Nick Drake

Cherished by a fairly select group of aficionados during his lifetime, Nick Drake's whisper-quiet acoustic intimacy was belatedly rocketed into public view in the strangest imaginable manner: a Volkswagen commercial, produced two decades after his death, featured the airily wistful "Pink Moon." It's an irony that Nick would likely have appreciated. His British sense of self-deprecation ran throughout the late-night, jazz-inflected "Poor Boy," taken from the only album on legendary producer Joe Boyd's résumé that he says he wouldn't change in any way. Boyd's enthusiasm was echoed by Velvet Underground cofounder John Cale, whose spare and tasteful keyboard accompaniment is sprinkled across "Northern Sky" like fairy dust, imbuing the tune with a magical aura. In Next Steps we're going to probe a little further beneath the enigmatic surface of Nick Drake's musical vision.

Even casual fans are quickly acquainted with the majority of Nick's work, given that he produced only three albums during his lifetime. But because his elegant lyrics are so profoundly resonant with his most fervent devotees, his musical skill is often unjustly overlooked. The pastoral charisma of Bryter Layter's instrumental title track not only showcases Drake's deft hand at creating absolutely gorgeous melodies, but also allows his talent as a player to shine. On his recently unearthed cover of "Cocaine Blues," Drake's bountiful finger-style talents are also unmistakably apparent. And the lush, languid jazz ambience of "Saturday Sun" exposes yet another aspect of his wide-ranging musical appetites, begging the question: What more would he have done had he lived past the age of 26?

With a velvet-lined whisper of a voice and a somewhat battered six-string guitar, a shy, black-clad, gangly youth named Nick Drake climbed awkwardly into the spotlight and mesmerized those lucky few in attendance. Recommended to legendary producer Joe Boyd, Nick cut only three albums during his tragically abbreviated life, each carefully faceted and polished to gemstone brilliance. Sadly, they didn't sell very well, and much like Van Gogh, Drake's real genius went largely unnoticed until after his death in 1974. Twenty years later, Boyd, still convinced of his late star's untapped potential, helped place the song "Pink Moon" in a Volkswagen ad, which introduced Drake to a new generation. Now, dozens of artists, from Belle & Sebastian to Lucinda Williams, cite Nick as a key inspiration, and his music has finally found the reception it so deeply deserves.