IN: Drake's father, Rodney Shuttleworth Drake (1908-1988), had moved to Rangoon, Burma, in the early 1930s to work as an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation. There, in 1934, his father met the daughter of a senior member of the Indian Civil Service, Mary Lloyd (1916-1993), known to her family as "Molly". Rodney Drake proposed to her in 1936, though they had to wait a year until she turned 21 before her family allowed them to marry. In 1950 they returned to England to live in Warwickshire at their home, "Far Leys", in Tanworth-in-Arden, south of Birmingham, the city where Rodney Drake worked from 1952 as the Chairman and Managing Director of Wolseley Engineering.

On returning to England, Drake moved into his sister's flat in Hampstead, London, before enrolling at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University that October to study English Literature. His tutors found him to be a bright student, but unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself. His biographer, Trevor Dann, notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow students alike, and points out that official matriculation photographs from this time reveal a sullen young man. Cambridge placed much emphasis on its rugby and cricket teams, yet by this time Drake had lost interest in playing sport, preferring to stay in his college room smoking cannabis, and listening to and playing music. According to fellow student (now psychiatrist) Brian Wells: "they were the rugger buggers and we were the cool people smoking dope."  In September 1967, he met Robert Kirby, a music student who went on to orchestrate many of the string and woodwind arrangements for Drake's first two albums. By this time, Drake had discovered the British and American folk music scenes, and was influenced by performers such as Bob Dylan, Donovan, Van Morrison, Josh White and Phil Ochs. He began performing in local clubs and coffee houses around London, and in February 1968, while playing support to Country Joe and the Fish at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, made an impression on Ashley Hutchings, bass player with Fairport Convention. Hutchings recalls being impressed by Drake's skill as a guitarist, but even more so by "the image. He looked like a star. He looked wonderful, he seemed to be 7 ft [tall]."  Hutchings introduced Drake to the 25-year-old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions. The company was, at the time, licensed to Island Records, and Boyd, the man who had discovered Fairport Convention and been responsible for introducing John Martyn and The Incredible String Band to a mainstream audience, was a significant and respected figure on the UK folk scene. He and Drake formed an immediate bond, and the producer acted as a mentor to Drake throughout his career. A four-track demo, recorded in Drake's college room in the spring of 1968, led Boyd to offer a management, publishing, and production contract to the 20-year-old, and to initiate work on a debut album. According to Boyd:  In those days you didn't have cassettes--he brought a reel-to-reel tape [to me] that he'd done at home. Half way through the first song, I felt this was pretty special. And I called him up, and he came back in, and we talked, and I just said, "I'd like to make a record." He stammered, "Oh, well, yeah. Okay." Nick was a man of few words.  In a 2004 interview, Drake's friend Paul Wheeler remembered the excitement caused by his seeming big break, and recalled that the singer had already decided not to complete his third year at Cambridge.
QUESTION: Did he graduate?
IN: Clarence White (born Clarence Joseph LeBlanc; June 7, 1944 - July 14, 1973), was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrds, as well as for being a pioneer of the musical genre of country rock during the late 1960s. White also worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by the Everly Brothers, Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, the Monkees, Randy Newman, Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, and Jackson Browne amongst others. Together with frequent collaborator Gene Parsons, he invented the B-Bender, a guitar accessory that enables a player to mechanically bend the B-string up a whole tone and emulate the sound of a pedal steel guitar.

During 1964, White began to look beyond bluegrass music towards rock 'n' roll as an avenue for artistic expression. Although he was influenced by Country guitarists like Doc Watson, Don Reno and Joe Maphis, he also idolized the playing of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, rock 'n' roller Chuck Berry, and studio musician James Burton. White even anticipated the viability of a folk/rock hybrid when, in the summer of 1964, he was approached by Jim Dickson to record a version of the then-unreleased Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man" with electric instruments. However, despite White's enthusiasm for the project, he was unable to convince his bandmates in the Kentucky Colonels of the experiment's validity and ultimately, the song was instead recorded by Dickson's proteges, the Byrds.  By the time the original line-up of the Kentucky Colonels folded in late 1965, White had become a respected and well-known guitarist. Abandoning bluegrass temporarily, he switched from his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar to an electric Fender Telecaster, with the intention of becoming a studio musician like his hero James Burton. Transitioning to electric guitar required White to modify his right hand playing technique, switch from open chording to fretting the whole guitar neck with his left hand, and practice using the tone and volume controls. However, he soon mastered the intricacies of the instrument and, between 1965 and 1968, he undertook session work for artists including Ricky Nelson, the Monkees, and the Gosdin Brothers.  As 1965 turned into 1966, White met Gene Parsons and Gib Guilbeau at a recording session for the Gosdin Brothers and shortly after, he began to perform live with the duo in local California clubs, as well as doing regular session work on their records, which were released under the moniker of Cajun Gib and Gene. 1966 also saw White begin playing with a country group called Trio, which featured drummer Bart Haney and former Kentucky Colonel, Roger Bush, on bass. In autumn of that year, as a result of his friendship with Gilbeau, Parsons and the Gosdin Brothers, White was asked to provide lead guitar to ex-Byrd Gene Clark's debut solo album, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. White also briefly joined Clark's touring band shortly thereafter.  During the Clark album sessions, White reconnected with mandolin player and bassist Chris Hillman, who he had known during the early 1960s as a member of the bluegrass combo the Hillmen. Hillman was currently a member of the Byrds and in December 1966, he invited White to contribute countrified lead guitar playing to his songs "Time Between" and "The Girl with no Name", which both appeared on the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday album. The country-oriented nature of the songs was something of a stylistic departure for the group and can be seen as an early indicator of the experimentation with country music that would color the Byrds' subsequent work. White also contributed guitar to the band's follow-up album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, and to their seminal 1968 country rock release, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
QUESTION:
Did they record the song?