She obviously could, but reportedly travelling with so many and keeping them in tune was just a constant pain.
Apparently Drake used 12 tunings: http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/tunings.html
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 23 February 2015 22:47 (nine years ago) link
just buy another guitar, hire a friend to tech, and prepare your 'nick drake still hasn't made it blog post' where you complain about paying your good friend and guitar tech.
― you can buy your hair if it won't grow (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, 23 February 2015 22:48 (nine years ago) link
Does anyone here have the Scott Appel (?)recordings? Been trying to hear these albums for years. Way out of print . I think there's just one or two tunes on YT?
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 23 February 2015 23:00 (nine years ago) link
<i>Where was it that I read that all those weird tunings he used is partly what made him such an awkward performer, and in turn heightened his depression?</i?
That was in the otherwise forgettable Joe Boyd book in fact.
― campreverb, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 12:54 (nine years ago) link
Otherwise forgettable? Not the White Bicycles one then?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 12:57 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, White Bicycles, filled with insights like 'my generations white blues revival was better than yours' 'Nick was a genius' and other less than earth shattering insights.
― campreverb, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 13:00 (nine years ago) link
huh, i thought that book was goodanyone read the new nick drake book?
― tylerw, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:14 (nine years ago) link
I just don't buy into the "untrained" vs "trained" mythology.
Indeed. Who trained Bert Jansch? Or Davey Graham?
― Romeo Daltrey (Tom D.), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:23 (nine years ago) link
Wondering if he used fingerpicks -- his articulation was very strong
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:52 (nine years ago) link
here he is -- looks like he had long fingernailshttp://i2.cdnds.net/13/11/618x462/music-nick-drake.jpg
― tylerw, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:55 (nine years ago) link
Awkward!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:05 (nine years ago) link
I played in a band with guys who used a bunch of different tunings, and it made for a lot of awkward pauses in the set. Sometimes we managed to put together a set list that optimized the tuning changes (especially if we also brought an extra guitar or two), but it didn't always work.
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:11 (nine years ago) link
That's the point at which you need to have a chatty, relaxed rapport with the audience. I have a feeling that might have been a problem for Nick Drake.
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:24 (nine years ago) link
"Hello, I'm Nick Drake. Please don't look at me."
― tylerw, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:32 (nine years ago) link
I saw a Steve Earle/Shawn Colvin show last year, and as she was tuning she told a story about opening for Sting. She said something along the lines of every folk singer needs to know how to talk while tuning, to keep people engaged, and how she stuck to that even while playing arenas opening for Sting. She would stand there and talk and tune. Then one day she got off stage and there was Sting, who just sort of frowned at her at said "you know, you can just buy a better tuner and get it over with faster."
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:41 (nine years ago) link
those are my least favorite folk singer moments. for example, the stuff neil young says tends to not be very funny. but everyone laughs, and it's just awkward!
― you can buy your hair if it won't grow (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 16:57 (nine years ago) link
... it's how Billy Connolly (and numerous other less stellar and talented folkie turned comedians) got started!
Did you ever see Bert Jansch live? Chatty and relaxed he most certainly wasn't!
― Romeo Daltrey (Tom D.), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 17:33 (nine years ago) link
whereas john martyn had more rabbit on him than chas and dave's pet rescue
― let me be your fan taytay (NickB), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 17:57 (nine years ago) link
He (usually) had Danny Thompson with him also.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 19:10 (nine years ago) link
xposts: i saw jansch play an outdoor mini-folk festival type thing when he toured nz in the nineties, think his only comment was that the rain and surrounding terrain reminded him of scotland!
― no lime tangier, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 00:30 (nine years ago) link
what a dumb thread concept
― Treeship, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 01:16 (nine years ago) link
"drake fans have provided no satisfactory arguments" like wtf, it's pretty folk songs
― Treeship, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 01:17 (nine years ago) link
yeah it's like he or she is reviewing a technical manuscript
― you can buy your hair if it won't grow (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 01:32 (nine years ago) link
feels like you rarely hear the "the boy was smoking mountains and mountains of weed" angle when people talk about why Nick Drake was so hopelessly withdrawn and depressed and anxious around people
― example (crüt), Thursday, 9 February 2017 07:00 (seven years ago) link
i mean he must have brought at least 2 joints with him on each of his night drives across Great Britain right
― example (crüt), Thursday, 9 February 2017 07:02 (seven years ago) link
are you suggesting he had been smoking too long?
― Dick Hole Son (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 February 2017 07:09 (seven years ago) link
The 'smoked too much weed' angle is central to Trevor Dann's biography 'Darker than the Deepest Sea' (which I haven't read). A review of it here mentions heroin use too:
Dann reveals that Drake was such a good customer that his Cockney heroin dealer bought him a car ("he's gotta 'av wheels"). Catastrophically, in terms of his mental health, he smoked "industrial quantities of cannabis", and Dann unpicks the details of Drake's disputed "suicide", pointing out that he could have taken only slightly more than double his customary dose of antidepressants; it's not hard to imagine someone in his state of mind doing that by accident.
