Squonk wrote:
Way to the Blue has songs from his first 2 albums as well which are quite interesting.
I kind of appreciate the Joe Boyd production, but is it Joe or Nick that add the jazzy(for the lack of a better description) feel to the songs?
Even RT adding some countryesque guitar for "Time has Told Me" from "Five Leaves Left
Boyd's usual approach was to turn on the microphones and the tape deck, record pretty much live and then select the best takes or the best overdubbed solo. With Drake he looked to put arrangements around the songs. Drake hadn't been playing in bands, and indeed his "discovery" was sort of accidental, hadn't been gigging much and eventually turned out to be not very keen on live performance. Also he was notoriously self-concious and unassertive and if he had strong ideas seldom advanced them.
But there were exceptions. Notably "River Man" where Drake was very emphatic about the string arrangement that he wanted and gave detailed direction to the eventual arranger Harry Robinson. And "Way To Blue" was written for voice and strings.
John Cale got in on the act too. He was listening to some tapes with Boyd in the studio, heard some of Drake's working tapes and insisted that he had to work with Drake and RIGHT NOW. He caught a taxi to Drake's flat and the next morning they arrived at the studio, with Cale being pretty pushy, and laid down "Fly" and "Northern Sky". Those are Cale's arrangements. The horns and the rhythm sections on "Bryter Layter" were Boyd's idea.
Drake was acclaimed as a genius by those who worked with him but the records went nowhere on release. Drake got fed up with it all, put his foot down (out of character) and insisted that the third album would be just him - no band, no strings, no nothing. He did it in two short sessions and it took Island a while to figure out that it was the actual album and not demos.
That third album, in the long run, was his best seller.
Nick has quite a unique guitar picking style, giving me a lot of inspiration.
Compulsory listening
Most of what he did was in alternate tunings, often of his own devising and nothing written down. Some fans have "reverse engineered" some of the tunings.
