The following was originally written for inclusion in the forthcoming Making of 5LL set which I began work on at the start of 2016 – initially the tape research aspect before that role evolved quite considerably.
Now that the set has (finally) been officially revealed I’ve found it a little unsettling to read as much misinformed opinion and conjecture at what will actually be issued – and since this has been posted elsewhere – it felt appropriate to post it up in full here.
One other thing to say: I’m also seeing a lot of comments on the price point for the set with an accompanying view that this set has been created as some kind of money-making exercise or, even worse, with a view to ripping off the purchaser. This project has been going on for way longer than anyone realises (quite how the secret was kept for that long still baffles me).
These things are neither cheap or simple to put together. Consequently, costs have to be covered. As much as I have had nothing to do with any pricing conversations, I will add this: If there is anyone who genuinely believes that any one of us who worked on this set did so on the basis of profiteering or rip-off, you have absolutely zero understanding of how the ND Estate works, how Gabrielle and Cally operate and how Nick’s record company thinks.
If you don’t like the music which has been assembled – that’s fine, your opinion, your right if you prefer. I began researching this project over nine years ago and to be tarred with a brush which so much as hints at rip-off shows utter disrespect for Nick, his music and those of us who’ve worked as hard as we have to bring this out into the open. Think twice before you go there.
The Making Of Five Leaves Left project overview
Legend tells of multi-tracks and master tapes from the 1960s onwards being calculated by accountants as having no value, loaded onto lorries before being taken away and crushed to create more easily managed space. When we began the process during 2016 – the search into what may or may not have survived from the Five Leaves Left sessions – no one had any idea what might be found. One starts a project such as this with fingers firmly crossed, hoping for the best but knowing the well of disappointment could be around the next corner. Thankfully, almost all of the reels associated with Five Leaves Left exist. Not all but most.
The next stage was the analogue/digital reel transference. Once completed the music contained on the reels – a combination of 1⁄2” 4-track multi-tracks, 1⁄4” mono and stereo mixes, two 1⁄4” mono masters and a single 1” 8-song reel – created an interesting conundrum. What should we include, what should be left out? It was established very early on we couldn’t – and more importantly wouldn’t – include every out-take found; as much as that might please the purist, it wouldn’t respect Nick.
In any studio what happens behind the closed door of a session is always the same. Some takes go down perfectly, some don’t. It’s the nature of the process. On these reels, no one was surprised to find Nick occasionally miscuing a vocal or guitar part, Danny Thompson blundering over a bass line or a string section coming in half a bar behind. All that happened. Not often, but it did. Even so, those few-and-far-between gaffes were part of the story because the chosen music would detail the evolutionary process of Five Leaves Left. Next step – sequencing.
LP ONE/CD ONE
The opening six songs contain Nick’s first ever session at Sound Techniques that were found on the mono listening-reel which Beverley Martyn had squirrelled away in a drawer over fifty years ago. It is safe to assume it’s in exactly the same order as Joe Boyd and John Wood recorded it. Certainly ‘Mayfair’ and ‘Time Has Told Me’, which segue into one another, are the first two tracks they recorded – otherwise why would Joe say what he says right at the very start?
The following six songs open with a radically different take of ‘Strange Face’. Never finished but showing how it could have ended up if Nick had chosen to continue down that particular musical path. While the Richard Hewson session was aborted an element has to play a part, otherwise we’d not be telling the story properly. How best to illustrate this? To demonstrate how one of Nick’s songs developed, we married Richard’s original orchestration of ‘Day Is Done’ which features Nick singing but not playing via his and Danny Thompson’s second stab at it in November before Robert Kirby’s strings accompany Nick’s guitar as sessions for the album were coming to a close almost a year later. This led us to the undated Paul de Rivaz reel – the likely purpose of which was to help Nick and Robert better prepare for a concert planned for February 23, 1968.
Sonically, there is a major difference from recordings made at Sound Techniques and those in a fellow undergraduate’s room captured on rudimentary equipment. To ease that transition we have Nick explaining how he sees ‘My Love Left With The Rain’ evolving, suggesting he’d like ‘to get as expansive a sound as possible’.
DISC TWO
The first seven songs are all from the de Rivaz reel and the following five are the best never before heard takes from the first two days of Nick’s collaboration with Danny Thompson.
DISC THREE
For the next eight songs, we’ve more or less stayed in sequence of recording dates. There is no way of being certain, but since ‘River Man’ had not been previously recorded possibly indicates Nick had only recently completed writing it.
Strictly speaking, the final four titles are out of sequence. ‘Way To Blue’ can be narrowed down to an unspecified date during the winter of 1968. As the recording dates show, ‘Saturday Sun’ was the final track on the album to be recorded yet, it didn’t feel right to conclude the story of The Making Of Five Leaves Left with anything other than the first full take of Harry Robinson’s orchestration of ‘River Man’.
DISC FOUR
The final disc completes the cycle. It is Five Leaves Left just as Joe and John sequenced it, as Nick first heard it in completed form, and the same as he handed his sister in her London flat in mid-June 1969. Gabrielle Drake: “I suspect I got the very first copy. Nick must’ve had that moment of seeing himself on the cover, his music inside, and, it is so typical of Nick because all he said was, ‘Well… there you are.’ As I’ve said many times, he really was a man of few words.”
The re-master dates from 2000 when all of Nick’s albums were re-mastered for CD by John Wood and Simon Heyworth. When John went to Abbey Road in 2013 to re-remaster the tapes for vinyl reissues, he discovered the original analogue masters had, fractionally, deteriorated. Tapes degrade over time, both the oxide layer and the tape base can be affected by age. Therefore, the 24bit files captured from 2000 remain the superior version – Five Leaves Left sounding as good as it can be.
Neil Storey – Editor of The Island Book of Records