― Bongo Herbert (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 9 February 2017 10:51 (seven years ago) link
Reminds me of the Billy Fury documentary where people kept saying he was sort of vague and not quite there a lot of the time, oh and that's right he'd been smoking shitloads of weed since the early 60s.
― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Thursday, 9 February 2017 11:00 (seven years ago) link
That Tristran Lowther "Folk Weekly" article above is brilliant, and obv bogus but hey.
― Mark G, Thursday, 9 February 2017 20:07 (seven years ago) link
played "WAy to Blue" for the first time in eons tonight and it broke me. especially:
"Look through time and find your rhymeTell us what you findWe will wait at your gateHoping like the blind"
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 18 July 2017 03:38 (six years ago) link
I hadn't listened to Andy Bey's version of River Man in ages and it kind of snuck up on me this morning. Easily the best Drake cover I've heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SlN_hP3kYc
― Good cop, Babcock (Chinaski), Thursday, 18 April 2019 10:00 (five years ago) link
Wow, that's a superb version
― doug watson, Thursday, 18 April 2019 15:37 (five years ago) link
i'm honestly very fond of r. stevie moore's version of "river man"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIKkI9IcSms
― Burt Bacharach's Bees (rushomancy), Friday, 19 April 2019 00:26 (five years ago) link
― Robbie Shakespeare’s Sister Lovers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 March 2020 02:56 (four years ago) link
I am a megafan of the guy who played guitar on that track btw.
― Robbie Shakespeare’s Sister Lovers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 March 2020 03:05 (four years ago) link
http://www.paulmeyers.info/no_flash.php
― Ludo, Monday, 30 March 2020 10:39 (four years ago) link
Yup. Refraining from going full-on street team for now.
― Robbie Shakespeare’s Sister Lovers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 March 2020 11:55 (four years ago) link
I brought up the Andy Bey version of "River Man" the other day when Paul Meyers posted a picture of him and Andy on social media. I listened to it and noticed that the arrangement was exactly the same as the original. Paul told me yes, he learned the guitar part off the original record and a really talented guy named Andy Stein transcribed the strings, overdubbing the violin and viola and giving the other parts to a cellist and bassist. Turned out to be Andy Stein of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (#OneThread), who has had a really interesting career over the years. So now I am kind of obsessed by how good it is because I think this kind of thing is amazing but hard to pull off, covering the original exactly as it was done but singing it convincingly enough that it is still its own thing and not just a copy.
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 24 May 2022 16:52 (one year ago) link
Thanks for sharing.
"I think this kind of thing is amazing but hard to pull off, covering the original exactly as it was done but singing it convincingly enough that it is still its own thing and not just a copy."
- exactly. Not all cover versions have to be radically different in order to be credible.
― giraffe, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 09:31 (one year ago) link
I enjoyed that cover.
― Sam Weller, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 10:28 (one year ago) link
I'm intrigued by that Andy bey cover mentioned. I have one of his early 70s lps Experience and judgment so it initially sounds as unlikely as Millie's Drake cover . But maybe makes more sense since it comes from the late 90s. Assume Millie got given the song because she was on Island. Bey had 25+ years to come across the song, or was it who he was working with in the late 90s.
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 10:42 (one year ago) link
Just looked at the dates. Shades of Bey came out in 1998. The Pink Moon Volkswagen commercial was 1999. So while people were still talking about and listening to Nick Drake at the time, he was a still a bit underground.
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:05 (one year ago) link
Yes, and it's still a bit of an outlier in his work.
Millie must've been given Mayfair as a demo, I don't think Drake's recording was released until the 90s(?).
― fetter, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:16 (one year ago) link
Various things on the interweb say the song was brought to his attention by "the producer Herb Jordan." I found this interesting article which confirms this, although it seems to ignore the existence of some prior Bey albums which is weird.
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:18 (one year ago) link
To compare: I usually like Natacha Atlas, but her cover of "RIver Man" is neither here nor there for me, at least upon first listen:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMlMNMmojhI
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:19 (one year ago) link
But maybe it's growing on me the second time.
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:21 (one year ago) link
Heh, you can buy a t-shirt or a hoodie with a picture of Andy Bey and Herb Jordan on it.
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:22 (one year ago) link
Seems to be more here, but I can't listen right now: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/24/773110485/andy-bey-at-80-a-love-letter-to-a-jazz-legend
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:25 (one year ago) link
― 20 Preflyte Rock (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:32 (one year ago) link
Bey's version of Sting's Fragile is a favourite of mine too. Ron Carter on bass, I think.
― fetter, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 11:36 (one year ago) link