'Greek, without the sex': Nick Drake and John Martyn's folk bromance

A new book explores a musical friendship entailing joy, anger, ‘mountains of drugs’ … and tragedy. In this extract, the pair’s friends examine a complex rivalryIn 1967, Robin Frederick, a singer-songwriter originally from Florida, returned to London from studying in Aix-en-Provence, where she had met a young, beautiful, meandering and tantalisingly unattainable young Englishman calledNickDrake. Frederick “spent the summer in London with John Martyn, listening toSgt Pepperand the Incredible String Band, watching John learn to play sitar in about 10 minutes, living on toast and tea”.She wrote the beautiful Sandy Grey aboutDrake, which cast him “in the role of wandering, rootless, fatherless boy”. Martyn recorded the song on his debut album,London Conversation. At the time, he didn’t know it was aboutDrake, or indeed even whoDrakewas. Perhaps he saw something of himself in it. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/15/nick-drake-john-martyn-complex-friendship-small-hours-extract #folk_music #nick_drake #john_martyn #pop_and_rock #music #culture #biography_books #books