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Joe Boyd was the producer of Nick Drake's two first albums, 'Five Leaves Left' and 'Bryter Layter'. Other artists he has produced include Pink Floyd (early singles), The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, John & Beverly Martyn, Richard Thopmpson and R.E.M. ('Fables of the Reconstruction' 1985). In 1980, Boyd started his own label, Hannibal Records, who are distributing Nick Drake's back catalogue.



Interview with Joe Boyd
From Zip Code, 1992 (?)
The article was written by Kevin Ring and has been edited



Joe Boyd And The Crazy Magic Of Nick Drake

The thing I always remember about Joe Boyd is the fact that you insisted on Nick's records always being kept in the catalogue when you sold the record label. Is that right?
Yeah . I guess at the time the records hadn't sold very well, but I was convinced that they would one day and I wanted to make sure that they didn't disappear by default. They didn't sell initially because Nick didn't have an in person live performing career and it wasn't music excactly in keeping with the times. There were no singles, no hits, no in person following. There was no real way to gain an audience, other than slowly by word or mouth. He was good friends with John Martyn and they did a couple of dates together.

Nick was really shy?
Yeah. He couldn't deal...he had one very successful performance at the Festival Hall, opening for Fairport Convention, when they did their first reappearance after the car accident and the release of LIEGE AND LIEF, and so you had a very respectful, quiet audience and he went down a storm. Then he went out on the road and found himself playing Student Unions, with everybody drinking beer bottles and talking in the back of the room. An introspective, quiet guy, playing the guitar and singing in a quiet voice, basically people just didn't bother paying attention, they kind of tuned off. He was very demoralised and discouraged by it and couldn't get up much enthusiasm for going back on the road.

When did you first come in contact with Nick?
I guess it was '67. The Fairport Convention did an anti-war marathon at The Roundhouse. Ashley Hutchings, the bass player for the Fairports, stayed around to hear the other artists. Nick did a ten minute spot at two in the morning and Ashley heard him and was very impressed and told me about him and gave me his phone number. I rang him up and invited him to come in and he brought a demo tape in. I was knocked out, I thought it was great.

Was he living in London then?
He was going to Cambridge then actually. He decided to leave Cambridge and concentrate on music. I don't really remember what he was studying. I think it was English.

Where were the photos on the cover of FIVE LEAVES LEFT taken?
FIVE LEAVES LEFT was at a friends flat in Hampstead, not the one he eventually lived in but a different one. I think the one on the back of the album, where he's leaning against the wall, with somebody, a blurred figure, rushing past... that's right around the corner from our office, which was in Charlotte Street in the West End.

Was Nick optimistic when FIVE LEAVES LEFT came out?
I think he was always having difficulty reconciling the fact that he would get great reviews and so many people would come up to him and tell him how wonderful his records were, how much his music meant to them. But yet he wasn't rich or famous. I think that was difficult for him to understand, to know he could get great reviews and not sell records. I think it was a source of some frustration.
� � There's the stories that he lived very frugally, basically. There's a picture of him wrapped in a blanket... The wrapped in a blanket was not because he lived wrapped in a blanket, it was just a blanket the photographer happened to have with him. He didn't live like that. Nick, in later years as he became more depressed, tended to neglect himself a bit, wear unpressed old clothes and look like he slept in them and things like that. But he was very introverted, he had a good sense of humour. I think in his songs there's a kind of humour about his own condition. He has a slight ironic view of his own neurosis, so he wasn't without humour. But he was kind of... there's some of his lyrics, something like '...if songs were lines in a conversation then everything would be fine...' If he could communicate with people in life as he did with his music, he would have been a lot happier, but he found it very difficult talking to people. He had a rather self effacing, apologetic manner of an introverted Public schoolboy.

Why is he more popular than ever now?
Just the fact that over time people have come to appreciate the records and once you make a convert, it's a convert for life. People, once they discover the music they then appreciate it and tell other people about it. The circle spreads. There hasn't been that much promotion, we've done a little over the years, but not promotion that a new artist gets on a major label or or anything like that. I think, in general, you could say that his records sell more every year.

There was an album of Nick Drake cover versions by an American singer, did you ever hear that?
There is a guy in New Jersey, can't remember his name [Scott Appel, the record is "Nine of Swords", ed. note], he puts records out on cassette on his own label, he did a lot of guitar arrangements of Nick's songs. He's been kind of obsessed with Nick's songs for a long time. I don't think they were that much in keeping with the spirit.

What about the band Dream Academy?
I know Nick the lead singer and he's always been a big Nick Drake fan but I wouldn't say the song reminds me of Nick Drake. Nick Clews is very influenced by Nick in a way. It was nice to see the tribute, it's a nice song. [The singers' name is Nick Laird-Clowes and Boyd is most likely referring to their hit single "Life in a Northern Town" from 1986, which was dedicated to Nick, ed. note].

