Search - Various Artists :: Way To Blue: The Songs Of Nick Drake

Nick Drake's original producer, Joe Boyd, put together a series of concerts in the UK, Australia and Italy to celebrate Nick's greatness as a songwriter. The concerts are called Way To Blue and they have involved singers as diverse as Teddy Thompson, Green Gartside (from Scritti Politti), Robyn Hitchcock, Vashti Bunyan and Lisa Hannigan, as well as bass master Danny Thompson (who played on Nick's records), and the arrangements of Robert Kirby. These recordings are the edited highlights of concerts in New York and London.

Over the years, Boyd has explored the possibility of producing an album in tribute to Drake s songwriting. But despite many well-known artists wishing to participate, he always resisted, because it seemed the only practical way to accomplish it would be for each artist to supply a track recorded separately, with their own chosen musicians. Boyd felt that the only way to avoid the pitfalls of the typical Tribute Album would be to have everyone together for a week in a rural studio, backing each other with harmonies and guitar parts, creating an organic whole of an album.

By performing Way To Blue fifteen times over the course of four years, he has accomplished something resembling his original dream. The songs have been honed and shaped over the course of time, and the spirit of togetherness among the Way To Blue company has proved inspiring to all participants. The result is an album with the quality of a studio production and the spontaneity of a live performance.