Product Description

Nick Drake's debut album encapsulates a marriage between folk music and the singer-songwriter genre. Part Donovan, partJim Webb, he articulated an aching romanticism at a time when progressive rock ran rampant. Beautiful melodies and fragrant accompaniment, in particular Robert Kirby's stunning string arrangements, enhance the artist's sense of longing in which warm, but understated, vocals accentuate the album's passive mystery. An aura of existential cool envelops the proceedings, accentuated by Danny Thompson's sonorous bass lines and Drake's poetic imagery. The result is a shimmering, autumnal collection, reflective but never morbid. It's a tragedy that Drake never lived to see how his stature has grown.

Track Listing

1. Time Has Told Me
2. River Man
3. Three Hours
4. Way To Blue
5. Day Is Done
6. ' Cello Song
7. Thoughts Of Mary Jane
8. Man In A Shed
9. Fruit Tree
10. Saturday Sun

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #602 in Music
• Released on: 2000-06-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 41 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
There's not a single dud in the trilogy of albums that singer/songwriter Nick Drake released during his all-too-short career. And 1968's Five Leaves Left--his first album--is certainly no exception. Drake's sensitive guitar work and sensitive vocals are backed by the baroque sounds of a chamber string group and the platter's lyrics show maturity well beyond the age of their 20-year-old creator. More sparse than its follow-up, the jazzy Bryter Later , but less tortured than Drake's dark final chapter, Pink Moon, Five Leaves Left is a classic folk disc. Songs like "River Man", "The Thoughts of Mary Jane" and "Day Is Done" are among Drake's finest moments. Newcomers be forewarned: this music is as infectious as it is bleak. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

Everything that is meant by 'great'.
I bought Five Leaves Left after a chance encounter with 'Cello Song in 2004. Like everything by this man, it is a great song but the least of what I found on this wonderful album. My first impression was that Nick had a similar vocal style to Colin Blunstone, but after listening to the complete album I concluded that neither Nick's vocal style or his music owed anything to anybody. The music is essentially accoustic based ballads, if you can call these songs ballads; they are slow and beautiful yes, but filled with the lost chord of another existence entirely.

This was his debut album, yet it presents an artist at the height of his powers. Words like enchanting or mesmerizing only partly tell the story. When I listen to River Man, the world slows down and I experience a strange sort of peace that is not of this world or time, and from the moment I first heard Way to Blue, perhaps Nick's best song, I felt a sense of disbelief that thirty years after his untimely death in 1974, I had discovered someone who made such incredible music. You see I thought I'd heard everything, but this guy proved me wrong. I also knew I was listening to music that time could not affect, corrupt, or leave a sticky label upon.

I have since acquired Nick's other two 'studio' albums and all of the compilation albums, and though I would advise anyone's first port of call to be the superb compilation album, Treasury, Five Leaves Left is the best album he made.

Like many before me who have fallen under his spell, I have read a great deal about Nick's life and enigma, and I sometimes sort of wish he was just starting out, because nowadays great music can reach a mainstream audience without any need to promote it with gigs or tours, which by all accounts was something he could not face. Perhaps the success he deserved - and in his own way craved - during his lifetime, would have overcome the depression that ultimately consumed him.

You see if there was any fairness in this damned world, Nick would still be making music today. I'm sorry if this revue sounds a little gushing or emotional, but for me Nick Drake can tear down barriers of reserve, especially within me, like nobody else.

a musical expression entirely his own.....
nicks style of playing was remarkable.... muscular rhythms, lush and discordant harmony stirred by nimble finger picking... the kind of musical possibilities that nick explored by changing the tuning of his guitar strings.... the result is a music that takes my mind off to places. his singing voice was comforting and entirely of his own. i get the sense that Nick would send his thoughts into flight everytime he'd hold his gaze on a view of english countryside... and nicks is the only music i've heard that really evokes images of english landscape, the mist, the green, the sombreness......
for the affect his musics had on me and my own music, i feel him as being one of the greatest songwriters i've heard..... despite only three albums, to think of my favourite nick drake songs and those by other great songwriters who have been releasing album on album over decades...

Simply Masterful
It seems these days that Nick Drake is known just as much for his mysterious life (and death) as he is for the music, especially given the media's ability to create hyperbole. However it must be said that same msytery about Nick Drake's personna is also present in the music, which is what make's listening to Nick Drake so compelling.There is a strange otherworldy aura about his vocal and acoustic guitar technique, both which are pitched with an erie precission.

The album can be viewed as one long mood piece, as on first listen one song may not seem that different from the next. It is only on further inspection that one is amazed by the sheer complexity of his performances made with such ease.

Basically the album is split between songs which have autumnal orchestral arrangements ('Day Is Done', 'The Thoughts Of Mary Jane' and 'Fruit Tree') by Robert Kirby, which augment Drakes vocal & acoustic guitar; and songs which have a smaller ensemble backing ('Time Has Told Me', 'Three Hours', 'Cello Song', 'Man In A Shed' and 'Saturday Sun', the latter featuring Drake on piano instead of guitar). There is also the haunting 'Way To Blue' with a stately string arrangement by Robert Kirby and the albums' psycholgocial centerpiece 'River Man', this time arranged by Harry Robinson.

The album features the wonderful Pentangle double bass player Danny Thompson on most of the tracks, with contributions by Richard Thompson on the opening 'Time Has Told Me', Paul Harris on Piano and Clare Lowther playing Cello on 'Cello Song' (funnily enough..).

Probably the most the striking thing about the album is how calm and slow it is. Obviously it has the melancholy which Drake is now associated with, but it is also paradoxally uplifting in spirit. Given the album's maturity it is amazing to think that Drake was barely out of his teens when first released in 1969. It is hard to pick any highlights as every track is perfect. The only exception to this is the jazzy 'Man In A Shed' which doesn't really suit Drake's voice, but it does add some variety. An essential purchase.