Nick Drake
Nick Drake recorded three hushed, intricately arranged folk albums before his death in 1974 at twenty-six, none of which sold enough in his lifetime to hint at the influence they would eventually carry. His fingerpicked open tunings, developed in part from studying British folk-baroque guitarists like Bert Jansch, and his interest in the jazz-folk textures of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks gave his songs an eerie, orchestral hush. Rediscovered decades later, his catalog became a touchstone for a whole lineage of quiet, unguarded singer-songwriters.
enthusiast, ear-level: percussive, harmonically dense fingerstyle guitar that treats a single acoustic guitar like a small orchestra — Drake studied Jansch's records closely and covered his songs.
listen forCompare Jansch's stark 'Needle of Death' to Drake's 'Cello Song' — both use intricate, syncopated picking patterns as the entire architecture of the song, with almost no reliance on a strummed chorus.
enthusiast, ear-level: jazz-tinged chamber instrumentation — strings, upright bass, vibraphone — wrapped around an otherwise simple folk song, a texture Drake borrowed directly from Astral Weeks.
listen forListen to the loose, jazz-inflected sprawl of Morrison's title track 'Astral Weeks' next to Drake's 'River Man,' whose unusual instrumentation is a documented direct response to it.
enthusiast, ear-level: plainspoken narrative folk songwriting, a young English student learning the form from records rather than a folk-club scene.
listen forPlay 'Like a Rolling Stone' next to Drake's early 'Time Has Told Me' — both let a simple strummed pattern carry a long string of observational verses.