Mary Drake (born Mary Lloyd); 5 November 1915 – 4 June 1993), also known as Molly Drake, was an English poet and musician, best known as the mother of the actress
Gabrielle Drake
Gabrielle Drake (born 30 March 1944) is a British actress. She appeared in the 1970s in television series '' The Brothers'' and ''UFO''. In the early 1970s she appeared in several erotic roles on screen. She later took parts in soap operas ''Cr ...
and the musician
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...
.
Molly Drake never released any official publications of her poetry or compositions in her lifetime, but she had a profound impact on the musical style of her son. As Nick Drake's music gained a larger following after his death, Molly Drake's recordings have been released, which uncover the musical similarities between her and her son.
Biography
Drake was born to her father Sir Idwal Geoffrey Lloyd (13 January 1878, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire – 6 March 1946, Surrey) and mother Georgie Lloyd in
Rangoon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
, Burma. She was christened as "Mary", but no one used the name as "Molly" was deemed more suitable. Both of her parents were involved in the military, and the country was not considered the ideal place to raise Drake and her siblings, so they were sent to England to be raised by the Dunn family, close associates of the Lloyds.
Drake and her siblings were placed in the
Wycombe Abbey
Wycombe Abbey is an independent girls' boarding and day school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls schools in academic results.
The school was founded in 1896 by Dame Frances Dove (1847 ...
Boarding School where she struggled as a student, but managed to obtain her
School Certificate
The School Certificate was a qualification issued by the Board of Studies, New South Wales, typically at the end of Year 10. The successful completion of the School Certificate was a requirement for completion of the Higher School Certificate. T ...
.
Once her studies were complete, Drake returned to Rangoon and soon met her future husband, Rodney Drake. The couple's marriage was postponed until Molly Drake reached the age of 21, as required by her parents. On 14 April 1937 they married in the cathedral at Rangoon.
In 1942, with
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
raging,
Japan invaded Burma forcing Drake into refuge. She was separated from her husband, who enlisted for the
Burma Campaign. Drake and her sister Nancy were evacuated to their uncle's home, which was in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
, India where the war hardly infringed on their lives. In order to find comfort, the sisters both sang and played the piano. They formed a duet, and Drake worked in her only musical career as a co-host on ''All India Radio''. Molly and Nancy were known as ''The Lloyd Sisters'' while hosting the station. However, no known recordings of the sisters performing exists.
Although Drake enjoyed singing and playing the piano for friends and on the radio, composing pieces was a private affair. She would only share her drafts with her sister, Nancy.
Drake was reunited with her husband towards the end of the war, and she gave birth to her first child,
Gabrielle Drake
Gabrielle Drake (born 30 March 1944) is a British actress. She appeared in the 1970s in television series '' The Brothers'' and ''UFO''. In the early 1970s she appeared in several erotic roles on screen. She later took parts in soap operas ''Cr ...
, on 30 March 1944. The family returned to Rangoon after the war and on 19 June 1948 their second child,
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...
, was born. In 1952, the family moved to
Tanworth-in-Arden
Tanworth-in-Arden (; often abbreviated to Tanworth) is a small village and civil parish in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is southeast of Birmingham and northeast of Redditch, and is administered by Stratford-on-Avon District Council ...
, England where Molly Drake spent the rest of her life and wrote most of her compositions. Her home was a place of social gathering where Drake would play the piano for friends, but, again, she never showed interest in publishing or recording her work.
Drake was supportive of her son's and daughter's career choices and encouraged Nick Drake's musical career. Nick Drake was closer to his mother than to his father. She often wrote songs to play for her children, one of Nick Drake's earliest influences. As her son suffered through depression, her poetry would reflect the turmoil she knew her son was going through, and the inability to help improve his condition.
[ The toll of losing her son in 1974 took years to recover from, but through her family and composing, Drake was able to recover to live out the last part of her life. Drake died on 4 June 1993 and was buried in the Tanworth-in-Arden graveyard with her husband, who had died in 1988, and her son. On her tombstone it reads "Now we rise, and we are everywhere" as written by Nick Drake.][
]
Official releases
Molly Drake's material first met exposure on the documentary pertaining to her son's life, ''A Skin Too Few'' in 2000. The first official inclusion in an LP release was on the 2007 album, ''Family Tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Representations of ...
''. Two of her compositions, "Poor Mum" and "Do You Ever Remember?", were included on the release.
Nick Drake's increasing cult following
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
led to further interest in his mother. In 2011, an album entitled ''Molly Drake
Mary Drake (born Mary Lloyd); 5 November 1915 – 4 June 1993), also known as Molly Drake, was an English poet and musician, best known as the mother of the actress Gabrielle Drake and the musician Nick Drake.
Molly Drake never released any of ...
'' was released with the intent of focusing solely on the work of Molly Drake. The nineteen songs were recorded on a rudimentary setup in the 1950s in seclusion at her home, engineered by her husband Rodney. Piano accompanies Drake's soft vocals on tracks that mainly last two minutes. The tracks are poetic and heavy-hearted, similar to her son's musical style. The album was first released on Bryter Music complete with a small book of poems in a black card portfolio. The album was first released in the USA by the ''Squirrel Thing'' label and was engineered by Nick Drake's past engineer, John Wood. Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd (born August 5, 1942) is an American record producer and writer. He formerly owned Hannibal Records. Boyd has worked on recordings of Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band ...
says this compilation is "the missing link in the Nick Drake story".
Compilation albums
* ''Family Tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Representations of ...
'' (2007)
* ''Molly Drake
Mary Drake (born Mary Lloyd); 5 November 1915 – 4 June 1993), also known as Molly Drake, was an English poet and musician, best known as the mother of the actress Gabrielle Drake and the musician Nick Drake.
Molly Drake never released any of ...
'' (2013)
* '' The Tide's Magnificence: Songs and Poems of Molly Drake'' (2017)
In popular culture
The song "Little Weaver Bird" plays over the closing scene of the 2020 series ''Mrs. America Mrs. America may refer to;
* ''Mrs. America'' (miniseries), a 2020 US television mini-series
* Mrs. America (contest), a US national beauty pageant
See also
* '' Mr. and Mrs. America'', a 1945 film
* Mr. America (disambiguation)
* Miss America ...
''.
''The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake
''The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake'' is an album by English folk group the Unthanks. It was pre-released on the band's website in April 2017, prior to its official release on 26 May 2017, and received a five-starred review in ''The Indepen ...
'' is a 2017 album by the English folk group, the Unthanks
The Unthanks (until 2009 called Rachel Unthank and the Winterset) are an English folk group known for their eclectic approach in combining traditional English folk, particularly Northumbrian folk music, with other musical genres."They may call ...
. The band has, as of October 2017, released two albums of their recordings of Drake's songs.
The song “I Remember” plays during the ending credits of "No Weddings and a Funeral", season 2, episode 10 (released on 24 sep 2021) of Apple TV+’s series ''Ted Lasso
''Ted Lasso'' is an American sports comedy-drama television series developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly. It is based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promos for NB ...
.''
The song "Happiness" was played in ''Resident Alien'''s season 2, episode 9.
References
External links
*
FindAGrave.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drake, Molly
1915 births
1993 deaths
Nick Drake
English women poets
English women singers
English songwriters
People from Yangon
20th-century poets
20th-century English women writers
British people in British Burma