Nick Drake-Five Leaves Left (1969)

 

Artist: Nick Drake

Title: Five Leaves Left

Label:  Island Records/Chronicles/Ume

Format: CD 

Cat #: 422 842 915-2

Year of Release: 1969

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US circa 2003-13

Listed Condition: M/M sealed

Sell Date: 6/14/25

Sell Price: $6.56

iscogs Last Sold: 5/25/25 NM/NM $6.22

Low: $1.62 NM/NM 1/2/25

Median: $5.00

Average: $5.24

High: $10.00 NM/NM 1/2/22

Current low price: $5.59 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 7

Have/Want: 152/183

Where Sold: Tucson, AZ

Time it took to sell: 1 year

Where and When Bought: facebook cd lot

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

Five Leaves Left, Nick Drake's first album from 1969, has an interesting history in terms of how it was issued.  Originally it came out on Island in the UK.  It didn't come out in the US until after his 1974 death on the Antilles label in 1976.  In 1979 there was a 3-LP UK compilation issued called Fruit Tree-The Complete Recorded Works that was artwork revised, reissued and expanded to include newly found recordings in the US as a 4-LP box set in 1986 on the Hannibal label, which producer Joe Boyd established in 1980.    Hannibal was acquired by Rykodisc in 1991 and they reissued the box set on a 4 CD set by years end and gave it to me for a Christmas gift with the Sandy Denny one when I was interning there.  Island continued to reissue the original album with the original cover.  Ryko/Hannibal and Joe Boyd got around to 24-bit remastering the Drake catalog in 2000 and reissued the CD with a new cover.  Island also reissued this with the original cover around this time.  

This is where this particular CD issue is a question mark.  It was sold sealed so I can't confirm the pressing, but the manufacturing is Island Def Jam Music Group which was founded in 1998 merging those labels and Mercury.  Palm Pictures acquired Rykodisc in 1998 as well.  Warner Bros. acquired Ryko in 2006 and dissolved Hannibal.  At some point Island got the Drake catalog back in the US and unified the original cover with what was issued in the UK. 

The question in my mind is exactly when.  This edition is part of the Chronicles line started by Polygram as an imprint in 1996 after being a CD reissue series as far back as 1992 for the Mercury distributed line.    In 1999 there was the Pink Moon Volkwagen ad campaign which forever changed the sales trajectory of the Drake catalog.  He was no longer just the common ground of anglophiles, deep dive folkies, Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention fanatics and record nerds.  He was now in mass appeal territory a quarter century after his death.  In 2004, there was a UK compilation Way To Be and perhaps further remastering around this time.  The was activity on the vinyl reissue front in 2013 worldwide and another US vinyl repress remaster in 2023.  I'm going to guess 2004 for this CD issue that sold, but from 2003-2013 your guess is as good as mine.  The date on the back of the cover will tell you 2000, but there was the Hannibal alternate cover issued that year.

As for the music, it's funny I only really know this album from my old radio cohort on Glimpses and Fruit Tree, and since it was part of the box, I never really listened to it as its own work separate from everything else.  I can still see a mix tape in my head given to me with "Cello Song" on it long before I ever interned at Ryko.   Since his life was cut short and already anthologized upon my introduction to him, Five Leaves Left was conceptually cheated by me as a singular work. The other thing was that Pink Moon the album with its stripped-down approach towered so far over everything else, that it made everything else seem somehow significantly less important and bloated with orchestration. The reality is those strings are tasteful and unobtrusive to the songwriter.   We aren't talking Blood, Sweat & Tears or Chicago here.   I'm further cheated because the shrink wrap never came off the disc before I sold it, so now I have to resort to streaming this on youtube to write this up.

"Time Has Told Me," "Day Is Done," "Man In A Shed"...

Lots of hits here.