Oh, next week is Nick Drake's first single!

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Its "Magic"/"Northern Sky", on Island Records.

CD single and good ol' 7".

If the pic in NME is to be believed, it's a 'facsimile' of what it would have looked like in 1969.

Shame they didn't do one then, but anyway, it'll be nice to have him in the chart. I guess there won't be any posthumous videos appear a la Eva Cassidy, but there you go.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I doubt that it will even get into the chart.

Perhaps if Drake had consented to singles being put out at the time he was around, he might still be around.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:34 (twenty-one years ago)

hmmm... I don't really understand why they're doing this even though it's a nice idea. I don't think I've heard "Magic" yet. The Eva Cassidy thing - I hope they don't start on him too much. It's such an easy cow to milk and then repackage for Radio 2 listeners to drive to work to in their Mondeos. I guess this has already happened to some extent but I think Drake s better worthy than this fate.

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, they used "Fruit Tree" on Heartbeat a few years back to no discernable commercial effect. And if Cash's "Hurt" could only manage #39, I can't see this single doing any better.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:41 (twenty-one years ago)

(Actually, that Heartbeat play added loads to sales and interest, if I remember correctly.)

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm, don't recall any of his albums re-entering the album chart (or even entering the album chart to begin with)...whereas, use Coldplay to soundtrack Tricia Dingle's demise in Emmerdale - album sales up 200% the following week.

It's arguable whether Drake's was ever the kind of music which would communicate with the mass public other than in severely diluted form. But I wonder how "Northern Sky" would have fared as a single in 1970, up against Clive Dunn, Edison Lighthouse...and for that matter Elton John (what would have happened, or changed, if "Northern Sky" had been a single and "Your Song" hadn't?).

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:52 (twenty-one years ago)

You know, Elton demoed a lot of Nick Drake's songs back when he was a jobbing musico...?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I did indeed know that. Also that Elton was at the time considered a kind of fellow traveller with Drake in terms of introspective singer-songwriters. But then Elton had/has the kind of outgoing personality which Drake could never have - you couldn't imagine ND turning up to do Hallmark Top Of The Pops album sessions. Might have done him some good if he had done, perhaps, but then I guess that's kind of why Elton got big and Nick didn't.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:58 (twenty-one years ago)

(I guessed you'd know that, Marcello)

Then again, if Nick Drake was the sort of person that could have dressed as Marie Antoinette off the back of a lorry for his 50th birthday party, I guess we wouldn't like him as much...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 08:02 (twenty-one years ago)

The mind truly boggles at that prospect!

Yes, I suppose it's the same thing we get with Hendrix, etc. - died young, therefore no chance to ruin career, no '80s albums produced by Phil Collins with Linn drums and Emulators and guest guitarist Nik Kershaw, no jam sessions with Jools Holland...

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 08:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, and its the 17th May, not the tenth, sorry.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

... no duets with Dido

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm waiting for the producers of TOTP to ring up Universal Music and ask whether Nick Drake can come on the programme (apparently they did this with Jackie Wilson and "Reet Petite" in '86).

Cf. Ed Sullivan in the '60s: "does this John Coltrane fellow have any records out?"

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, this really stinks, who the fuck are these people than decide to put out Nick Drake singles? Well I suppose they own his music, they can do what they like with it.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i hope it has a pink label

― the 'surface' 'noise' (electricsound), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:22 (twenty-one years ago)

It does.

My understanding is that Drake's family have the final say on whether such things can come out. Perhaps they've just had a big tax bill.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:23 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www3.hmv.co.uk/hmv/Large_Images/HMV/IS854.JPG
(xpost)

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:23 (twenty-one years ago)

According to the Nick Drake biog by Patrick Humphrys (?), there was a Heartbeat compilation album, which was a 'nice little earner' for the Drake estate and 'the most people who'd ever heard Nick Drake' or something like that.

The VW ad seemed to result in a nice cardboard slipcase around Pink Moon.

From what I can gather, Gabrielle is in charge, and she can hardly be accused of cashing in, she completely poo-pooed the idea of a film.

Is she in charge?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

She was certainly in charge on "Crossroads"

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:26 (twenty-one years ago)

But what has she done since then? No wonder she'd be worried about a tax bill.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

She progressed to playing Kelly Monteith's wife but has been little seen since

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh god, kelly monteith! "hellooo there!"

Nick Drake.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Now there's a far more pressing question: what the fuck happened to Kelly Monteith?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:35 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a question I often find myself asking along with arguing that he was not as bad people claim he was.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I think she's on the faded 70s TV star circuit along with Rula Lenska at places like Windsor Theatre Royal. She was appearing with Ian Lavendar in Hastings when I was there about twelve years ago. She came to the school where I was doing a course. I went weak at the knees because of Nick.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Casting directors in provincial theatres are spoiled for choice when it comes to raddled redheads - Rula or Gabrielle? It's a tough one.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:40 (twenty-one years ago)

In which case, Gabrielle suffers from the disadvantage of never having beaten up or been beaten up by Dennis Waterman. No doubt one or the other will turn up in EastEnders shortly.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(my sis works at Theatre Royal, Windsor. I'll ask...)

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"Get yer knickers on love and make me a cup of tea"

Nick was always saying that to Gabrielle on his trips back to Tanworth-in-Arden

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"And Uncle Charlie, away back upstairs and leave my sis alone!"
"B-but my boomerang won't come back etc. etc."

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 09:59 (twenty-one years ago)

this is sad.

― Chris 'The Velvet Bingo' V (Chris V), Thursday, 6 May 2004 10:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Which part is sad: the fact that a new Nick Drake single is about to be released or the fact that we know who Kelly Monteith is?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 10:10 (twenty-one years ago)

And, moreover, remember how much difficulty he used to have on a weekly basis with words like "pub," "chips" and "telly"?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 6 May 2004 10:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Bump: Its now.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:58 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

.. and his second single and next chartbound sound is "River Man", to tie in with a brand new "best of"...
(DVD single anybody?)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 16 August 2004 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

"River Man" makes a great single. There aren't enough dreamy 5/4 pastoral ballads on the radio these days

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 16 August 2004 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

So, let me get this right: There's a VW ad with Nick Drake on it (this track?) so it may well be a bigger hit?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Number 74 with a bullet, no doubt.

And a spurious "best of" to follow up his smash hit #27 in the chart for two weeks odds and sods compilation.

It must be a tax bill.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

They still send them to you in ~~Tamworth-in-Arden~~ hell?

― Jimmybommy JimmyK'KANG (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 07:25 (twenty-one years ago)

No but they might send them to their acting sister who to the best of my knowledge has not been on TV or on screen since the days of Kelly Monteith!

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 07:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, curiously enough, I saw Gabrielle Drake in some TV drama very recently, 'cos I remember remarking to my partner that it was the first time I'd seen her on screen for several years and that she appeared to have aged considerably in the intervening period (although that could have been make up of course).

This obviously confirms the "tax bill" theory.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh my.

― Jimmybommy JimmyK'KANG (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 07:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know why "Magic" was chosen as a single; it's my second-least favorite Nick Drake song after "Poor Boy"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Saturday, 28 August 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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