Maybe Donovan was right, that happiness runs in a circular motion.
  Last night he was alone on stage, on a stool, with his harmonica in a sling and an acoustic guitar in his lap.
  And he was singing “Caterpillar sheds his skin, To find a butterfly within...”
  And he was singing “E-lec-trical banana, 'Sgonna be a sudden craze...”
  And he was singing “Everything is a part of everything anyway, You can have everything if you let yourself be” while the ladies went Happiness runs happy ness runs, and the fellows sang La Lalala Lalala Lalalalala.
  Lalena was somewhat slower and more contemplative in his first of two Danforth Music Hall shows than in '68 on the In Concert album. The atypical Season Of The Witch was downright funky, more like Shawn Phillips would have demoed it. But the biggest significant difference was the pace-improving presence of a guitar tuner.
  Everything else was timeless. The boyish smiles. The Scottish inflections. The soft vocal pulse and the unhurried strum. Catch The Wind and Jennifer Juniper and Hurdy Gurdy Man and Lalena and even Atlantis.
  He did bring us as far forward as the moonwalk for Intergalactic Laxative, but he never betrayed our distance from the past — not even by trying to put it in perspective — and so there was no distance.
  Nor sign of trouble. Nor promise of tomorrow.
  Like a character in The NeverEnding Story, Donovan continues to exist because we believe in him.
  And last night Donovan was exactly what we believe him to be.

the caption on the picture says: LAST night's two Danforth Music Hall shows by Donovan, inset, were little different from those in the folk singer's earlier days, above.

the rest of the article reviews the performance of Molly Johnson, who opened for Donovan

HE WOULD SIT, this young caftan-clad folksinger, cross-legged on a stage filled with flowers and sing about things like love and peace. He would explain why they called him “Mellow Yellow.” He was the quintessential '60s flower child.

  But even flower children have to grow up. And song guru Donovan, who will be at West Islip's Key Largo club tonight and at Carnegie Hall tomorrow evening, is no exception. In fact, he insists, “I feel very much a part of the '80s.”

  His kids probably help him out there. The now 38-year-old Glasgow-born pop oracle, who once had 15-year-old, love-beaded girls scream for him, has two “lovely” daughters of his own—Astrella, 13, and Oriole, 12. There's also a 21-year-old stepson, Julian (son of the late Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones), who came along in a package deal when Donovan married Lynda Lawrence, 14 years ago.

  Pretty grown-up for the self-described “baby of the '60s.”
  But some things never change. First, there are the flowers—“I don't strew the stage with them anymore,” but there are always a few buds around for old times' sake. And then, there are the politics.

  Though the war in Vietnam has ended, there is still plenty of peace work to be done for such causes as No-Nukes and Amnesty International. “I do as much as I can,” he explains.

  Donovan, who says he “retreated in the '70s,” hasn't performed on these shores in seven years—spending most of that time working in Europe. These dates and an upcoming album he's planning, however, may change all that.

  “I'm preparing an album for the United States. I don't know which record company yet. I'm not on any record deals right now—the last ones have run out.”

  Now, we all know that new albums from old stars can, at times, prove to be embarrassing offerings—especially when an artist tries to be too vogue. But Donovan assures us he won't be going punk.

  “That music was always jarring to melodious writers like me,” he says. The new album, he insists, while employing “some synthesized sounds,” will encompass “early folk music through classic rock styles.” In short, it will be in keeping with “the dramatic, poetic style of Donovan.”

  And he's not all that worried about the public's response. Though Julian “is into Clash and obscure reggae” and “the girls like Boy George and, of course, Duran Duran,” the singer is happy to note that “melodies have crept back on the charts.”
  Donovan, no doubt, hopes to creep back with them.

... There are many references during the film to his being “folk”, the most notable of which occurs when CBS attempt to present him with an award for “The Best Folk Music Record” of 1964, Freewheelin'. “I don't even wanna see 'em,” barks Dylan. “Tell them to give it to Donovan.” ...

