The view from a major record label

'Polydor executives were not known for diplomacy: the man sent to open their American office startled the crowd at the New York press launch by telling them he had wanted to live in the city ever since he had seen its skyline from Long Island Sound through the periscope of his U-boat in 1943' - Joe Boyd writes about music in the 60's in White Bicycles, one of the most entertaining and best written books about rock. Now read Joe Boyd on Dylan and the blues, and, of course, he was Nick Drake's producer.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Favourite stoned listening

'Favourite stoned listening included electronic music by Luciano Berio; the IBM computer singing 'Daisy, Daisy'; John Cage's Indeterminacy - some stories were longer than others, but he read each one in two minutes, some speeded up, others very slowly; a two-volume Folkways recording of a Japanese Zen ceremony - on one track a bell rang once a minute, and it was always great when it finally rang; and lots of the latest squeals and shrieks from the ghetto: Albert Ayler's Bells and Spirits Awake; Ran Blake; Pharoah Sanders; Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra (photo above); Eric Dolphy's honking bird imitations; Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet: two reeds, two bassists, two drummers, two trumpets, thirty-eight minutes of spontaneous collective improvisation with no preconceptions' - Barry Miles recalls stoned listening with Paul McCartney in the out-of-print but not out-of-mind In the Sixties.

Now playing - The Brad Mehldau Trio's take on Nick Drake's River Man from Art of the Trio, Volume 5. Nick was no stranger to stoned listening, more here.
The book actually misspells Pharoah Sanders by adding a 'u' to his surname and also says Ron not Ran Blake, I've corrected the errors in the quote. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Busking in the limelight

Tired of contrived stories of highly paid musicians 'busking'? Then follow this link for a real busking story.

I am a camera - St Tropez 1967

'Those long lecture-free days in France were tailor-made for Nick to practice his guitar. That's what people remember about him during those months leading up to what became known as the Summer of Love. Jeremy Mason recalls going to a bookshop with Nick and buying a copy of Baudelaire's poems Les Fleurs Du Mal (Flowers of Evil).

They read Dostoevsky and Rimbaud. And they had a cheap old gramophone for which Nick bought a copy of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, a work which he was always keen to have around and which may have just been the last piece of music he heard before he died seven years later.

His earliest outings with the guitar were as a busker. Simon Crocker joined him on harmonica a few times in the streets of Aix and even, on a couple of occasions, near the chic harbour area of fashionable St Tropez.'

The words above are from Trevor Dann's superb new biography of singer-songwriter Nick Drake who died in 1974, aged just 26. Nick Drake was in St Tropez in the summer of 1967, and so was another British student also taking a year off between school and university.

Roger Vadim's 1957 film And God Created Woman (Et Dieu... créa la femme) with its cast of Brigitte Bardot , Curd Jürgens , and Jean-Louis Trintignant had positioned St Tropez at the epicentre of the sensual world. In 1967 St Trop was chic, and Bardot was topless on the Plage de Pampelonne. But St Tropez was also where it was happening musically and artistically, and there was magic (and something else) in the air.

The highlight was Jean Jacques Lebel's production of the Picasso play Desire Caught By The Tail in a vast circus tent near the sea, with music by Soft Machine. The sound was pretty impressive in the auditorium, it was almost as impressive on the beach at Grimaud, three miles away, where I grabbed a few hours sleep each night.


I had the one of the first Olympus camera with me, a 35mm half-framePen S. The photos here were all taken in St Tropez in August 1967 on Kodachrome 2 slide stock, and have never been published before. Somewhere in those crowds was Nick Drake ...


Nick Drake resources On An Overgrown Path include * A Skin Too Few * A troubled cure ... for a troubled mind * Monteverdi in Cambridge * Smile why it has been * All photos by Pliable and copyright On An Overgrown Path.

Trevor Dann's book Darker Than The Deepest Sea, The Search For Nick Drake is published by Portrait, ISBN 0749950951. Other I am a camera photo features On An Overgrown Path * Berlin * Dresden * Leipzig * Aldeburgh *

A Skin Too Few

Flew back from France yesterday lunchtime, and in the evening went to a screening of A Skin Too Few at The Cut community arts centre in Halesworth, Suffolk. On An Overgrown Path has already visited the music of Nick Drake (left) several times, and Dutch director Jereon Berkvens' 48 minute film made in 2000 is a reflection on Drake's life and music (photo of Nick to right).

