Nick Drake was a folk singer/songwriter from England whose enigmatic and sparsely beautiful music posthumously established him as a much beloved cult figure. Born in 1948 to musically-inclined parents, his interest in songwriting began at a young age. His progression as a popular folk act throughout England was stunted by an intense inability to perform his music live in front of an audience. As such, Drake's fragile and heartbreaking music could really only be heard through his recorded albums, most notably the trio of Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter (1970) and Pink Moon (1972), which have all become influential classics within the modern indie folk set. Unfortunately, he never really bought into his own abilities and began to struggle heavily with depression, hardly ever leaving the house in his later years. Drake died from an overdose of antidepressants in 1974 at the age of just 26, leaving behind an excellent, if all too brief, bit of work that captured the hushed beauty of his haunting voice and guitar finger-picking.
