MY NORTHERN SKIES

Hello, welcome to the My Northern Skies website, home of my two weekly radio shows, which alternate here each week, The Jazz File every Tuesday (8pm) and Flick the Dust Off every Friday (10am).

Featured Album | 405

Nick Drake | Five Leaves Left | Island ILPS 9105 | 1969

I may have bored people with this observation previously, so do bear with me. I count myself as one of those Nick Drake fans who hung onto the coat tails of the revivalist cult movement that arose in the mid-1990s, as a plethora of acoustic guitar players, both male and female (and those in between) began to hero worship this doomed songwriter, who left the world a couple of decades earlier after releasing just three albums in his lifetime. The difference being, I’m from a generation who first heard the singer in his heyday, though I also must confess, I didn’t care for his music, being a dyed-in-the-wool Progger, who skipped all these pastoral Keatsian musings with slick orchestral accompaniment for the nearest King Crimson track. After hearing Danny Thompson’s BBC radio documentary ‘Fruit Tree’ one warm Saturday afternoon in 1998, everything changed. I went out and bought the box set of the same name and reacquainted myself with Drake’s catalogue. ‘Five Leaves Left’ was the first of Drake’s album releases, which came out to little fanfare at the beginning of July, 1969. In a way, the sleeve almost describes the music within, you knew immediately this wasn’t going to be Black Sabbath. Joined by Richard Thompson and Danny Thompson, together with not one but two classical bods, mainly Robert Kirby on four of the songs, “Way to Blue”, “Day is Done”, “The Thoughts of Mary Jane” and “Fruit Tree”, whilst Harry Robertson tackled the stunning “Riverman”, ‘Five Leaves Left’ includes all the ingredients for mid-90s teens frantically searching for something more soul searching than Oasis in their bedrooms.

Playlist:

Sister Anne – MC5 (High Time)

Run Through the Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival (Cosmos Factory)

Fruit Tree – Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left)

A Sailor’s Life – Fairport Convention (Unhalfbricking)

Flight of the Moorglade – Jon Anderson (Olias of Sunhillow)

Peace Loving Man – Blossom Toes (If Only for a Moment)

Toulouse Street – Doobie Brothers (Toulouse Street)

Riverman – Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left)

Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby – McGuinness Flint (Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby)

Same All Over – Canned Heat (Hallelujah)

San Francisco Bay Blues – Mungo Jerry (Mungo Jerry)