typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

Donovan is about certain to appear on the "Ed Sullivan show" on American TV in mid-April. A four-day visit for promotional purposes is nearing the end of the negotional stage.

typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

The Pretty Things' next single may be a Donovan composition. He is writing material for them at present.

typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

Donovan's days never start the same way as other people;s. Something different always happens. Like when he had to come to the Record Mirror offices.

WHO'S WHO

INDIAN FOOD

KINKY MAG (sic)

typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

Concert Sell Out

report then continues with non Dylan/Donovan news

typed in by Rebecca Buck
found at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/dylan/notes10.Z

At the height of the awards season – Brats last month, Brits and Grammys just around the corner – we look back at a star-studded NME Pollwinners concert

NME readers – take a bow! You were responsible for choosing the stars for the greatest pop show in the world. By voting for them in the NME popularity poll, you put them on the stage at Wembley's Empire Pool.
  In the audience of 10,000 on Sunday afternoon were teenagers from the world over, and for three-and-a-half hours they were united, enjoying a procession of top talent.
  THE MOODY BLUES bounced onstage in their dark blue suits and pounded a storm out of “Hey Bo Diddley”. Denny Laine broke into “Go Now”, only they didn't. The pianist had not switched on his amp. After the faulty start, their Number One hit brought a rave reaction from the audience at its conclusion.
  HERMAN'S HERMITS led off into a catchy hand clapper, “Wonderful World”. Showing no signs of nerves at all, Herman gave a highly professional performance, and his rendering of “Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter” proved something new.
  THE ROLLING STONES entered the area to the biggest ovation and Mick Jagger swung into his mean and moody routine with “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”, which broke into the slower “Pain In My Heart”. Faultless timing and knowing just where to put the emphasis in his phrasing brought hysterical reactions from the fans.
  The faster tempo of “Round And Around” provided Jagger with the opportunity of going into his more violent movements, and he whirled around at one moment like a berserk windmill. The Stones showed how important it is not only to give the audience something to listen to but also to watch, and Mick's facial dramatics during “The Last Time” are an education. They rounded off a wild performance with “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love” as an encore, and Bill and Keith joined in the vocals. No one was left in any doubt as to who was the most popular group in this fantastic first-half.
  DONOVAN – this was the act so many fans had been waiting for, if only for its curiosity value. Would Donovan match up to his publicity? The roughly-dressed folk singer answered in a way that should silence his critics forever. He came on stage to a fantastic barrage of screams. First number was his hit, “Catch The Wind”, sung firmly and confidently, and he followed it with a slow wailer, “You're Gonna Need Somebody When I'm Gone”.
  THEM – these quiet Irishmen weren't so quiet after they'd ambled on to the stage! Lead singer Van Morrison led the audience to fever pitch through his cymbal-clashing “Here Comes The Night”, followed immediately by another number that had many of the audience jumping from their seats. The tempo went faster and faster, and at times sounded like some ecstatic pop version of a Cossack dance!
  TOM JONES was a real highlight. He swung and waved his way through three raving numbers. The big sound of trumpets, guitars and sax behind him – provided by The Squires – was just right. Tom opened in punchy style with “Little By Little” and then went into “It's Not Unusual” (screams galore).
  Then a rostrum was rolled forward across the stage. The instruments were set up and on the drum were two words – THE BEATLES!!!!
  Compere Keith Fordyce's announcement was buried in a literal avalanche of applause, screams, thumping and cheering. Especially screams. I felt as if the roof might blow off. In seconds, John, Paul, George and Ringo were on stage, drawing gasps of appreciation from the girl fans at their new stage gear. I think you could best describe the jackets as light tan, Army-style (a bit Russian perhaps?) and the trousers as tight jet black.
  Suddenly, George plucked the first notes of “I Feel Fine” on his guitar – and it was like a signal for a riot! How many of the girls present kept more or less in their seats I still do not know. The girl next to me fell on her knees weeping. After “I Feel Fine”, Paul managed to shout “Hello, how are you?”, into the mike. That was all he could manage above the noise. John stood chewing gum, smiling nonchalantly at his plight!
  The girl next to me threw her hair brush at them as Paul launched into the vocal of “She's A Woman”. I tried to stop her throwing her wire roller-comb, but no use. She flung it at the stage, almost in a delirium, and it just missed George's head. George was in terrific vocal form on this typical “coloured” number. John and Paul joined forces on the vocal for their lilter, “Baby's In Black”. It was great stuff. Then came “Ticket To Ride”, and the screams rose to such a level of fury it was almost impossible to hear anything but the solid beat of Ringo's drums.
  The finale – that long-time Beatles raver, “Long Tall Sally”. It proved an incredible end to a truly incredibly performance, with the group struggling off stage amid a barrage of objects. I'm sure the fans meant well!
  The presentation of Poll awards came at this stage – TONY BENNETT doing the honours – then came a final contribution from THE KINKS, who pounded through “Tired Of Waiting” and “You Really Got Me” in terrific style, a great closing act!
  It was a big, brash, belting show, loaded with names and loaded with talent.
  Truly, the biggest array of pop stars ever assembled on one great day.