This was not an easy film to make. There is no archive footage of Drake, who died in 1974 at only twenty-six, other than childhood home movies. And there are no radio interviews or other audio recordings, just the three sublime albums, plus four songs from a final recording session. Cameraman Vladas Naudzius shot the film on 35mm film stock rather than video, and this gives a haunting and elegiac feeling exactly in tune with the music. The film was made by the Dutch Humanist Broadcasting Foundation & LuijtenMacrander Productions, and was supported by the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting and Thuiskopiefund who earn our thanks for making this project possible. Nick Drake is at last being recognised as an important voice, with many leading musicians paying homage to him, including Brad Meldhau whose new CD released this month, Day is Done, takes its title from a Drake song. Despite increasing interest A Skin Too Few has not been released on DVD, so a cinema or broadcast viewing is the only way you will see it.

Director Jereon Berkvens says: "A Skin Too Few is my attempt as a filmmaker to approach the silent landscapes, locations and people in the life of this unorthodox loner in the hope of understanding his state of mind." The film succeeds brilliantly. It is lovingly made with evocative footage of Cambridge and Drake's parents' home in Tanworth-in-Arden, and it brings us closer to understanding this genuine creative artist. The inspiration for Nick Drake's lyrics included Chaucer, Blake, Flaubert and Shakespeare, and he read English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He was also influenced by a wide range of music. His friend Robert Kirby, who arranged the songs for the first album Five Leaves Left, was reading music at Caius College, Cambridge, and his enthusiasms included Baroque and early music. .

When Nick's mother found her son dead in his bedroom from a drug overdose an LP of the Brandenburg Concertos was on the record player turntable. In A Skin Too Few there is an unforgetable scene shot in the bedroom in Tanworth-in-Arden. (See production shot above). Jereon Berkvens includes a few well chosen props. Movingly one of these is the correct period LP sleeve of Thurston Dart's performance of the Brandenburgs on L'Oiseau-Lyre.

More on Nick here.
Photo credits: Nick Drake - Riverfronttimes.com, production shot - Humanist Broadcasting Foundation & LuijtenMacrander Productions Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Monteverdi in Cambridge

Cambridge is a university first, and a city second. It is at its best when the students are in residence to counterbalance the tourists and language school students who take over in high summer. Last Saturday was a day to savour Cambridge. The weather suddenly changed from damp and grey English spring to something like high summer. The streets and open spaces were thronged with students enjoying the miraculous sunshine while taking a break from studying for exams, and the Backs were crowded as a mixture of students and early tourists took out punts.

We walked down Silver Street, along the river and back across Clare Bridge. Despite having seen it so many times we marvelled again at that most uplifting of views, Kings College Chapel viewed from across the river. The buildings are magnificent, but it is the students that make the city. This is the city of Rupert Brooke (who as a founder member of the Marlowe Dramatic Society allows me to insert a contrived link to my Infinite riches in a little room post) , and Silvia Plath (who was at Newnham College in 1955/6 on a Fulbright Scholarship, and whose husband Ted Hughes was at Pembroke College, but not at the same time as Plath). Ralph Vaughan Williams studied here, as did singer/songwriter Nick Drake who was at Fitzwilliam College for six months of his too brief life in 1969. See my posts Smile Why It Has Been , A Troubled Cure for a Troubled Mind and Improvisation for more on Nick Drake. If you are tempted to try his music, as well as his own CDs I highly recommend jazz pianist Brad Mehladau's Live in Toko album which has treatments of two Drake songs on it, Things Behind the Sun, and River Man. This album is the overgrown path that got me into Nick Drake.

Cambridge was pivotal in the Early Music revival. From Edward J Dent’s (who was a don at King's) pioneering presentations of Handel oratorios and operas in the 1920’s. Through Boris Ord’s work with King's College Choir (whose repertoire he expanded into Tudor polyphony) and the University Madrigal Singers, to figures such as Thurston Dart. I have the Neville Marriner Academy of St Martin's recording on LP of Dart's wonderful, but controversial, performing edition of the Brandenburgs, and what performers! - including the late and much lamented David Munrow on recorder. Munrow read English at Pembroke College, and next year is the thirtieth anniversary of his tragic and untimely death; a fate he shared, alas, with Nick Drake, Sylvia Plath and Rupert Brooke. Let's hope for some more Munrow reissues next year, and wouldn't a biography be wonderful? (Pliable Feb 2007 - alas there was no biography, but there was this Overgrown Path tribute.

