Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake by Trevor Dann Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake
Book Review: This came as such a disappointment...
Summary: 2 Stars
After the flawed Humphries biog, the time was ripe to redress the balance and write a definitive account of the life and music of Nick Drake. Given Trevor Dann's excellent credentials, this is what I had hoped for in this book. Sadly, for me, it draws too much on sources already well familiar to most Drake fans, tries to 'sex up' established facts, and maddeningly, seems to throw away major opportunities for new insight, such as the first interview with Sophia Ryde.
Did Nick Drake suffer from schizophrenia? I've read nothing that would point to that so far and Dann doesn't convince me here either. The symptoms he lists are classics of depression and it is widely acknowledged that this was Nick's condition. Use of such an outdated term as 'split personality' really grates and typifies a seeming desire by the author (or publishers?) to take us on a trip to Daily Mail Land. Ditto the sub-tenuous 'evidence' that Drake was a heroin user (he worked with John Cale, so apparently....) and the clunky smoking-dope-causes-mental-illness angle (how very 'now'!) Nick Drake's story is far from the typical sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll one and all the more interesting for it. Why is Dann taking us down that tired old road?
As for wasted opportunities... it transpires that Nick wrote a letter to "best (girl)friend" Sophia Ryde on the day he died. Dann speaks to her "about Nick on the record for the first time." What did the letter say? We are none the wiser. Dann may have valid reasons for demurring on this score - the content of what could be construed as The Suicide Note may have been so delicate that he balked at including it. He doesn't say. On the other hand, this is a biography and delicate material (respectfully handled, of course) is the nature of biography.
There is an evident demand for, yet a finite supply of material concerning Nick Drake. Articles in the music press, myriad CD compilations, bootlegs on e-bay, biographies: each promising something new, but rarely delivering (Dann himself rightly calls the ethics of this in to question). I don't want to think badly of Trevor Dann, his superlative selection for the Way to Blue compilation shows a deep respect for Nick Drake and his music. So why, after reading this book, am I left with the feeling that, once again, the same old material is being rehashed and rearranged to cash in? What went wrong?
Book Review: wonderful book
Summary: 5 Stars
I was very dubious about another book trying to tell the story of Nick Drake ..... the Humphries book was so disappointing ..... but this a step change - very authentic, truly 'sympatico' with the subject but not hagiographic at all. Trevor Dann is a career Radio and TV producer and manager so I expected the worse but his style is very appealing and very very thorough. I put it down hoping he'll write another book soon. John Martyn perhaps? Book Review: One Half of the Balance
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is as relevant and as interesting to read as the Patrick Humphries version and if both are read, the two together will probably provide the closest interpretation there will ever be on the life and recorded works of the enigmatic Drake. Dann does take a different slant to Humphries it wouldn't be worth the effort if it wasn't - perhaps it's a more clinical interpretation, warts and all. Dann (in much the same way that Humphries did) traces Drakes life and recording history based on interviews (and reference to other written records) with contempories of Drake but it's best remembered that the recall of individuals can change a lot over 30 years (for better or worse). Dann's view that Drake had a schizophrenic form illness that may or may not have been a substance abuse psychosis is interesting based on what a modern day psychiatric diagnosis of the symptoms would conclude - but again the truth can never be known, lots of questions are left unanswered and are perhaps unaswerable. A biography of this type can never be totally accurate - but it's still worth reading! Book Review: A brilliant biography
Summary: 5 Stars
Brilliant second widely-available biography of the extremely talented, troubled troubadour who died virtually unknown in 1974 but has since been gradually elevated to the status of cult legend by an army of young and older admirers.
The first Nick Drake tome by Patrick Humphries (Nick Drake: The Biography) is an excellent read but was written in 1997 when the internet was in its relative infancy and the cult of Nick was still developing. Trevor Dann's new book takes the numerous websites and chat rooms into account as well as interviewing new key people in Nick's short life who have emerged over the past few years.
Trevor's book also usefully researches and debunks some of the myths of Nick - such as his famous supposed handing over of final album Pink Moon to the receptionist at Island Records - as well as looking more objectively than many idyllic, romanticised writers do at how difficult he was to be around. He still does this though with devotion to the music of the subject and refreshingly often uses first names in an age when most journalists use surnames only.
Darker Than The Deepest Sea is a superb, widely researched biography which also illustrates the development of a cult legend in the modern electronic age.
Book Review: Great biography but Drake stubbornly resists unmasking
Summary: 4 Stars
This second biography of the musician Nick Drake (1948-1974) uncovers new turf by conducting the first interview with Sophia Ryde (to whom, it is revealed, Drake wrote a letter left by his bedside when he died) and drawing upon a 2004 Belgian radio interview with Drake's sister and friends. Trevor Dann went up to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, four years after Drake and thus has the advantage of being able to draw upon his near-contemporary recollections.
Dann's narration of Drake's childhood and early adult experiences is evenly paced and open-minded. With both of Drake's parents having died, Dann speculates openly on the atmosphere at home in Tanworth-in-Arden, concluding that "childhood in a posh family in a quiet, isolated village could indeed be a torment". Nick is painted as an aloof, somewhat supercilious figure, "the apple of his mother's eye", who was tall, articulate, academically unmotivated and, as he got older, near-schizophrenic as a result of excessive cannabis consumption. Stories of sex are conspicuous by their absence: Nick seemed to "float above the carnal world of student sex", Dann states. Both Linda Thompson and Robin Frederick deny that their relationships with him were consummated. Rumours that Drake's bulging jeans on the front cover of his first album betray an erection brought on by the male photographer are humorously handled by Dann, who states that this might rather be "...well, bollocks".
His handling of Drake's three albums - Five Leaves Left (1970), Bryter Layter (1970) and Pink Moon (1972) - is hampered by scant analysis of his lyrics, and is rather too influenced by Joe Boyd's and Robert Kirby's recollections. He does suggest that the proliferation of the word "ride" in later songs (e.g. Free Ride, Rider on the wheel) was a play on Sophia Ryde's name and that the "ban on feeling free" in River Man and "Do you curse where you come from?" in Hazey Jane I indicate a stifling and depression-inducing family atmosphere. Dann comments that Nick's sister Gabrielle did not seem to know him well and that all those who met him seemed to have the impression of a spectral, but nevertheless unmistakable presence. Luckily, Dann doesn't make the mistake of assuming he has access to Drake's 'inner truth', himself admitting that Nick seems "always elusive, never predictable; capable of warmth and affection, but never quite reliable enough to form a staunch friendship or be a dependable workmate". The person who understood Drake best would appear to be John Martyn, who wrote the track 'Solid Air' about him.
In spite of the bubbling adoration to be found within the Drake cult, Trevor Dann is not afraid of quoting unflattering opinions (one recalls his job was to "get [Nick] out of his stinky bed in his grotty flat in Notting Hill...He was a complete pain in the arse"). Nevertheless, there are two key flaws to this well-written and otherwise delightful biography: Why does Dann not discuss what exactly was in the letter found by Nick's bed? Even if Ryde refused to show it to him (presuming she still has it in her possession), it seems remarkable that Dann doesn't flesh out his scoop more. Secondly, he closes his book with speculations that Drake's depression and overdose of antidepressants at 26 point to child abuse, claiming that eight of Nick's songs "fit the child abuse template". Having meticulously presented his account of Drake's life up to now, it does seem a shame that Dann chooses to leave the reader at the close in a wilderness of unsubstantiated speculation.
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