Source: New Musical Express - April 1965 and Uncut magazine; Issue 10 - March 1998, p. 18

I'm letting off steam. On leave a few weeks ago, I heard Donovan and his record. He was introduced as "Now we have the man who sounds like Bob Dylan." Not having heard of Dylan, it seemed a bit funny. After hearing his disc, I just had to hear his "sounds like" Dylan. I had to wait a couple of weeks before hearing Dylan. Meanwhile, all the critics heaved their mud at Donovan. When I did hear Dylan, I thought there was as much comparison as between Cilla Black and Mick Jagger. I don't mean length of hair! Now when I see a report on Donovan and Dylan, I feel like ripping it to pieces. I'd just like to say this: "I'm glad that Donovan did not stay in the background, as I think he has the best Bob Dylan voice."

report written by Roger Nuftel, age 18

typed in by Rebecca Buck
found at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/dylan/notes7.Z

BOB DYLAN and Donovan met this week.

typed in by Rebecca Buck
found at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/dylan/notes7.Z

It was all quite simple. We put Bob Dylan's new LP "Bringing It All Back Home" on a record player, sat Donovan down next to it and noted his comments.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

She Belongs To Me

Maggie's Farm

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Outlaw Blues

On The Road Again

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream

Mr. Tambourine Man

Gates Of Eden

It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

It's All Over Now Baby Blue

On the question of the weirdo sleeve notes, Donovan commented: "There's no reason why you should understand them. He just puts things down that means things to him."

And what of the album in general?

typed in by Rebecca Buck
found at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/dylan/notes9.Z

typed in by Rebecca Buck
found at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/dylan/notes10.Z

review of the single Colours/To Sing for You (Pye 15866)

This'll be a hit, of course. Lengthy guitar introduction, a flash of harmonica further on, introduction of banjo. Thats the instrumental side. Vocally, Donovan has another charming little song . . . "Yellow is the colour of my true love's hair when we rise, in the morning . . . the time I love best." It really grows on you after a while. A really good and sensitive vocal job. Flip is also commended. A more complex song, hauntingly wistful in parts.

other singles reviewed on the same page are "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" by The Who; The Supremes' "Back in my Arms Again"; and The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man"

typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

Mention the name Donovan and someone, somewhere will whisper--'Dylan'. For wherever he goes, whatever he sings or writes about, Don is haunted by the name Bob Dylan. People still compare the two; they think Don is just a copy: no one has yet given him the chance to prove himself. Here, RAVE gives him the chance, for here is the truth.

It seems odd that so much wisdom and understanding should come from a boy so young, who wears faded jeans and a cap they say is copied from another. When I went to interview folk singer-poet-pop idol Donovan, I had expected nobody special, but the appearance fools you. The cap and the faded jeans and the sad little voice are just a front covering for a boy who is strangely old. You can't put a date on Donovan. He could have stepped out of the Old Testament, or the ancient Chinese civilisation, or the year two thousand.

