Drake — Biography" ), ''VH1.com'', 2005. Retrieved 2 September 2006.〕〔"(Brad Pitt fronts Nick Drake show" ), ''BBC News'', 6 April 2004. Retrieved 22 August 2006.〕〔MacDonald, Ian. "(Exiled from Heaven" ). ''Mojo Magazine'' (74), January 2000. pp. 32–47.〕 Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and was a student at the University of Cambridge, and released his debut album, ''Five Leaves Left'', in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—''Bryter Layter'' and ''Pink Moon''. Neither sold more than 5,000 copies on initial release.〔However, a BBC article by Mark Moxon (from 14 January 2002 states ): "The album only sold 15,000 copies, which was enough to please the record company, but nothing like the success Nick was hoping for."〕 Drake's reluctance to perform live, or be interviewed, contributed to his lack of commercial success. There is no known footage of the adult Drake; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood.〔Berkvens, Jeroen, ''A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake'', Luijten Macrander Productions, 2000.〕 Drake suffered from Major Depression or what would be diagnosed today as Adult Onset Major Depression. This was often reflected in his lyrics. On completion of his third album, 1972's ''Pink Moon'', he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, at the age of 26, Drake died from an overdose of approximately 30 amitriptyline pills, a prescribed antidepressant. His cause of death was determined to be suicide. Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s, but the 1979 release of the retrospective album ''Fruit Tree'' allowed his back catalogue to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake.〔McNair, James. (Pop: Apprentice to the stars ). ''The Independent'', 26 March 1999.〕 By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press.〔Dann (2006), 201.〕 His first biography was published in 1997, followed in 1998 by the documentary film ''A Stranger Among Us''. == Early life == Nick's father, Rodney Shuttleworth Drake (1908–1988), had moved to Rangoon, Burma, in the early 1930s to work as an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation.〔Dann (2006), 75.〕 There, in 1934, his father met the daughter of a senior member of the Indian Civil Service, Mary Lloyd (1916–1993), known to her family as "Molly". Rodney Drake proposed to her in 1936, though they had to wait a year until she turned 21 before her family allowed them to marry.〔Dann (2006), 76.〕 In 1950 they returned to England to live in Warwickshire〔Brown, Mick. "(The Sad Ballad of Nick Drake" ), ''Sunday Telegraph'' (UK), 12 July 1997. Retrieved 31 January 2007.〕 at a house named Far Leys, in the prosperous commuter village of Tanworth-in-Arden just south of Birmingham, the city where Rodney Drake worked from 1952 as the Chairman and Managing Director of Wolseley Engineering.〔Dann (2006), 83-84.〕 Nick Drake had an older sister, Gabrielle, who became a successful film and television actress. Both parents were musically inclined and each wrote pieces of music. Recordings of Molly Drake's songs, which have come to light since her death, are remarkably similar in tone and outlook to the later work of her son.〔Berkvens, Jeroen, ''A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake'' (video documentary). Roxie Releasing, 2000.〕 Mother and son shared a similar fragile vocal delivery and both Gabrielle and biographer Trevor Dann have noted a parallel sense of foreboding and fatalism in their music.〔〔Dann (2006), 91.〕 Encouraged by his mother, Drake learned to play piano at an early age and began to compose songs which he recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder she kept in the family drawing room.〔 In 1957, Drake was sent to Eagle House School, a preparatory boarding school in Berkshire. Five years later, he went to Marlborough College, a public school in Wiltshire, attended by his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished sprinter over 100 and 200 yards, representing the school's Open Team in 1966. He played rugby for the C1 House team and was appointed a House Captain in his last two terms.〔Marlborough College archives.〕 School friends recall Drake at this time as having been confident and "quietly authoritative", while often aloof in his manner.〔Dann (2006), 95, 97.〕 His father Rodney remembered, "In one of his reports (headmaster ) said that none of us seemed to know him very well. All the way through with Nick. People didn't know him very much."〔Paphides, Peter, "Like A Heart with Legs On". ''Western Mail'' (Wales), 21 May 2004. (Questia ). Retrieved 16 September 2006.〕 Drake played piano in the school orchestra, and learned clarinet and saxophone. He formed a band, The Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, the group performed Pye International R&B covers and jazz standards, as well as Yardbirds and Manfred Mann numbers. Chris de Burgh asked to join the band, but was rejected as his taste was seen as "too poppy" by the other members.〔Humphries (1997), 36.〕 Drake's academic performance began to deteriorate, and while he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough he began to neglect his studies in favour of music. In 1963 he attained seven GCE O-Levels, fewer than his teachers had been expecting, failing "Physics with Chemistry", a fall-back for students who struggled with science.〔Dann (2006), 100.〕 In 1965, Drake paid £13 for his first acoustic guitar, and was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques.〔McGrath, T.J. "(Darkness Can Give You the Brightest Light" ), ''Dirty Linen'', Issue 42, October–November 1992. Retrieved 23 February 2008.〕 In 1966 Drake enrolled at a tutorial college in Five Ways, Birmingham, from where he won a scholarship to study English literature at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.〔Dann (2006), 110-111.〕 He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, beginning in February 1967. While in Aix, he began to practice guitar in earnest, and to earn money would often busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, and that spring he travelled with friends to Morocco, because, according to travelling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot".〔Dann (2006), 124.〕 Drake most likely began using LSD while in Aix,〔Humphries (1997), 51–52.〕 and lyrics written during this period—in particular for the song "Clothes of Sand"—are suggestive of an interest in hallucinogens.〔Dann (2006), 123.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nick Drake」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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