On Repeat: Nick Drake: "Blues Run the Game" [Exclusive MP3]
Although many feared a collection of fuzzy B-sides and unremarkable home recordings, Family Tree, the latest scrap-heap of posthumous Nick Drake recordings, is littered with gold. "Blues Run the Game" was written and recorded in 1965 by singer-guitarist Jackson C. Frank for Frank's eponymous, Paul Simon-produced debut (Drake's other takes on Frank-- "Milk and Honey", "Kimbie", and "Here Come the Blues"-- are also included on Family Tree). Frank grew up in Buffalo, NY and temporarily camped out in London (where "Blues Run the Game" was recorded), but his riffs are Delta-born-- and, as expected, Drake's willowy pipes do supreme justice to deep despair.
Sadly, Frank and Drake's synergy is not entirely unfounded. In plenty of ways, Frank's trajectory mirrors Drake's own tragic arc: While Drake committed suicide at 26, Frank was badly burned in a deadly school fire at 11, lost his first son to Cystic Fibrosis, received a diagnosis of paranoid-schizophrenia, lived in various institutions and on the streets, was randomly shot and blinded in his left eye, and, finally, died of cardiac arrest at age 56, penniless and still mostly unknown.
MP3: > Nick Drake: "Blues Run the Game"
[from Family Tree; due 06/19/07 on Tsunami LG/Fontana]