John Cale discusses his collaboration with Nick Drake
In 1968, after releasing the highly experimental second Velvet Underground album, White Light/White Heat, frontman Lou Reed decided to banish founding member and multi-instrumentalist John Cale as a means of tightening his grasp on the helm of the group. With original manager Andy Warhol and Cale out of the picture, Reed could stride ahead un-vetoed and void of creative jealousy.
As Cale faced life outside of The Velvet Underground, he decided to try his hand as a record producer and arranger. Most memorably, the Welshman offered his skills to The Stooges’ eponymous 1969 debut album and a wonderful trilogy with his fellow Velvet Underground alum Nico, namely The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End….
While working on Nico’s third studio album, Desertshore, in 1970, Cale’s co-producer Joe Boyd introduced him to a promising Island Records folky from Tanworth-in-Arden by the name of Nick Drake.
The extremely talented yet reclusive 22-year-old singer-songwriter had released his debut studio album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969 and was looking to bring more depth and texture to a follow-up. For the new project, 1971’s Bryter Layter, Drake enlisted members of Fairport Convention, Beach Boys session musicians Mike Kowalski and Ed Carter and John Cale.
Cale contributed to two Bryter Layter songs: ‘Fly’, on which he played the viola and harpsichord, and ‘Northern Sky’, for which he offered piano, organ and celesta tracks.
In a short interview feature with The Wire in 1996, Cale was asked to try to identify a number of obscure tracks played to him. One of which was Drake’s last ever recording from 1974, ‘Black Eyed Dog’.
As the song played, Cale had some difficulty placing the artist. “I’ve no idea who this is,” he said.
“Nick Drake,” the interviewer told him.
“That was my first instinct about it,” Cale remarked. “But I thought, ‘No, he’s too old sounding.’ The only other guy with a voice like that was the fat guy from the blues band in San Francisco [Canned Heat’s Bob Hite].”
The interviewer then brought up Cale’s brief collaboration with Drake on Bryter Later and asked whether he had been interested in the music or if it was just another session job for him.
“No, I liked his stuff,” Cale asserted. “It was also a question of how to make a grand. It was right after Marble Index and before The Stooges – it might have been after The Stooges. I was doing a lot with Nico, and it was one of those trips I came over that I met Drake. Joe [Boyd, then an Island Records executive] had set up the studio. When I met Drake, I had a 12-string, and he’d never seen a D12 before, a Martin. And you know that very complicated picking that he had? He just picked up the guitar, and it was just like this orchestral sound coming out. He went nuts. He was sitting there stunned by it.”
Cale was then asked what Drake was like to work with. “Very introverted,” he replied. “I hardly ever dealt with him. I think it was Joe.”
“What were your criteria for deciding which sessions to do and which production jobs to take? They cover an extremely wide range of music,” the interviewer probed.
“Well, who I knew, I knew Joe Boyd,” Cale remembered of his post-Velvets production run. “I was fresh out of the Velvet Underground anyway, and I’d done Marble Index, and I was interested in producing. And one other way of developing what I did with Marble Index was to do Nick Drake and The Incredible String Band and whatever came around. Joe seemed to appreciate what I was doing. Everything he showed me was very interesting.”
Cale’s involvement in Drake’s music was limited, and ostensibly, his social contact with the troubled musician was even more so. Sadly, Drake struggled with depression through his 20s, which was compounded by his unfruitful exploits in the music business.
Drake’s debut album showed him a glimmer of success and opened the door to the more airbrushed Bryter Layter, but unfortunately, it failed to make a dent in the market.
In 1972, Drake released his final album, Pink Moon, a mournful, stripped-back masterpiece that held a window into his troubled soul. Again, his efforts failed to gain any significant exposure, and he became increasingly withdrawn.
Save for a few isolated sessions, Drake retreated to the comfort of his parent’s house in Warwickshire, a sanctuary from society’s pliers. His dependence on the prescribed anti-depressant, amitriptyline, grew as his mental health declined to unchartered lows.
On November 25th, 1974, Drake was found unresponsive after taking an overdose of the drug. It is still undetermined whether this was simply a tragic accident or an act of suicide.
Listen to Nick Drake’s ‘Northern Sky’, featuring John Cale, below.
