Nick Drake Honoured with Box Set Reissue of 'Bryter Layter,' Live Tribute Album Featuring Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock

BY Alex HudsonPublished Mar 15, 2013

In recent years, late folk great Nick Drake has been celebrated with various retrospectives and tribute projects, and the trend will continue this spring with a live covers album and a box set reissue.

Following a previous box set edition of Pink Moon in 2012, Drake's 1970 album Bryter Layter will get a similar reissue. This set is out April 29 in the UK through Universal Music Catalogue, while an Amazon listing points to a May 7 release here in North America.

The album is being pressed on heavyweight vinyl with remastering overseen by the album's original engineer, John Wood, at Abbey Road Studios. The box also includes the original promotional posters, a smaller live poster, a print of a handwritten set list, and what a press release calls "reproductions of the master tape reel and tape box lids."

As for the tribute album, it's called Way to Blue - The Songs of Nick Drake and it's out in North American on April 16 through StorySound Records and a day earlier in the UK via Navigator Records. This live collection, which was curated by Drake producer Joe Boyd, was recorded in the UK, Australia and Italy, and features contributions from Vashti Bunyan, Teddy Thompson, Green Gartside, Robyn Hitchcock, Lisa Hannigan, Scott Matthews, Krystle Warren, Danny Thompson and others.

Rehearsal footage from the Way to Blue tribute show is below, and over on StorySound Records' website you can listen to Lisa Hannigan's version of "Black Eyed Dog" and Teddy Thompson's take on "River Man."

To celebrate the tribute release, Boyd will be hosting a concert at Wilton's Music Hall in London on April 2, with performances from Robyn Hitchcock, Green Gartside, Neill MacColl, Kate St John and special guests Paul Smith (from Maximo Park) and Olivia Chaney.

Way to Blue - The Songs of Nick Drake:

1. Luluc - "Things Behind the Sun"
2. Scott Matthews - "Place to Be"
3. Green Gartside - "Fruit Tree"
4. Shane Nicholson - "Poor Boy"
5. Krystle Warren - "Time Has Told Me"
6. Robyn Hitchcock - "Parasite"
7. Danny Thompson & Zoe Rahman - "One Of These Things First (Instrumental)"
8. Vashti Bunyan - "Which Will"
9. Lisa Hannigan - "Black Eyed Dog"
10. Shane Nicholson - "Rider on the Wheel"
11. Teddy Thompson - "River Man"
12. Luluc & Lisa Hannigan - "Saturday Sun"
13. Scott Matthews - "When The Day Is Done"
14. Luluc - "Fly"
15. Teddy Thompson & Krystle Warren - "Pink Moon"

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