Playing the smoother edges of Nick Drake’s music

The Songs of Nick Drake Performed by Keith James and Rick Foot, Picture House, Tuesday 18 November 08

By DJ Bigtoe

Let me lay my cards on the table from the outset; I’m a Pink Moon man. Not to say that I don’t love Bryter Layter or Five Leaves Left and haven’t devoured every note like manna from heaven, it’s just that Pink Moon for me is where it all happened. For much of the early nineties I could be found bleary eyed in the belly of the night pacing the attic room of a student hovel lost between the spidery ether of ‘Pink Moon’ and the elegiac ‘Things Behind the Sun’.  Perhaps not what you would call gainful employment but for better or worse those long nights of the soul made me who I am today.

In a predictably odd way, Nick Drake’s music was the perfect counterpoint to the false euphoria of acid house, and a tut-tutting shake of the head to Brit-Pop’s dribbly-cheeked toddler. But that was a long time ago and tonight I’ve arrived to hear what for me is the most unlikely of things, a Nick Drake tribute band.

How do you capture the dark heart of those songs inhabiting the improbable tunings, the virtuosic finger-picking and of course, those breathy, care-worn vocals? Even more improbably how do you turn this most fragile beauty into a working show at £16 a ticket?

In Drake’s cruelly short lifetime he blunted his limited commercial appeal by largely shunning live performance and was frequently met without fanfare when he did play, out of step with the loose kaleidoscopic sounds of the late 60s and early 70s.

I was secretly hoping to find an act that dared to recreate this deference by playing three songs then shambling off-stage midway through the fourth without a word. Sadly this was not the show of my dreams but it did deliver a great deal that Nick Drake’s music promises.

We were greeted by a modest, softly spoken man with an impressive Fu Manchu goatee who informed us that he had had a stressy day and what better way to recover than immersing ourselves in The Music of Nick Drake.

I have to say I was a little worried fearing a new-age-reefer-madness interpretation of Nick Drake’s music as 21st Century Soma. In fact the opening ‘Things Behind The Sun’ (which may be my favourite Drake song) made it clear that we were dealing with a towering Nick Drake scholar who knows his DAGAD from his DADFAD (guitar tunings for those wondering what I’m waffling on about; of which we are told Drake used over twenty, many of which he invented himself).

The man with the Fu Manchu was Keith James who has been perfecting this well judged and musically impeccable performance for a few years. His playing is graceful and effortlessly inhabits the subtleties of Drake’s guitar technique whilst resisting the urge to ‘show off his chops’, which doubtlessly he could, but has wisely chosen to restrain in favour of a respectfully understated approach.

He is later joined on the double bass by Rick Foot whose jazz and faintly avant-garde leanings place him squarely in the shoes of the mighty Danny Thompson who originally played with Drake on Five Leaves Left.

It is a balanced combination that between the two players recreates the smoother edges of Nick Drake’s output perfectly. Stand out moments included the excellent ‘One Of These Things First’ and a beautiful version of ‘Cello Song’ where the two musicians seemed to transmit a telepathic understanding of the song and its serpentine ebb and flow.

At times however this display of virtuoso playing and slick economical arrangements sometimes felt at odds with the Nick Drake I know and love. He is an artist that people develop such a profound relationship with, there is a risk that each fan projects his or her own musical ideals onto this lost troubadour, claiming his muse for our own, simply because we can. In my case it is the autumnal despair of ‘Black Eyed Dog’ and weary grace of ‘Road’ that I was longing for.

Interestingly, my personal highlight was an absolutely sublime cover of that other great, lost son of song-writing genius, Tim Hardin. On ‘If I Was a Carpenter’ James’s voice sounded even more comfortable evoking Hardin’s rich jazzy tenor than Drake’s own whisperings. It was a beautiful moment when the two performers took flight and noticeably took the audience with them.

This is the second official Nick Drake tribute show I’ve had the pleasure to watch (as well as numerous open mike offerings) and in both cases I felt as though the performers made a choice to take us on a lighter journey than some of Drake’s later work might offer us; a fair choice, but for me, arch miserabilist and lover of difficult beauty, I would have liked a few more shadows if only to remind us of the needless loss at the heart of the legacy.

Listen to DJ Bigtoe’s show ‘The Bigtoe Documents’ every second Sunday in the month on Phonic 106.8 FM or online at www.phonic.fm.