Do you think Nick would have coped with a level of success?
Sure. I think he would have been delighted with it, it would have helped him a lot I would imagine. Everybody likes to be appreciated, even Jon Bon Jovi likes to be appreciated. But while you're waiting for that, some nice fat royalty checques would help to pass the time. Nick was anxious for that to happen in a way. As I said, I think he was frustrated, he did get artistic acclaim in his lifetime. People wrote about him, very remarkable reviews, how great he was, how wonderful he was. But it was just critics. Nick Kent and Melody Maker, and a few American magazines. John Peel thought he was great. So he did have respect of his peers and I think musicians around him were all very respectful of him.

Did Nick have his own influences and heroes?
He was always a powerful influence on other people, even outside a music level. Sure. The obvious influences for someone at that era, like Dylan, were obviously influences. He played some Dylan songs on his early demos ["Tomorrow is a Long Time" and "Don't Think Twice - It's Alright", ed. note]. Just listening to his early things and talking to him at the time, a lot of guitar players were influenced by blues players. A lot of people were very influenced by the electric guitar players, the kind of darker and harder blues players, the Chicago blues players. Whereas Nick was very influenced by what you might call 'the folk hero blues players' like Brownie McGhee and Josh White, who had more of a clean, finger picking style of country blues. He was very influenced by those two. I saw a lot of their records at his place and you can hear a lot of that in his playing. Other than that I would have thought that normal comtemporary influences, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, The Beatles and Dylan. Every songwriter was influenced by The Beatles.

What about literary influences?
I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure what his poetic influences were. People talk a lot about Rimbaud, but I think his were more English, Tennyson and the nineteenth century poets.

What's your favourite Nick Drake record?
I think BRYTER LAYTER is the one on the whole that I was happiest with. It's one I can sit down and listen to without ever thinking I wished we'd mixed that differently or we shouldn't have done that. It just seems to work as a record. I can appreciate it without worrying about any aspect of the production. It was a record where everything fell together pretty well. It ended up as a good reflection of Nick's music, what we tried to accomplish.

How do you feel about Nick Drake being in a boxed set, a thing normally associated with big stars. People might say he never had any Number one hits!
Well, it was out as a boxed set in vinyl and sold well, not spectacularly, but enough to justify the expense of the box and booklets and everything. I think we've sold 20.000 of the boxed set in vinyl. Hopefully we'll do the same in CD's.

Did he spend any time back in his home village of Tanworth-in-Arden?
Yes. Particularly after he became more and more depressed, he found it difficult to cope living in London. He'd go back to live for long periods with his parents. It was his introversion and difficulty in making contact with people. A lot of the most interesting musicians don't have the obvious outlets that other people have, sort of going down the pub on a Saturday night and talking easily with people. People who don't find the normal forms of social intercourse easy and all that drive to communicate and express yourself comes out in music or painting or writing. I think an awful lot of creative people do have problems communicating, it makes their artistic communication all the more intense.

Do you think there's an element of the romantic notion of dying young in the interest, how old was Nick, around twenty-seven?
I think there is to a certain degree, but that can only go so far. People can get interested in certain individuals as personalities, but unless the music is of substance to back up the interest... People might the records because they were interested in the story, but unless the music rewards repeated listenings you're not going to build up the kind of following Nick's recordings have built up.

Nick's on a par with someone like Tim Buckley in that respect?
I think he's on the same level of reknown, certainly in England and France, maybe in America too. He's not as widely known in America, but he's getting there. Generally sales have been about on a par between England and America. Obviously, America is a bigger market, it represents a much smaller percentage of the market. But in terms of numbers of people that know Nick the figures are about the same. Having the boxed set on CD helps. We're having discussions with some people about a tribute album, other people doing his songs. It's tricky, his songs, you don't want to be too respectful when you're doing covers. The Imaiginary label are doing a covers tribute album [referring to 'Brittle Days', ed. note]. We're happy that the interest is there.

Are you working on anything in particular at the moment?
Mainly I'm working on this Nick Drake tribute project, that's the main thing I'm working on in terms of new recordings. That won't appear til next Autumn or Winter. Maybe around Christmas, I don't know. That's taking up a lot of the time, pulling a lot of different prople together. There's people from France and Germany who are really into Nick as well. That's good. Wasn't Geoffrey Oryema on the Leonard Cohen tribute, I'M YOUR FAN? Yeah. It'll be pretty varied I think.


The tribute project that Joe Boyd is referring to at the end is something that for one reason or another never happened.