Chewing Pine

Nick Drake – Family Tree (Island Records, 2007)

(This originally appeared in Stereo Subversion)

Given Nick Drake’s restrained record catalogue and due to his posthumous success, a call for unreleased material has continued to grow over time. Spurred by his family’s willingness to tape Drake’s reel to reel home recordings for fans, a steady leak and distribution of some of his work has been scattered and often times has ended up on bootlegs. This has resulted in a number of useful tools in figuring the perspective of this young musician, but probably in just as many dubious records. Family Tree represents the most recent and supposedly full compendium to the cannon. Included with the Drake home recordings are a few songs by his mother and sister. Tonality and phrasing revealed by Molly Drake explain a number of traits that become repeated throughout the three album output of her thoughtful son. You can hear where Nick got his phrasing, although his mother sounds a bit older stylistically. The same stately air is emitted from her lungs as from her sons. All the recordings, save for the few family tracks, originate before Drake’s initial dates for his first album, Fives Leaves Left, released in 1969. There are a few unfinished songs that would make it to the album, like “Way to Blue” and the minimal and un-orchestrated “Day Is Done”, but the lion’s share of tracks here are new to album-only fans. Along the way, “Winter is Gone”, like a significant portion of this album, presents itself in a strong enough fashion to fit onto either Pink Moon, Drake’s last album, or his first recorded work. Other numbers, Bert Jansch’s “Strolling Down the Highway” for instance, reminds listeners that Drake did not appear fully formed, but examined and absorbed the work of his predecessors. Stylistically, Drake borrowed concepts (hard times, sadness, being lovelorn) from the blues on his albums as opposed to strictly aping them. A number of selections here find Drake performing in a more American folk style, rooted in blues as opposed to his well known pastoral British fare. The importance of the Dylan or Blind Boy Fuller covers to Drake must have been staggering. Being insular, as by most accounts Drake was, the origin of one’s craft should have been present in his mind. In his admiration, the abridged “My Baby’s So Sweet” has some vocal phrasing that leaves a bit to be desired, much like the misstep in lyrics during Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time”. Endearingly enough, moments later during the Dylan cover, a glass can be heard clanking in the background of Drake’s room at the time. For fans of Brtyer Layter, there is nary a comparison to be made to those more full British folk compositions. These recordings are made by an isolated man observing life and creating his personal set of signs to get him through what he probably found to be a very hard time on earth.