Al - I wouldn't want to see Nick Drake's stuff banished into outer darkness and I agree he was an amazing guitarist.

I'm surprised you were converted by that biography. My reaction to it was, how many biographies of suicidal depressives does the world need? It was in the same category as Diana Athill's "After a Funeral", on Waguih Ghali - ok, I'd already read Ghali's book (every bit as bleak and hopeless as Athill's deacription of his life would lead you to expect) so I couldn't be put off. But there are a lot more books in that genre and none of them really got me fired up to check the subject's work out. (ok, I will except Richard Holmes on Nerval in "Footsteps", which Is fiendishly ingenious).