DRAKE: PRIVATE PAINED

A feature spotlighting note-worthy re-releases and compilations. Artist: Nick Drake.

Album: “Fruit Tree” (Hannibal).

History: Drake was born in Burma in 1948, and moved at age 2 with his family to the hamlet of Tamworth-in-Arden, near Coventry, England. As a teen-ager, he began composing romantic, adolescent odes, reflecting the moods he was too private to talk about. By the time Drake was 20, a member of Fairport Convention had recommended him to producer Joe Boyd, who signed him to a recording deal and produced his first album, “Five Leaves Left.” A perfectionist who labored intensely over his work, Drake spent many months recording his second album “Bryter Layter,” his most upbeat and pop-oriented work. He was intensely disappointed when the album didn’t sell. An enigmatic figure, Drake could never quite articulate that disappointment, and he withdrew further into himself.

In a biography included in “Fruit Tree,” Arthur Lubow describes Drake’s depressions as an overwhelming “black fog.” Drake died in 1974 from an overdose of prescribed medication in his bed at his parents’ home. While his death was ruled a suicide, his family and friends maintain that it was an accident.

“Fruit Tree” contains all three of Drake’s albums, plus an additional LP of alternate versions, unreleased takes and songs recorded at home.

Sound: Although Drake is often grouped with such British folkies John Martyn and Bert Jansch, his artistic vision is highly individual. His approach touched on pop, chamber music, jazz and finally an acoustic drone that was almost painfully depressing.

Drake sang in a breathy, detached style, but his moodiness was not completely downbeat. The sparkle of his music, especially the beautiful strings that ornament “Five Leaves Left,” are fragile and uplifting. By the time he recorded “Pink Moon,” the final release before his death, he had cast aside all but his bracing acoustic guitar, and his imagery had been pared down as well.

The final four songs on the newly compiled “Time of No Reply” are the last songs he recorded, and his voice, slightly ragged and throaty, chills with its misty intensity. “A black-eyed dog, he called at my door / A black-eyed dog, he called for more / A black-eyed dog, he knew my name,” Drake sings, and you can sense the fear of man dogged by the blackness of his life.