Editing Nick Drake (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Tanworth In Arden, geograph 5288551 by Ian Rob.jpg|thumb|[[Tanworth-in-Arden]], Warwickshire, where Drake was raised]]
Drake was born in [[Union of Burma (1948–1962)|Burma]] on 19 June 1948,<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=23 November 1999 |title=Boy from the black stuff |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/boy-from-the-black-stuff-743718.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220620/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/boy-from-the-black-stuff-743718.html |archive-date=20 June 2022 |access-date=9 March 2022 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref> a few months after the independence from the [[British Empire]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Page |first=Tim |title='Nick Drake' Review: Troubadour of Desolation |url=https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/nick-drake-review-troubadour-of-desolation-e85ffa7e |access-date=4 January 2025 |website=Wall Street Journal |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Drake's father, Rodney Shuttleworth Drake (1908–1988), had moved to [[Yangon|Rangoon]] in the early 1930s as an engineer with the [[Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation]].<ref>Dann (2006), p. 75.</ref> In 1934, Rodney Drake met [[Molly Drake|Molly Lloyd]] (1915–1993), the daughter of a senior member of the [[Indian Civil Service]]. He proposed marriage in 1936, but the couple had to wait a year until she turned 21 before her family allowed them to marry.<ref>Dann (2006), p. 76.</ref> In 1951, the Drake family returned to England to live in [[Warwickshire]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Mick |date=12 July 1997 |title=The Sad Ballad of Nick Drake |work=Sunday Telegraph |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-sad-ballad-of-nick-drake |access-date=11 June 2023}}</ref> at their home, Far Leys, in [[Tanworth-in-Arden]]. Rodney Drake worked from 1952 as the chairman and managing director of [[Wolseley plc|Wolseley Engineering]].<ref>Dann (2006), pp. 83–84.</ref>

His older sister, [[Gabrielle Drake]], became a successful screen actress. Both of Drake's parents wrote music. Recordings of Molly's songs, which have come to light since her death, are similar in tone and outlook to the later work of her son;<ref name="ASTF">{{Cite AV media |url=https://mubi.com/films/a-skin-too-few-the-days-of-nick-drake |title=A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake |date=2000 |last=Berkvens |first=Jeroen |type=Documentary |publisher=Roxie Releasing}}</ref> they shared a similar fragile vocal delivery, and Gabrielle and biographer [[Trevor Dann]] noted a parallel foreboding and [[fatalism]] in their music.<ref name=ASTF/><ref>Dann (2006), p. 91.</ref> Encouraged by his mother, Drake learned to play piano at an early age and began to compose songs which he recorded on a [[Reel-to-reel audio tape recording|reel-to-reel tape recorder]] that she kept in the family drawing-room.<ref name="Macdonald">{{Cite magazine |last=MacDonald |first=Ian |author-link=Ian MacDonald |date=January 2000 |title=Nick Drake: Exiled From Heaven |url=http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/exiled1.html |url-status=dead |magazine=MOJO |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406033031/http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/exiled1.html |archive-date=6 April 2015 |access-date=11 June 2023}}</ref> In 1957, Drake was sent to [[Eagle House School]], a preparatory [[boarding school]] near [[Sandhurst, Berkshire]]. Five years later, he went to [[Marlborough College]], a [[Public school (UK)|public school]] in Wiltshire which had also been attended by his father and grandfather. He developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished 100- and 200-yard sprinter, representing the school's Open Team in 1966. He played [[Rugby football|rugby]] for the C1 House team and was appointed a House Captain in his last two terms.<ref>Marlborough College archives.</ref> School friends recall Drake as having been confident, often aloof, and "quietly authoritative".<ref>Dann (2006), pp. 95, 97.</ref> His father remembered: "In one of his reports [the headmaster] said that none of us seemed to know him very well. All the way through with Nick, people didn't know him very much."<ref name="Paphides1">{{Cite news |last=Paphides |first=Peter |date=25 April 2004 |title=Stranger to the world |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/apr/25/popandrock4 |access-date=11 June 2023 |issn=0029-7712}}</ref>

Drake played piano and learned [[clarinet]] and [[saxophone]]. He formed a band, the Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional [[Alto saxophone|alto sax]] and vocals, the group performed [[Pye International Records|Pye International R&B]] covers and jazz standards, as well as [[Yardbirds]] and [[Manfred Mann]] songs. [[Chris de Burgh]] asked to join the band, but was rejected as his taste was "too poppy".<ref>Humphries (1997), p. 36.</ref> His attention to his studies deteriorated and, although he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough he neglected his studies in favour of music. In 1963 he attained seven [[General Certificate of Education|GCE O-Levels]], fewer than his teachers had been expecting, failing "Physics with Chemistry".<ref>Dann (2006), p. 100.</ref> In 1965, Drake paid £13 ({{Inflation|UK|13|1965|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}}) for his first acoustic guitar, a [[Levin (guitar company)|Levin]], and was soon experimenting with [[open tuning]] and [[finger-picking]] techniques.<ref name="McGrath">{{Cite magazine |last=McGrath |first=T. J. |date=October–November 1992 |title=Darkness Can Give You the Brightest Light |magazine=[[Dirty Linen (magazine)|Dirty Linen]] |issue=42}}</ref>

In 1966, Drake enrolled at a [[Cram school|tutorial college]] in [[Five Ways, Birmingham]], where he won a scholarship to study at [[Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge]].<ref>Dann (2006), pp. 110–111.</ref> As his place at Cambridge was offered for September 1967, he had 10 months to fill, so he decided to spend six months at the [[Aix-Marseille University|University of Aix-Marseille]], France, beginning in February 1967. There, he began to practise guitar in earnest. To earn money, he would [[busking|busk]] with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke [[Cannabis (drug)|cannabis]], and he travelled with friends to Morocco; according to travelling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot".<ref>Dann (2006), p. 124.</ref> There is some evidence that he began using [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] while in Aix, although this is debated.<ref>Humphries (1997), pp. 51–52.</ref>

[[File:Fitzwilliam College 2012.jpg|thumb|220x220px|[[Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge]], where Drake studied English literature]]
Drake returned to England in 1967 and moved into his sister's flat in [[Hampstead]], London. That October, he enrolled at Cambridge to begin his studies in [[English literature]].<ref name="telegraph">{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Mick |date=25 November 2014 |title=Nick Drake: the fragile genius |work=The Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11250728/Nick-Drake-the-fragile-genius.html |access-date=11 June 2023}}</ref> His tutors found him bright but unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself.<ref>Dann (2006), p. 28.</ref> One of his biographers, [[Trevor Dann]], notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow students, and that matriculation photographs from this time portray a sullen young man.<ref name="d25" /> Cambridge placed emphasis on its rugby and cricket teams, but Drake had lost interest in sport, preferring to stay in his college room smoking cannabis and playing music. According to fellow student Brian Wells, "They were the rugger buggers and we were the cool people smoking dope."<ref name="d25">Dann (2006), p. 25</ref>