Joe’s memory is that Nick’s vision for Bryter Layter was that both sides should be bookended by instrumentals (although what the fourth one would have been is a mystery – there’s no evidence that one was ever either written or recorded). RU: Before we get into the core of Nick’s career – his albums, the songs that he’s so well known for – what are the most important qualities to you in this biography, and in rock biographies in general? I mean, even the Velvet Underground got a lot more positive response when they were active than has generally been acknowledged.

The following morning Mike [Hill, usually the driver on the trip] whisked them the 370 miles to Marrakech.He realised that the movement of Nick’s illness needed to be watched, so that he and Molly could start recognising ‘the last time he did this, such and such happened…’, or to record when he was or wasn’t taking his pills, and what the effect on his behaviour was and so on. Fortunately, one of those which accepted the offer was the Koutoubia Palace, Tangier’s most exclusive nightspot, which is done up in the style of a Moorish palace. It’s a terrible tragedy, and I think it’s nice to think of ways in which Nick’s life could have turned out differently.

These endless collaborations, sessions that were full of seemingly unlikely or disparate people making coherent music together, were taken as read then, I think, and Joe was all about the collaborations, that was the essence of Witchseason. But, as you rightly say, Nick did have a broad taste in music, which reflected his generation’s exploratory interest in contemporary culture and what was coming over from America and so on. And he knew that Things Behind The Sun belonged on that, not on Bryter Layter, with strings and drums and so on. Of course, what I wanted to know most from the biography was what is most important about Nick Drake, and that is his songs and his acoustic guitar playing.But then, of course, the whole cult surrounding his death contributed towards his mythology and status, and that process has never stopped.