Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A STONE IN A TIN CAN..., April 3, 2003
I was very disappointed in this book - and while some of that disappointment is with the style of writing Mr. Humphries employs here, there's more to it than that. Writing a biography is a tricky proposition at best. In the case of an artist like Nick Drake - reclusive and withdrawn, with only one interview given during his brief lifetime - it's a task even more daunting than one would usually expect. Humphries has written bios of other musicians - Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Tom Waits, &c - and has evidently built a career and reputation in this area. I'm sure that he felt drawn to the music of Nick Drake in some ways, rather than simply choosing an artist about whom to write in the hope of selling tons of books - there are innumerable choices that would have garnered him greater sales - but without the cooperation of two critical people in Nick's life (his sister Gabrielle and his manager/producer Joe Boyd), given the nature of his subject, the project was more or less doomed from the start. Humphries mentions in his forward that Joe and Gabrielle `had decided not to cooperate' - and since Joe's Warlock Music is the publisher of all of Nick's songs, this also meant that Humphries would be unable to quote from Nick's lyrics. He was thus reduced to quoting Gabrielle and Joe from previously available sources. Molly and Rodney Drake, Nick's parents, were deceased, so no direct conversations between them and the author were possible either. The only other sources left for him upon which to draw were the remembrances of various friends of Nick and written articles about the man and his music. What emerges from all of this is inevitably a choppy picture of the man - not unsympathetic, but jarring and incomplete. Many parts of the book are simply strings of quotes strung together - and too many of the gaps have been filled in by well-meaning but ultimately tedious anecdotes about the music scene of the 60s and 70s in general. Referring to the musicians and bands emerging from the public school scene in the UK of the time, Humphries mentions Genesis coming out of Charterhouse to begin their `windy, wuthering road' to success - a reference to their `Wind and wuthering' album of the late 70s. He's trying a little too hard here for my tastes, I'm afraid. Another irritating practice of Humphries is that he contradicts himself in too many places to mention. He can't seem to settle on his own opinion. On p. 93, he says `FIVE LEAVES LEFT is an astonishingly assured and mature debut' - on p. 94, he says `Lyrically the songs on FIVE LEAVES LEFT are largely unremarkable'. Huh? On p. 89, he speaks warmly of how well Robert Kirby (Nick's school chum and string arranger on his first two albums) worked with Nick's songs: `...his arrangements remain an integral part of the distinctive sound of Nick's debut album' - then, again from p. 94: `...perhaps the arrangements are a tad lush'. This sort of `playing both sides' persists throughout the book. These are not instances of Humphries quoting the opinions of others (at least they are not presented in that way) - these are his own words. The publisher, Bloomsbury, must also be taken to task, for their (lack of) editing - there are several errors in the book that have nothing to do with writing style, but everything (apparently) to do with allowing one's computer spell-check program to act as an editor. This point may seem to be a bit picky, but in context of my other problems with the book, it merely added to my inability to appreciate it. There's another review below that wisely suggests that those interested in Nick allow his music to speak for him - and this is of course the closest we can come to him, for his music came from his heart and soul. Over the years since his death, it has become much more widely appreciated than it was in his lifetime - sadly this is the case in too many who die before their time. There is beauty in that music. Humphries speaks in several places of the darkness of Nick's lyrics (but, being unable to quote from them, gives no examples), that his depression was a result of an adolescent never coming into maturity, unable to cope with the world - and many of the songs were dark, without a doubt. There were, however, many moments of light and beauty. One only has to listen to the first track on his debut album (`Time has told me' from FIVE LEAVES LEFT) - to me, the song is one that speaks of hope and patience, of learning and recognizing the important things that are worth waiting for. That sounds like maturity and good judgment to me. Nick may well have been a troubled soul - but he was not without happiness, and he obviously understood and appreciated things that a person stuck in adolescence would not. Near the end of the book, when Humphries is writing of the release of Nick's final four songs, and some additional material - early home recordings and alternate takes - he quotes both Nick's parents and Joe Boyd as saying that they were trying to make sure that anything they released reflected only well on Nick, that they were concerned with how he was represented, that he deserved that consideration. I think that he deserves better than this bio - that might seem harsh, but there's simply too much contradiction and padding here. Rather than a 270+page book, this could have been edited down to a decent magazine article. There are a lot of facts here, but very little understanding. If you have the opportunity to view it, check out the fine documentary A SKIN TOO FEW - it's a much more satisfying portrait of this gentle man.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid biography of a shadowy life, October 8, 1998
This review is from: Nick Drake: The Biography (Hardcover)
Patrick Humphries' greatest achievement in writing a biography of Nick Drake, one of the great singer songwriters of his (or any) generation, is that he was able to find enough material to fill a full-length book. Which is both a blessing and a curse: the last three years of his life must have been a nightmare for Nick Drake, a young man who along with his considerable talent also, it appears, crafted an image of himself as a loner artiste, an image which became the reality that eventually consumed him. Therefore, Humphries was faced with the daunting task of making interesting the interviews with friends and relatives, who, almost without exception, claimed that Drake was quiet, incommunicative, present but not really all there; in short, there wasn't much story to tell: three brilliant albums, a staggering mental breakdown and depression, and a death that may have been accidental, may have been suicide, but in any case was as tragic as it was inevitable. Humphries great achievement is to take the simple facts of Drake's life and put them in a context that makes them seem belong-able to a real human being, rather than part of the myth that Nick Drake has become. Most fascinating is his portrayal of the music scene that Drake became associated with via his manager, Joe Boyd, the legendary producer of many of the great British folk-rock groups of the late 60s; in fact, while Drake is the centerpiece of Humphries' book, Boyd's colorful presence in Nick Drake's life and his role in 60s rock often outshines the story of Nick Drake himself, simply because so much more is known of Boyd. Made most clear by this biography is that to know more about Nick Drake than we knew before would be virtually impossible, because, more so than even a man like Bob Dylan, Drake WAS his music. The story of the music and how it was developed, crafted, and recorded, is therefore the core of Nick Drake's life, and I found the details surrounding these to be the most insightful of the book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Diminish the aura, January 27, 2004
Any biographical information about the life of Nick Drake has to be welcomed and Patrick Humphries has done his best in tracking down Nick's old aquantinces. But you'd have to be close to illiterate not to figure out there's an awful lot of padding and repetition in this book.
The life and recording career of Nick Drake was so short that ironiclly the lack of visual images featured here only adds to the aura. It's as if we only had a miniscule visual record of Nick Drake. On the contrary, photos of him seem to be in relevant abundance and seeing them would have done more to humanize his past than speculation and half-forgotten anecdotes.
A lot of time was given over to descriptions of Nick's appearance and there was some interesting details supplied by the photographers who shot the album photos. But I felt myself wanting to see the actual photos of Nick and interpret them for myself rather than read about what somebody else thought about them. Interpreting already available photos is hardly great biographical insight.
As such I think this would have been a much more complete reflection on Nick's life if it had been released as a photo book. That way the biographical text could have been shortened to 100 pages or so of the most relevant and important information and the rest of the book could include a photographic record of Nick Drake with the complete photo sessions of every album.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
