CD Reviews

Nick Drake

Family Tree | Tsunami

By JEFF TAMARKIN | July 17, 2007

2.0 Stars

When a single CD contains 28 tracks, it’s a tip-off that you’re getting one of two things: a Ramones album, or someone’s detritus. Family Tree is not a Ramones album. Drake was the un-Donovan, a wispy, wistful avatar of moody self-reflection who recorded three albums of brooding, expository Brit folk rock — Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and Pink Moon — between 1969 and ’72. He died of an overdose two years later, without ever having achieved renown; he’s since been canonized for his pained, poetic songwriting and forlorn, subdued, yet welcoming delivery. But Drakean melodies and his impeccable guitar playing and often expansive arrangements are precisely what’s lacking on this collection of home recordings cut in the two years prior to Five Leaves Left. The amateur recording quality and the tossed-off nature of the sessions don’t help, but the real problem here is that Drake hasn’t yet found his identity. The original material is developmental, and the covers — of Dylan (“Tomorrow Is a Long Time”), Blind Boy Fuller (“My Baby’s So Sweet”), British acoustic-guitar inspiration Bert Jansch (“Strolling Down the Highway”) — only hint at the greatness to come. Drake loyalists will consider these leftovers godsends — you get Drake on clarinet, a duet with his sister, two tracks by his mom. Non-acolytes should stick with the three official albums (all found on the Fruit Tree boxed set), or a sampler compilation like Way to Blue.

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