particularly the guitar playing.

But if he can play and sing like that, then why is he pouring his energy into recreating the songs of someone else?

;-)

...but maybe he hasn't a creative neurone in him, so has realised his forte in in the works of others. I don't have a belief that songwriting is the end all and be all, but I will ceratinly agree that re-interpretation has more credence, to me, than re-creation. But tributes seem big bucks these days. I note there ia a chap and a bassist forever on tour "doing" Nick Drake and, when not, Gabriel Marques Lorca or some such latin novelist, not being quite sure of whether these would, could or can be mutually sympathetic. At least both Hendrix and ZZ Top have a guitar based similarity, which is how the Hamsters spread their load.....
The Hamsters and Nick Drake thus drawn in together, in but one paragraph. And most would have thought squirrels closer relation....

...is not in principle of great appeal.

.

and the whole thing is beautifully recorded. Much better sound quality than the usual dross you get on YouTube. I agree that impersonations can seem intrinsically sterile, but this sent a chill down my spine when I heard it last night, and that's the acid test isn't it?

...and Nick's not 'ere.
..but there is something of the robot about him isn't there?

I think he's great, he's really captured the spirit of the song. But the main thing he brings is simply this video. I am too young to have ever seen Nick Drake perform and as far as I'm aware there's no film of him playing, so it's nice to watch this song being played for the first time.

As any covers band knows, if you try to recreate a song perfectly, as this guy seems to be doing very successfully, you get castigated for the slightest difference.

If you re-interpret it in a way that makes it obvious you're doing so, you're under no such pressure, plus you get a brownie point from those who applaud creativity.

Technically the art of the composer/original performer is entirely different from that of the replicator, and it's a foolish replicator indeed who expects to bathe in the same glory as the composer.