    This contrast is particularly apparent when Dylan meets Donovan who was being hailed, at the time, as “The British Dylan”. Donovan performs To Sing For You in Dylan's hotel room to a friendly but muted response from the assembled guests. Dylan then launches into a scorching version of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue – smirking pointedly at the couplet Yonder stands your orphan with his gun/Crying like a fire in the sun – leaving Donovan gobsmacked.
    Contrary to popular misconception, this scene wasn't the first time that the two had met. In fact, their initial meeting was the only time Dylan would not allow Pennebaker to film. As Pennebaker explains: “Donovan was gonna come over for dinner one night, for supper or something, and so we were waiting – Bob and I and Neuwirth. I said, I'll shoot it, but Bob said, No you can't shoot it.”
    At this point Dylan insisted that they wear Halloween masks, presumably in order to unnerve Donovan further.
    “So Donovan knocked on the door,” continues Pennebaker, “and there were the three of us sitting at the table. And he came in, you know – he was just a kid – and there were these three guys and he didn't know which one was Dylan. And he was laughing. And Dylan kinda broke up a little bit, 'cos he liked him.”

  It isn't generally known that Pennebaker shot three versions of the now familiar “promo” film of Subterranean Homesick Blues which prefaces Don't Look Back – “One in the park, one on a roof and one in the back alley right behind The Savoy Hotel. In the one in the park we got arrested in the middle so you can see that the heavy hand of the law comes in just about the time he's doing one of the last cards. Everyone did some and Donovan did a lot. He turned out to be the artist, so everybody gave him the hard ones to do.”

Source: Q magazine; Issue 24 - September 1988, p. 24-26

Donovan's rapid rise to fame – plucked from the folk club circuit to appear on TV's `Ready Steady Go!', rapidly signed to a record deal and reaching No. 4 with both of his first two singles – was chronicled in an earlier survey of the singer's career (RC 44). This month we concentrate on the period 1966-69, during which Donovan created his finest music, much of which has never been available in the U.K. or has been long deleted.
    Following the chart successes of “Catch The Wind”, “Colours” and his debut album, the autumn of 1965 saw Donovan experiencing something of a dip in his fortunes. Despite containing “Colours”, his follow-up album, “Fairytale”, rose no higher than No. 20. A non-LP track, “Turquoise”, stopped at No. 30 in the singles chart. Donovan was becoming hampered by the persistent comparisons to Bob Dylan, and the more reflective material on “Fairytale” possibly confused those fans who had been attracted by his `folkie' image.
    To regain the momentum of his first few months in the limelight, the singer decided on a radical overhaul of his sound. He had considerable help to this end from John Cameron, his highly inventive musical director, and producer Mickie Most. The new sound was ready for public consumption at the start of 1966, but legal action was to delay the process, particularly in the U.K., where his popularity never matched his massive Stateside following.
    Donovan's early months of fame had been guided by his agent Austin `Aussie' Newman and managers Geoff Stephens and Peter Eden. In October 1965, Donovan's solicitor announced that the artist had ended his management agreement with Stephens and Eden. Donovan had also switched agencies and in November it was reported that his imminent tour of the States, including a prestigious at Carnegie Hall for which he was to have been joined by Joan Baez, had been cancelled and that his new agency, the Vic Lewis Organization, would be arranging fresh dates. Donovan had elected his father as his personal manager and Ashley Kozak as his business manager.
    There were further developments that month when Stephens and Eden had a High Court writ served on Donovan's solicitors to prevent the artist from working with either his father or, more importantly, Vic Lewis. Meanwhile, Donovan's U.S. business manager, Allen Klein, revealed that the singer was negotiating to work with independent producer Mickie Most and that he might not remain with his current labels: Hickory in the States and Pye in the U.K.
    In December the readers of the `New Musical Express' voted Donovan No. 1 in the New Disc/TV Singer category, and the NME's points table placed the newcomer at No. 19 in their table of chart acts for 1965. Behind the scenes, Stephens and Eden had agreed to lift their injunction, provided that forty percent of Donovan's earnings were frozen pending outcome of the court case. Donovan's agents, past and present, were reported to be negotiating. Of the artists approached by the `New Musical Express' for their hopes for 1966, Donovan's reply was the most succinct: “1967”. As a committed `ban the bomb' protester, he may have been making some kind of political point, or merely striking some optimistic gesture, but it is tempting to think that the singer was looking forward to a time when he would be free of legal hassles!