a poem with no name

red
bled the sea
with sunset
orange
slid out
on its pastel skin
blue
through the eye
was cool
cloud
hustled
bult up huge
a twist of tangerine harlequin
zapped across the night

a terracotta love poem

velvet killed
its colour blue
for reds an browns
upon your
beautiful arms
an i can see you
shimmerin
like a precious stone
playin in the lights
of your eyes
i can soak my mouth
upon the ends of the
towrin cage of your hair

two poems

sea mind
is
a wind tossed
balloon
as spring sun
quickens on
the grass blades
by the sand bank

white snowshoe
hares
dab the blue snow
softly
in the pines
toward some
great thinkin'

note: this is the feature story in the magazine and Donovan is on the cover. Some trivia: Dawn James is the sister of the singer, Twinkle!

typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

THERE was stillness in the audience. That is Donovan's way of describing the first of his long series of Sunday concerts.
  “It was the first quiet pop concert”, he added, obviously neglecting several recent badly-attended package shows.
  And those concerts are about the only chance Donovan's fans are going to have of watching him perform for a little while. He's too busy writing.
  “I wrote `Colours' on the spot in the recording studio,” he revealed. “I went along with several things, but just wrote that when I got there.”
  Now he's staying at the home of one of his managers, Geoff Stephens. That's down near Southend, far from the rush and tear of Donovan's former Earls Court abode.
  “We could be earning a lot of money by putting him out all the time, but we decided at the beginning that we wanted him to be a writer as well as a singer,” explained another manager, Pete Eden.
  I had contacted Donovan in the canteen of a BBC studio in darkest Maida Vale after several attempts by commissionaires to locate “Mr. Donovan and his group” in other parts of the building.
  We walked to one studio through a maze of basement passages with huge pipes everywhere.
  “It's the BBC fallout shelter,” cracked the folk poet who didn't even smile at his own joke.
  Donovan is working on a book of poetry which he hopes to have published ere long.
  It will cover many fields and is almost bound, I presume, to offend many “purists”.
  A man hidden in a booth called for silence from everybody. Unquestionably, we obeyed. But Donovan walked over to a chair and picked up his guitar.
  He began to play so softly that hidden SPECTRE microphones would have had difficulty picking up the sound. Even the man in the booth didn't hear.
  The denims were missing. In their place, a yellow shirt, sweater and slacks. Donovan sent someone out to buy more polo-necked sweaters.
  How is Donovan finding fame? I enquired.
  “You know,” he replied. Then a few moments gazing at the floor and thinking. “Sometimes I like it, sometimes I hate it,”
  Then it was Donovan's turn to do some recording. He sat near the booth, played his guitar and sang quietly. The technician asked how hard Donovan was trying with his voice.
  “I'm not trying, I didn't think you wanted me to yet. Sorry. I will if you want,” replied the singer, showing the kind of consideration lacking in many pop people.

the caption on the picture says: DONOVAN—Currently high in the charts with `Colours,' his new album has just been released in the States under the new title `Catch The Wind.'

originally typed in by Ivan Kocmarek

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (Pye):—
  This is a very beautiful EP which is being promoted as a single.
  For the first time I really like Donovan. I like the change in voice, I like the way he's suddenly discovered that he can sing without resorting to Dylan phrasing. I particularly like this switch to Pete Seeger guitar work. Lovely.
  Of the two sides, the A side, and presumably the one that will receive the plugs, is far and away the best.
  Buffy St. Marie's “Universal Soldier”—already a classic folk song—is the first track, and is followed by the loveliest song on the record, Donovan's own “The Ballad Of A Crystal Man.”
  The chorus on this and Donovan's voice are perfect. Would have made a super single.
  The other two tracks are both anti-war songs. They are “Do You Hear Me Now” and “The War Drags On.”
  Well worth anybody's money.
OUT TOMORROW.

  Mild-mannered singer-songwriter Donovan Leitch (better known to the world as Sunshine Superman!) has done a very nice thing for modern day pop music: he has injected into it a sense of wonder. He looks at the world with a sort of hip innocence, paints his pictures with a dab of irony and a dash of awe, and somehow never neglects the delicate in the decadence around him. He wanders into the past on occasion, but somehow that only serves to reinforce the fact that this is perhaps the most 1966 LP I've ever heard. It has the taste of now.
  The album is the first for Donovan in more than a year, and although his style may seem to have changed drastically, it would be more simple and accurate to say that it has improved. If you listen carefully to “Fairytale” (Hickory 1965) after familiarizing yourself with “Sunshine Superman”, you will find that much of the earlier album could have been included in the later without seeming too out of place. “Sunny Goodge Street” and “Summer Day Reflection Song” are musically mature both as compositions and in performance; Donovan employs careful arrangements, imaginative phrasing, and -- folkies take note -- musical accompaniment beyond simple guitar strumming in both of these 1965 recordings. Some of Donovan's songs are most effective with simple guitar strumming, of course; but even when it was hip to be a purist Donovan sensed that it was better to be a maker of music.
  So we come inevitably to the fact that this album employs musicians and accompaniments galore; but what may be overlooked as one remarks upon the star, the overdubbing, and the electricity, is the fact that this album has a producer, an excellent one. Mickey Most has succeeded in making it possible for us to hear Donovan's songs much as Don must hear them in his head; clearly there is a rapport between singer, producer, and accompanists that transcends mere good fortune. Most -- or someone; perhaps, as occasionally happens, the performer is largely his own producer -- has translated concept into actuality with remarkable grace. And surely a touch of magic enters in -- on “Sunshine Superman” one voice starts to sing “forever to be mine” while the lead sings on “you're going to be mine,” and the effect, intended or not, is wonderful.
  For those who like to categorize, the songs on this album fall into approximately ten groups, each as independent and as unexpected as the performer himself. Donovan reaches out in all directions to give us, his listeners, a sense of what things feel like. In the title song he is charm itself, self-confident youth in the morning sunshine, radiating with the feeling that “nothing can stop me.” “You're gonna be mine and I know it,” he smiles; and if you're ever known springtime you can't fail to understand. It's a teenage song, with a rock and lilt and plenty of identifying -- but it isn't a sop to the masses, it isn't why-must-I-be-a-teenager-in-love; it's a slice of reality for the real people who dare to be youthful too. Go ahead, roll down the window, rest your elbow in the breeze, turn up the volume a little and sing along with those marvelous verses and their broken rhythm; tap your foot and just appreciate the way all that musical chaos in the accompaniment blends perfectly into a goodtime music that is not in the least Beatles or Lovin' Spoonful or Dylan or anything else that ever was but just pure underivative Donovan, underivative because he's absorbed what needed absorbing and now his music just comes from everywhere, sunshine, moonlight, even - and what could be more 1960's ethnic? -- transistor radios. Enjoy.
  Following the easy, insistent beat of “Sunshine Superman” Donovan effortlessly shifts his gears to the rhythmless violins and harpichord of “Legend of a Girl-Child Linda”. The early morning time of joy fades into the timelessness of a dream-place, and the transition is perfect. Perhaps it's simply the sound of that same gentle voice that assures us that we haven't been deserted -- our guide is simply showing us a different picture within the same gallery. “Legend of a Girl-Child Linda” is a pleasant walk through the carefully-carved features of a somewhere else, a children's kingdom, a world with the utterly acceptable reality of an identifiable dream. It is not Central Park South -- but the story could be told there, to city children gathered in a very now place, heads filled with ideas of elsewhere as quiet and delicately ornamented with whatever can be imagined of nature. Donovan is here the story-teller; not the child anymore, nor yet the good old Uncle Don talking to the kiddies. Rather, his context is one of mature, but child-like, wonder. He is the magician; he knows his tales and shows are but 1/5 his own -- the other 4/5 provided by the listener, the eager child, watching the storyteller's hands, seeing the world that he unfolds, but seeing it through his own particular eyes. And we who aren't quite children, we too take part, weaving things our own way with our own visions in mind; and we are captured. On the last verse the singer's voice becomes somehow more stark, and we hear each word: “My sword it lies broken and cast in a lake....In the dream I was told that my princess would wake.” And suddenly it's not a children's tale at all, expect as we are children; it's a song for us, a song of loss and hope, innocence vanished -- “cast in a lake” -- a feeling of gone forever.... “In the dream I was told that....” and suddenly like cold water we are out of it and seeing it as a dream, and yet sensing how real it was; the princess is remembered as we wake as someone real and loving, and the sense of awakeness and now is less real by far than she was. As Donovan mentions later on (“The Trip”), the world is often quite detached from us; the near-reality of dreams is much more vivid. But there's more here than just loss of dreams: the dream, in the end, is but a model for a possible reality --“...I was told that my princess would wake.” One need not analyse all this to feel it, of course; the mark of the artist is that he transmits ideas and feelings directly -- neither he nor you need know how or what is transmitted. As long as you don't resist the magician, the spell is cast and Donovan's artistry and relevance come through. As always, enlightenment and entertainment -- when both are good -- come both in the same package.
  “Three Kingfishers” paints its picture all in sound. The tabla -- Indian drums -- are properly employed; the song does not seem experimental or “east vs. west”ish at all. Donovan is clearly into all these sounds -- they are his, the feelings he has, with his vocal style the common denominator, the needle with which he weaves. And the listener is woven in; as the music continues you become fully a part of it. `Look at the tiny oceans in my hand.” You listen, and you see them. It is good that these songs work into each other so well....it would be cruel if the cord that is formed were ripped out after each time. But no, it is all one cord, and even after listening to the album you are tied. It stays with you -- once invited in to view the palace you are never thrown out the back door. You live within it, and in the world too. In this way, the album is more real than “Revolver”, a more frankly experimental LP, a hat shop, try this on for size, and this, and when you've tried on all the hats you leave. “Sunshine Superman” is an experience that continues to affect you; “Revolver” is more a one-night stand.

  “The Ferris Wheel” -- a love song. The amusement park at night; everything is a part of everything and everything is you; I wish you could enjoy it all as as I enjoy it all and you. A feeling of one-ness. God is love; pantheism. And “Bert's Blues” has such fantastic changes of tempo! Donovan is thinking jazz and singing rock and roll; the cut is the single most unusual musical accomplishment on the album. Yet it's so easy to accept as perfectly natural and expected; it fits. As a halfway point on the LP it is a wonderful sort of summary and retrospection -- and so simple. “I've been looking for a good gal....” “I've been picking up sunshine, drinking down the rain.” It is “Sunshine Superman” again, but not quite as exuberant; pausing a moment in the shade, he would still say “....you're going to be mine,” but he is uncomfortably aware that it hasn't happened yet. He's still waiting. It's a beautiful companion piece to “Sunshine Superman”...and to the dream of the princess, and the amusement park vision, and all. Really, the whole LP is one song.
  Turn the record over. “Season of the Witch” is the most powerful single track on the LP. It's really impossible to listen to it without wanting to turn up the volume. The production is excellent, with that great bass line out front, and organ and lead building to a frenzy that makes you almost suspect Donovan's being backed by the Young Rascals (incidentally, it is criminal that nowhere on this LP are the sidemen identified). You can feel the song all through you, and it's all too clear that this is the season of the witch: you can see Donovan walking down the street with people staring at his hair, people frightened of “beatniks” and uptight about anything different, rabbits running in the ditch, scared and irrational and ready for Salem all over again. And as always Donovan sings no protest and no hate but rather: “sure is strange to see....” Judgements are avoided. “The Trip”, too, is non-committal; it's an innocent, honest swirl of visions with heavy irony and mostly just “What goes on? I really want to know.” It's a great rolling song, not really about drugs so much as about, well, alienation. Detachment, like. What goes on? And “Guenevere.” Donovan says, “all of a sudden I was there, 400 a.d., hiding like a child watching....” and I can't really add to that. The song is like walking through very deep snow, which may not seem good but is. “Fat Angel” is an unbelievably funny song about a pusher. Again, Donovan has made his point perfectly. He seems to aim almost blindly, such is his ease -- but he never misses. He is a true marksman.
  Finally, there is “Celeste”. The strings are too loud and “big” for my taste. It's really the only case of poor judgement on the LP - it makes the whole thing come on too strong. But it is definitely the right song, if the wrong performance, to finish the LP -- again, introspection, this time “dawn crept in unseen, to find me still awake” (the first words of the LP are, of course, “Sunshine came softly through my window today”...). “Would anybody like to try the changes I'm going through?” and “A hidden lie would fortify something that don't exist.” So in the end, it is left unsaid; no answer, no “meanings” or “messages,” no deception -- and no fortification. We hate to go it alone. Or almost alone: “a strange young girl” sings her songs for him, as he has for us, and “I would have liked to try the changes that she's going through”....and we're back to “I've been looking for a good gal” and “It'll take time, I know it, but in a while, you're gonna be mine and I know it....”

submitted by Randy Reeves