Reviews

Nick Drake’s legacy is primarily built around just three albums, originally released between 1969 and 1972.  Before 1974 was out, the British singer-songwriter was gone at the age of 26.  Over the years, esteem for his small discography has only grown.  Partly, this is because the mystique has remained; the Drake estate has only sporadically gone back to the well of unreleased material.  Their cautious and curated approach has yielded a new reward with a box set dedicated to his 1969 debut.  The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left,’ available on 4 LPs or 4 CDs, is relatively modest in scale but nonetheless a valuable deep-dive into the man and his music.  Though most of the songs are familiar, all of the versions are not, and the result is a peek behind the curtain as Drake and his collaborators shaped by the by-now-familiar final LP.

Tellingly, the set opens in late February/early March 1968 with “Mayfair,” a song which wouldn’t make the cut on Five Leaves Left.  The lovely evocation of the posh London neighborhood is set to a jaunty strum, a far cry from the melancholy sound usually associated with the late troubadour.  Those are the kinds of surprises awaiting the listener as The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left’ unfolds.  Five Leaves Left is such a delicate album that the oversized dimensions of a box set could threaten to overwhelm it, but that thankfully isn’t the case here.

The first disc covers spring 1968, with a couple of detours to later dates.  From the initial sessions (produced by Joe Boyd and engineered by John Wood at Chelsea studio Sound Techniques) also comes an early take of eventual album opener “Time Has Told Me.”  A most unusual kind of love song with a dark-hued melody to match its lyrics, it’s delivered in a raw, touching performance.  As he pursued a recording career, Drake was armed with a cache of songs that were already well-developed.  “Man in a Shed” showcased his lyrical strengths, with an off-hand conversational quality and a twist in the final verse.  With “Fruit Tree,” Drake offered a poetically-minded reflection on a fame which he wouldn’t live long enough to fully experience.  It’s often difficult not to read into Drake’s lyrics given his short time on this earth: “You find the darkness can give the brightest light” or “Forgotten while you’re here, remembered for a while…”  Needless to say, Nick Drake has been remembered for more than a while.

The stately, sad “Saturday Sun” adds a new color to these early sessions with Drake on piano.  “Strange Face,” also known as “Cello Song,” finds the sweetness and the precociousness in his writing and performance.  The September 11, 1968 take is a very rough mix of a rhythmic, percussive arrangement of the song.

The first disc continues with three unique takes of the bleak “Day Is Done,” beginning with one from an abortive session with arranger Richard Hewson (Paul McCartney, Bee Gees, James Taylor).  Hewson’s musicians are derisively remembered in the liner notes by John Wood as “the sort of people who’d do the Cilla Black show,” but that sells short both the players and Hewson’s arrangement which was certainly competent and in the prevailing baroque style of the period.  Yet Drake sensed it wasn’t right for him, which is no reflection on its quality.  The second take of “Day Is Done” adds Danny Thompson on double bass, lending a more urgent yet still intimate feel.  Finally, we hear the 1969 instrumental take with sympathetic strings by Robert Kirby.  They’re more dramatic than Hewson’s, lending a George Martin/”Eleanor Rigby” flavor to Drake’s composition.  Disc One closes with a home recording from the University of Cambridge of “My Love Left with the Rain” that’s of lesser sonic quality but no less worthwhile to the story being told.

The Cambridge tape recorded during the school’s Lent Term, which continues onto the second disc, features a number of songs not on the final LP as well as fly on the wall chatter that’s both fun and illuminating.  A moving reflection on the inevitability of time and transience, “Blossom” finally found a home on the Family Tree collection.  The psychedelic “Made to Love Magic,” a song which first was heard on 1987’s Time of No Reply and lent its title to a 2004 compilation, appears on the Cambridge tape alongside the jazz-flecked “Mickey’s Tune” (which might have developed into “Joey,” another highlight of Time of No Reply) plus acoustic takes of “Day Is Done” and “Time Has Told Me.”

November 1968 studio sessions with Boyd and Wood yielded the enigmatic “Three Hours” (“in search of a lifetime to tell when he’s home…in search of a story that’s never been known”).  Drake and Boyd continued to refine the arrangements for each song; “Time Has Told Me” took on a sense of swing in its development, while the piano of “Saturday Sun” gained a sense of movement aided by bass.  Drake, too, had become more soulful in his vocal delivery of the song.  In these sessions, both arrangement and interpretation grew mightily.

The third disc moves chronologically to winter 1968/1969.  Nick still hadn’t given up on “Mayfair,”  attempting it again at a January 4, 1969 session along with a solo acoustic “Time of No Reply.”  There’s a fragile beauty to the latter’s meditation on solitude and the passage of time.  “Cello Song” gained its eponymous instrument in the January 4 recording, and the same date yielded the first take of “River Man.”  It’s a rare Drake song in standard tuning with a 5/4 time signature and jazz feel that Joe Boyd felt might have been inspired by bossa nova pioneer Joao Gilberto.  Drake’s opaque but vivid lyrics raise as many questions as they answer, even today, and it remains one of the songwriter’s signature achievements.  A second take from months later adds haunting strings that only heighten the song’s mystery.

A haunting Cambridge home recording of “Way to Blue,” with Nick on piano, is a spiritual companion to “River Man” as heard here with its near-mystical evocation of nature.  “The Thoughts of Mary Jane,” from April 3, 1969, is heard with strings and flute.  Ultimately, the string chart would be jettisoned for the final album version.

The fourth and final disc of The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left’ finally offers that familiar album as remastered by John Wood and Simon Heyworth.  Yet it can be appreciated anew after one experiences the three discs of outtakes and demos.  The set is designed at LP size, with a textured, die-cut slipcase.  Each of the four discs is housed in an individual LP-sized jacket, each one of which features a variation on the familiar album cover in a different hue of green, going from lightest (the earliest sessions) to darkest (the final recordings).  (Spot the differences in each photo, too!)

A 60-page squarebound booklet of this “documentary chronicled in print and music” is an essential part of the package, offering Cally Callomon’s preface, Neil Storey’s introduction, and a full essay compiled by Callomon from research and notes by Storey, Gabrielle Drake, and Richard Morton Jack as copy-edited by Ros Hammond.  A full sessionography follows along with the track listing and personnel credits, lyrics, and photos and memorabilia including tape box images and the handwritten words to each song.  Callomon’s design for the set is elegant and understated.

The full sessionography reveals that the producers have chosen not to take a warts-and-all approach; instead, this is highly curated.  But that selective approach to The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left’ has paid off with a release that’s accessible, quietly moving, and in the spirit of all that’s come before.  This is the voice of a promising young singer-songwriter on the cusp of success, still hungry for it.  If the final album has a wizened quality, the prevailing sound here is that of youth and anticipation.  This is a Nick Drake that’s both familiar and unknown, and as such, The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left’ vividly adds to the legend and the mystique of a true original.

Nick Drake’s The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left’ can be ordered now from Amazon.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada​