Search - Nick Drake, Christopher O'Riley :: Second Grace: The Music of Nick Drake

Nick Drake, Christopher O'Riley
Second Grace: The Music of Nick Drake
Genres: Special Interest, New Age, Pop, Rock

Track Listings (14) - Disc #1
1. Rider on the Wheel, song
2. Pink Moon, song
3. Fly, song
4. Parasite, song
5. River Man, song
6. One of These Things First, song
7. Joey, song
8. Introduction-Bryter Layter, song
9. Northern Sky, song
10. Hanging on a Star, song
11. Harvest Breed, song
12. Place To Be, song
13. Three Hours, song
14. From The Morning, song

CD Details

All Artists: Nick Drake, Christopher O'Riley
Title: Second Grace: The Music of Nick Drake
Members Wishing: 3
Total Copies: 0
Label: World Village USA
Original Release Date: 1/1/2007
Re-Release Date: 4/10/2007
Genres: Special Interest, New Age, Pop, Rock
Style: Instrumental
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 713746806620

Synopsis

Amazon.com

Pianist Christopher O'Riley again dances with the possibility of cliché and instead pirouettes into art. Second Grace: The Music of Nick Drake marks his fourth album of covers, joining his two CDs of Radiohead tunes (Hold Me to This and True Love Waits) and one exploring singer-songwriter Elliott Smith (Home to Oblivion). O'Riley is attracted to quirky composers and tragic writers, and Nick Drake, who died of an overdose at 26 after only three albums, fits both bills. Although Drake had a fondness for jazz voicings and odd chord changes, he was ultimately a more direct and simpler composer than Radiohead's Thom Yorke or Elliott Smith. O'Riley respects that in his interpretations. Whereas his previous albums often ventured into flights of unalloyed atonality, Second Grace feeds on the autumnal melodic lyricism that Drake pursued over the course of his three albums, Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and, of course, Pink Moon, the title piece from which helped reignite interest in Drake's music when Volkswagen unearthed it for a TV spot in 2000. O'Riley doesn't attain that fragile, on-the-edge-of-disappearing voice that Drake had. Instead, he replaces it with the quiet reserve heard in the minimalist feel of "Riverman" and the breathy rhapsody on "One of These Things First." The lounge-jazz break in the middle of that tune seems like last call at Joe's Pub. A concert pianist, O'Riley often cites classical sources for inspiration in his arrangements, including Baroque composer Couperin in the lyrical treatment of "Introduction: Bryter Layter." As with his previous interpretations, I'm not sure that Second Grace would actually appeal to Nick Drake fans. Instead, it stands on its own ground, a passionate and obsessive hymn to a lost voice. --John Diliberto

CD Reviews

I've Never Heard Magic As Crazy As This

Gordon Danis | Eastchester, New York United States | 04/21/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This doesn't necessarily qualify as "Spacemusic," but it's exquisitely gorgeous and I heard it on ECHOES, played by that closet folkie John Diliberto: I've just sat and listened (and listened...and listened..you get the idea) to "Second Grace: The Music Of Nick Drake" by Christopher O'Riley.

O"Riley is a well established classical pianist, and while his interpretations of Nick Drake (or Radiohead, for that matter,) don't veer into the jazzy experimentalism of Brad Meldhau, where Nick's music doesn't sound comfortable to me anyway, he nails that English Pastoral sound the way Ralph Vaughn Williams might have. Plus he is leagues ahead of the "Look Ma, no left hand" school of "jazz pianism" best demonstrated by George Winston, who should not be allowed to record again until he plays through every Bill Evans songbook in existence.

OK, that's what "Second Grace" is not-but what IS it? It's the way "Northern Sky" and "Joey" always sounded to you when you were humming those tunes to yourself; it's "Fly" and the dawn of spring, it's the melancholy of "Three Hours" and "River Man," it transforms "Rider On The Wheel" from a throw-away Nick tune into a possible Cassandra Wilson cover.

Even then, though it may sound deceptively simple on first listen, but keep going-this is one of the best CDs of 2007.

I must repsectfully disagree with my friend John Diliberto on one point-I think he gives a short shrift to Nick's fans when he rights that "I'm not sure that "Second Grace" would actually appeal to Nick Drake fans." Like the music of Nirvana, Nick Drake's has stood the test of time; like Cobain, the creator of the music unfortunately doubted his own creative genius. But that genius is EXACLY what appeals to the resepective fans of Drake and Cobain.

Note to all screenwriters; Where is the "Nick Drake movie?"

"

No Leaves Left

Anthony Gliozzo | Mission Viejo, CA | 02/22/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I know Nick's music quite well and this work of art does not parallel Nick's work at all. Although Chris is clearly an accomplished piano player he does no justice to Nick's illustrious compositions. Most of these renditions sound rushed which scorn the original versions' interior and exterior beauty. Avoid this disc and check out other artists like Tim Story who perform this style of music much better."