From the morning: Nick Drake as a teen.
One of the sweetest panels at the this year’s South By Southwest revolved around the late singer-songwriter Nick Drake: producer Joe Boyd, onetime-possible collaborator Vashti Bunyan, and sister Gabrielle Drake traded anecdotes about the talented mystery man, played music, and took questions to a transfixed crowd. Luckily you’ll get a chance to have a similar experience on Tuesday, Oct. 2, when Gabrielle Drake, Boyd, and singer-songwriter Jolie Holland give a similar talk as part of Noise Pop’s collabo with City Arts and Lectures. I spoke to Drake recently from her home in Shropshire, England.
Bay Guardian: The Nick Drake panel you were on at SXSW was one of my favorite things at the conference this year.
Gabrielle Drake: Thank you. This is a new world to me, because really acting is my world. The music world is new to me. But I do what I’m told! [Laughs]
I was asked to come out to San Francisco and to LA, and I’m glad to do that if it helps Nick and his music. I won’t do it very much because I find in a funny way, the more you go on talking about someone you knew and loved, the more removed from you they become.
BG: Are there a lot of misconceptions out there about him that you feel like you should clear up?
GD: I think there can be. And in the end his music speaks for itself, you know, and that’s great. The only questions I can answer really are questions about the childhood we shared together. Other people can answer questions about his music. But I don’t think there are any easy solutions to what made Nick the musician he was. I think the enigma continues really. No one can really come up with easy solutions, and I’m only there to clarify a part of the picture. That is perhaps an important part that needs to be clarified, so that we can go on from there.
Gabrielle Drake.
BG: What was your childhood like?