Nick Drake – Bryter Layter
©The Guardian 2016
full album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr3-ScLFG4w
Nick Drake’s career may come cloaked in myth and mystery, but one facet often overlooked by musical historians and cultural scholars are those shoes. Those incongruously bulky blue suede brothel creepers with banana yellow laces.
For many years I assumed the disbanded footwear on the cover of Bryter Layter were some kind of symbol of the introverted, agoraphobic musician’s rejection of fame and its exhibitionist implications. After all, would a soft, dandy-ish sort like Drake really slip on something so commandeering? However, thanks to the premise of this feature, the story behind the unlikely shoes has been unearthed. As it turns out, the creepers in question are symbolic, but were owned by the portrait’s photographer, Nigel Weymouth.
If one forum is to be believed, Waymouth’s shoes, which were made to design by the Chelsea Cobbler, were placed in front of Drake’s feet “to add an optimistic note (blue suede shoes – dancing shoes), in an otherwise sombre photograph, that would echo the title of the album, Bryter Layter.” The post also goes on to detail its other items: the chair Drake sits on was once reportedly owned by Charles Dickens, who sat in it to write, and the small Guild guitar was one that Eric Clapton gave to his friend and flatmate Martin Sharp. Backstory aside, the other intangible elements of the image come from its awkward composition, something that I love, but is likely to infuriate design pedants, from the positioning of the portrait in the oval shape which looks a little off-kilter, to Drake’s face, largely covered in shadow. I happen to think his terrible posture and shadowy face is rather apt, given his temperament. Its colour scheme, a very 70s clash of bold hues – mauve, red and orange – are also gregarious shades that seem to complement what Melody Maker referred to, somewhat snidely, as this album’s “cocktail jazz”.
Examining this vinyl sleeve in 2016, the artwork appears effortlessly aloof and elegant, it emanates a strange sophistication, and is a symbol of a man who shirked the spotlight, the stereotypes and the silly shoes of the 1970s.
-Harriet Gibsone
