This is not a performance film from Nick Drake – it is a review and critique of his short-lived career. Drake died in 1974 at the age of 26 from a presumed suicide, and there are few around today who are qualified to seriously comment on the singer-songwriter’s life.

His family has recently released material that has been used in the box set Fruit Tree, and the odds and sods collection Family Tree, but the estate is not involved in this film and therefore, no rare footage is included. Actually, there is no footage of him at all.

He was so reclusive and relatively unpopular during his lifetime that he was only interviewed by a journalist once; that scribe gives brief commentary here. Drake’s gentle voice and acoustic guitar sound are finding new fans nowadays thanks mostly to the usage of “Pink Moon” and “One of These Things First” in TV commercials, but there is really little else to say, and the musicians and insiders interviewed here offer only faint insight.

Drake put out three underrated albums, died young and was otherwise an enigma – end of story.

Grade: C

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