    At the start of January 1966 a new single, “For John And Paul”, was announced. It had been produced by Mickie Most (presumably at the tail end of 1965), and was scheduled to appear on Pye on the 21st, whilst a switch to Columbia in the States seemed likely. The single was later retitled “Sunshine Superman” and its release date put back a week. By the third week of January, “Sunshine Superman” had been dropped from Pye's schedule.
    The withdrawal of the single was initially attributed to the fact that Mickie Most's productions were committed to EMI in the U.K. A highly successful producer, who had worked closely with the Animals and was now assisting Herman's Hermits in their invasion of the States, Most's roster of artists was split between MGM and Columbia in the U.S.A., whilst in the U.K. and several other territories he had a production deal with EMI.
    In February, while Donovan returned to the studio with Most, Pye issued a `new' single against the singer's wishes. “Josie” was taken off Donovan's first album, whilst a subsequent EP coupled three tracks from “Fairytale” with the flipside of “Turquoise”. In April Most flew to Los Angeles to record with Donovan, the latter returning to the U.K. with Allen Klein, who could add his weight to the negotiations. That month Pye plundered Donovan's 1965 albums for a further single release, the chart failure of these exploitations no doubt harming the singer's standing at home.
    By May “Sunshine Superman” was cleared for U.S. release on the Columbia subsidiary Epic. At the time of its appearance in July, an end to the U.K. deadlock was reported to be in sight, with Pye remaining the artist's label for his home market. His first album with Mickie Most was also now ready for release.
    “Sunshine Superman” charted in the U.S. in August. In the week of September 3rd it rose from No. 3 to No. 1 and it went gold the same month. This was a magnificent achievement for Donovan, who had previously tasted success in the States on a smaller scale when “Catch The Wind” peaked at No. 23 the previous summer, followed by a No. 30 hit album of the same name.
    The release of “Donovan's Greatest Hits” in 1969 was to reveal that “Sunshine Superman” had been whittled down from a lengthy four-and-a-half minutes to just over three for its single release. With its distinctive string bass intro, heavily strummed acoustic guitar, lead guitar – either whining along with the tune or taking Harrison-style breaks – and its reference to “blowing your mind”, it was an extraordinarily assured debut for the reborn singer. Whether “The Trip” was the original choice of B-side or dated from a later recording session is uncertain. Uptempo by Donovan's standards, it was a churning slice of R&B that was probably influenced by Dylan's new electric sound. Both Dylan and Joan Baez got namechecks in the lyrics.
    Had the single appeared, as originally planned, in January 1966, it might very well have gone down in history as the first psychedelic single to chart, and it rivals the Byrds' “Eight Miles High” as one of the earliest to have been recorded.
    Meanwhile, the U.K. release of the single was still being held up in August – the reason now being given was the negotiation of Donovan's back royalties. Later that month manager Ashley Kozak was optimistic about an early release for the single, as publishers Iver Records had now agreed to settle back royalties. In the States, Donovan's new LP was scheduled for September.
    The U.K. release of “Sunshine Superman” was then set for the end of September, but suffered further set-backs. A revised date of mid-October was announced, as Donovan was on holiday in Greece and his signature was needed for the new Pye contract. October came and went without the single appearing. A further revised date of November 14th was given, with the new LP to follow soon after, and an Albert Hall concert scheduled for January.
    The “Sunshine Superman” album charted in the States in October and peaked at No. 11. It was the quintessential Donovan album: tablas and sitars (or imitations of these instruments) leant an exotic air to several tracks, most notably the stoned “Fat Angel”. Donovan referred to Jefferson Airplane in the lyrics and the song became a concert favourite for the west coast band, who later recorded it for a live album. John Cameron's touch was evident on “Legend Of A Girl Child Linda”, a lengthy fairytale set to strings, harpsichord and woodwind, and “Bert's Blues”, a jazzy acknowledgement of Bert Jansch's influence, with an excellent arrangement which this time also featured upright bass. Highlights included the chilling “Season Of The Witch”, which had a sparser arrangement, a melancholic evocation of Camelot in “Guinevere” and the pretty finale, “Celeste”. Vocally, Donovan was in fine form throughout, stretching out vowel sounds to a most distinctive effect.

