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luck

luck

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  • Which Dead Musician Had The Biggest Future Ahead Of Them?

    luckluck
    DOR said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    I disagree that Nick Drake had a particularly bright future ahead of him, though. Part of the reason he wasn't successful at the time was down to his temperament. His natural constituency, the folk circuit, was used to - and was more inclined to support - those artists who engaged an audience, who could talk to them between songs while they retuned their guitars. Because Drake couldn't or wouldn't do this (unlike many lesser talents), he was unable to establish himself as a live performer, and his records subsequently sold less and less. I have my doubts as to how much that would have changed had he lived.

    But there should be something said for the massive amount of talent the guy had (which for the most part was never really enjoyed until later on, with even now the guy is massively under appreciated). Who knows what he may have wrote or created. While I agree with your point, I just have a feeling that there was a guy who had the musical talent that could have easily gone on to create some truly brilliant stuff.

    IMO of course...

    I view it this way: Nick Drake's art exists like an ant in amber; he died before he, like all artists, had a chance to artistically decay. His three studio LPs, a cache of posthumous albums, boots, and many reels of home recordings (literally all of which I would heartily recommend), as a corpus, is generous and enough for me. Mr. Drake is the only artist that I can name whose entire catalogue, from the classic LP cuts down to the smashed 3 A.M. taped-at-home covers of Jackson Frank, is fully necessary. From my vantage point - excepting some dated horn arrangements on Bryter Layer - the man left over one hundred perfect songs behind. I don't want to say that I wouldn't have wanted to hear more, but I'm sincerely fine with what is extant if it means the capsule/canon didn't have to live through any potential mystery-shattering disco-era missteps. I am aware how myopic/solipsistic this perspective is.

    Redding would have been a game-changer, and not only for himself. For one thing, I'm not sure that Stax would have ended the same way. And try as I might, I cannot possibly imagine Sam Cooke in the late 70s. It's impossible, isn't it?
    ketan