Eddie Vedder, Heath Ledger, Dave Grohl Confirmed for Nick Drake Tribute Album

The music of Nick Drake will be reinterpreted by Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Jack Johnson and Norah Jones for an upcoming tribute album. The still-untitled record will also feature Heath Ledger's video for Drake's "Black-Eyed Dog," which was filmed in late 2007 in the months before the actor's death. The clip was included in a multimedia installation but never officially released, although some footage surfaced online in February 2008. "I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day," Ledger once said of Nick Drake, a British singer-songwriter who, like Ledger, died prematurely.

Drake released three albums before overdosing in 1974 at the age of 28. All three LPs — Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon — placed on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The tribute disc will be released via Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records, and will include a DVD highlighting the album's recording process.

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• Album Review: Nick Drake's Pink Moon

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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