    November saw a single, comprising new material, enter the U.S. chart. Featuring another catchy intro, this time tapped out on drums, “Mellow Yellow” was a jazzy pop song, described by Donovan as “vaudeville, but with a new sound added.” Brass and percussion came to the fore in an instrumental break, during which you could hear Paul McCartney joining in the shouted exhortations. Its flipside, “Sunny South Kensington”, was out of the same mould as “The Trip”, and there were references to Mary Quant and Jean-Paul Belmondo in its description of swinging London. The single emulated the success of its predecessor, peaking this time at No. 2. Some concern was expressed over the lyrics to “Mellow Yellow”: they were interpreted as being in praise of the smoking of banana skins. The state of California actually went so far as to ban the sale of this evil fruit. Doubtless these concerned parties would have been relieved to learn that the true subject of the song was a vibrator.
    Back in Britain, Donovan was to have unveiled “Sunshine Superman” on `Ready Steady Go!', performing the song against a self-designed backdrop. However, the single was delayed again while details of the new Pye contract were ironed out. A projected release date of November 25th passed by and the single was eventually advertised in the music press as due out on December 2nd. Swiftly entering the chart, “Sunshine Superman” reached No. 2 at the close of the year, but Willie Bobo's Tijuana-style instrumental version fared less well!
    The release of “Sunshine Superman” came too late to influence the NME readers poll, and the crippling year-long legal wrangling meant that Donovan failed to show up amongst the Top 25 British male vocalists of the year. The singer dropped to No. 73 in the paper's points table for 1966 chart acts. However, an interview found him content with the success of the new single and enthusing over the “Sunshine Superman” album. “I suppose some critics will describe it as psychedelic”, he mused. “But it isn't – I mean, I'm not using any electrical phenomena, and it isn't meant to shock. It's just pop music with a pleasing atmosphere and a bit of taste.”
    By January 1967, with no sign of the “Sunshine Superman” LP in the U.K., Donovan was describing his follow-up album to interviewers, and explaining “We're still a little hung up on the `Sunshine' album here in Britain, but Allen Klein is sorting that out for me.” A track off the second album, “Young Girl Blues”, could be sampled on Julie Felix's new single, where it was retitled “Saturday Night” and featured some censoring of the lyrics. The Old Vic had approached Donovan to provide guitar adaptations of some of Shakespeare's sonnets for a production of “As You Like It” in March. Only one of these sonnets would surface on a Donovan album: “Under The Greenwood Tree” turned up a year later on “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden”.
    “Mellow Yellow” appeared in the U.K. singles chart in February, peaking at No. 8. It was coupled with a different song to its U.S. release: “Preachin' Love”, a swinging jazz number complete with saxophone solo. The same song backed Donovan's new U.S. single, “Epistle To Dippy”, which charted at the same time, reaching No. 19. This single, which was not as substantial as its two predecessors, featured trippy lyrics, and it was decided not to release it in the U.K., to avoid “any controversial drug-taking implications”. Instead “Tinker And The Crab”, one of several new songs performed at the Albert Hall in January, was predicted as the next single on both sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile another track from Donovan's upcoming U.S. album was previewed in the U.K. Marianne Faithfull had earlier covered Donovan's “Sunny Goodge Street” on her “North Country Maid” album. Her new LP, “Love In A Mist”, included three of his compositions. “Bert's Blues” was retitled “Good Guy”, “Young Girl Blues” emerged with title and lyrics unscathed, and the new song was “In The Night Time”, which would appear on Donovan's album as “Hampstead Incident”.
    As far as Donovan's own releases went, “Tinker And The Crab” – recorded at the end of March – never appeared as a single. However, the “Mellow Yellow” album charted that month in the States, reaching a highest position of No. 14.
    Sandwiched between “Mellow Yellow” and “Sunny South Kensington” were eight new tracks which came close to recapturing the magic of the “Sunshine Superman” album. A couple of the songs were rather slight, jazzy pieces, of which “The Observation” was graced with an attractive arrangement by John Cameron, who was also credited as playing blues piano and harpsichord on the album. John Paul Jones, the session musician who later turned up in Led Zeppelin, received a co-credit for the arrangement of the title track, so it is likely that he was one of the unbilled musicians featured on Donovan's work of this period.
    Elsewhere on the album, John Cameron's touch was in evidence on “Hampstead Incident” – where he came up with an arrangement that did justice to Donovan's own fine lyrics, the overall effect being similar but superior to “Bert's Blues” – and the languid “Writer In The Sun”. The latter and “Sand And Foam” showed Donovan's growing interest in natural phenomena, and he was to develop this pastoral interest on his next album. Both “Sand And Foam”, set among smugglers in Mexico, and “Young Girl Blues”, an effective description of a lonely bedsitter existence in a not-so-swinging London, were strong solo performances. (An arrangement of the former appeared on the “Warm And Gentle” LP by the John Cameron Quartet.) “Museum” was notable for a curious strings effect and was obviously considered to have commercial potential, as both Herman's Hermits and Beverley (Martyn) cut it for single release.
    By May 1967 it had been decided that highlights from Donovan's latest two U.S. LPs would be issued on one disc in the U.K. Released in June, this version of “Sunshine Superman” sported a new cover design and a strong twelve-track selection that clocked in at over forty-five minutes. Pye only released the album (now long deleted) in mono, although at least some of the material was recorded in true stereo. (The two U.S. LPs appear to have been released in both mono and fake stereo.) The absence of the most recent U.K. single from the set, and the length of time that had elapsed since the success of its title track, may explain why such a strong album only reached No. 25 in the chart, whilst an exploitation album of Donovan's earlier work was able to reach No. 5 later that year.
    As strong as the U.K. album is, there is enough good material on the two U.S. LPs to make them essential to collectors, and they were available in this country on import for many years. The songs omitted from the U.K. album were “Ferris Wheel”, “The Trip” and “Fat Angel” from the U.S. “Sunshine Superman”, and “Bleak City Woman”, “House Of Jansch”, “Museum”, “Sunny South Kensington” and the title track from “Mellow Yellow”. The most serious omission from the U.K. catalogue was “Fat Angel”, perhaps kept from the home market for the same reason as “Epistle To Dippy”.