Sir David Wilcocks helped establish the current world class standard of the King’s College Choir, while St John’s College Choirs has also established an enviable reputation. Two current stars of the Early Music scene (who were in Norwich for our Festival) also have Cambridge connections. Violinist Andrew Manze read Classics at Cambridge, while keyboard virtuoso Richard Eggar was organ scholar at Clare College. Composer John Rutter (who I touched on in my post Lux Aeterna ) also studied at Clare (as of course, did Nick Drake). James Wood, the composer of the opera Hildegard which was the subject of my post Hildegard comes to Norwich via IRCAM and Darmstadt was also an organ scholar at Cambridge. Fiona Maddock, whose book on Hildegard of Bingen inspired James Wood's new opera on the same subject (see my post Hildegard comes to Norwich via IRCAM and Darmstadt), was at Newnham College, while BBC broadcaster and journalist Andrew Marr (see my post I am a bringer of Truth and Enlightenment) was at Trinity Hall. All of this extraordinary cultural and musical heritage is underpinned by a vibrant university and town music scene, with a calendar of performances that is simply breathtaking in its range.

One of my favourite publications is the Cambridge Concert Calendar. This is published three times a year, and is essential reading even if you don’t live in England, as it gives a marvellous snapshot of life in this most musical of all cities. The current calendar for the Easter Term 2005 covers the period from the end of April to the end of July. It has 54 pages, and there are four concerts to a page – that is more than 200 different events to choose from.

On this weekend the concerts included a celebration of the music of Henri Dutilleux in Kettle’s Yard on the Sunday followed by a symposium on his life and music; and a Baroque programme in Robinson College Chapel on Friday. Monday brought a trio of Indian classical slide guitars and tabla in Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Trumpington Street. (It is wonderful how these place names evoke Rupert Brook’s poem The Old Vicarage Granchester.... At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington). And on Saturday the riches included a centenary concert remembering Cambridge composer, critic (he is the author of a fine book on the Beethoven Quartets) and academic Philip Radcliffe in King's College Chapel, with the Fitzwilliam Quartet (formed by graduates of the Cambridge college of the same day in the 60's, also Nick Drake's college, a nice crossing of overgrown paths) performing a string quartet by him. The following week Anglia Opera staged performances of Britten's rarely heard Paul Bunyan in the Mumford Theatre auditorium of Cambridge's new Anglia Polytechnic University. (Which allows me to link to my two Britten posts, Easter at Aldburgh and A direct line to Britten.) If you want a real taste of musical Cambridge the Cambridge Concert Calendar is just £2.50 plus postage from Gail Dubbyne at dobbyne at quadrant-video.demon.co.uk. It will give you a picture of the rich musical life of this wonderful city even if you can’t make it to the concerts.

We were in Cambridge for music making by the students,
Monteverdi's Vespro Della Beata Vergine of 1610 sung by the University Chamber Choir directed by King's College graduate David Lowe. The performance was in Sir George Gilbert Scott's majestic 19th century St John's College Chapel. Two weekends and two exquisite performance spaces. Last week the Scandinavian simplicity of Norwich's Swedenborgian Chapel (see my post What a Facade! , and now the High Church splendour of a Cambridge College).

This was powerful Monteverdi, sung with gusto and youthful vigour, but also with precision and purity of tone. The University Chamber Choir comprises thirty-two singers; eleven soproanos, eight altos, six tenors and seven basses. What a joy to see such a youthful (and expert) choir, and also so many young faces in the almost capacity audience. (The ageing of the audience for classical music seems to be unstoppable, like mobile phones and i-Pods).

Is it a lute on steroids? No, it is a chitarrone competing with the serpent in my Size does matter post for the largest instrument on the blog award. It also gives me a reason to link to my post about fantastic jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani, this was one of my favourite posts but it created zero reaction, but on the basis his size didn't matter I'm trying again.

The Baroque players (comprising freelance professionals) were suitable 'authentic'; three cornetts, two tenor sackbuts, a bass sackbut, two violins, a cello, organ, and a wonderful contribution from Dai Miller playing the chitarrone. During the interval, after the Lauda Jerusalem, we wandered out into the quadrangle of the College. The night was like black velvet, and unseasonably warm. We had that increasingly rare feeling that all is well with the world, and that Sir Peter Maxwell Davies can relax (see my post A Musician with teeth). The future of 'serious music' is in safe hands with these young musicians.

Note - this performance took place on April 30th. The sheer volume of posts about Norwich Festival events forced me to hold it over.

If you enjoyed this post you may like Lux Aeterna (and not Ligeti)

A troubled cure ... for a troubled mind

Nick Drake 1948 - 1974

Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind.

Lyrics from Time Has Told Me on Nick's first album Five Leaves Left

Nick Drake resources On An Overgrown Path include * A Skin Too Few * I am a camera - St Tropez * Monteverdi in Cambridge * Smile why it has been *

And as part of the Nick Drake thread read Patrick Humphries' book Nick Drake - the biography, and Darker than the Deepest Sea by Trevor Dann - both highly recommended.