    In August a new Donovan single entered the U.S. chart and reached No. 11. The calypso-style “There Is A Mountain” was further evidence of Donovan's interest in nature and marked a departure from the quasi-psychedelic sound of the three previous singles. “There Is A Mountain” was released in the U.K. in October and matched the chart position of “Mellow Yellow”. That month it was announced that Scott McKenzie's first album would include a version of “Celeste”, with the composer guesting on guitar.
    By this time Donovan was enjoying a huge following in the U.S.A. and much of his time was spent undertaking ever-larger tours of the States and other overseas territories. In November Mickie Most was reported to be recording Donovan's show at New York's Philharmonic Hall. In the event, it was a west coast performance at the Anaheim Convention Centre that was captured for posterity on the “Donovan In Concert” album, released some nine months later.
    “Don has great plans for a new type of album,” Most told the `New Musical Express' in November 1967, “which would once again feature uncomplicated songs for young people”. The project to which Most was referring was a double album that was reported as due out shortly.
    In December the NME readers poll placed Donovan at No. 4 amongst British male singers. At the same time, the film of “Poor Cow” appeared, with three Donovan compositions on the soundtrack: “Colours”, “Be Not Too Hard” and “Poor Love” (alias “Poor Cow”). In the States, meanwhile, a new single, “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”, made the charts, peaking at No. 23.

    “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” and its B-side, “Oh Gosh”, confirmed Donovan's drift towards lyrical simplicity, matched by a more straightforward musical accompaniment. This was largely successful on the A-side, but “Oh Gosh” veered towards the twee. This criticism could be levelled at much of the first disc of the double album, “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden”, which charted in the States in January 1968, reaching No. 19. Both discs were also available separately with their own titles.
    The first record (“Wear Your Love Like Heaven”) comprised ten short songs, including both sides of the new single and “Under The Greenwood Tree”. Nine of the numbers featured straightforward rock arrangements, with a jazz influence remaining on some titles. Musicians were credited for the first time, and John Cameron was conspicious by his absence. Highlights were the amusing teen drama of “Mad John's Escape”, the mellow “Skip-A-Long Sam”, the lively “There Was A Time”, and the organ-dominated “The Land Of Doesn't Have To Be”, which one reviewer intrepreted as an anti-drugs song. Indeed, in his liner notes (signed “Thy humble minstrel, Donovan”) the artist called on “every youth to stop the use of all Drugs and heed the Quest to seek the Sun”. The closing number, “Someone Singing”, had an attractive arrangment of horns, strings and harp, as well as one Jack Bruce on bass.
    In addition to the somewhat precious nature of the lyrics, another criticism that could be aimed at the record was the studio sound. With its wide stereo separation this was less attractive than earlier efforts. Mickie Most touched on this problem in an interview for `Beat Instrumental'. “Don's been so long in America that I have to fly over to finish recordings with him there”, Most told Pete Goodman. “We've done two albums and a new single `Wear Your Love Like Heaven' in the Armstead Studios in New York. They're pretty good studios and have these eight-track machines. And six different types of echo. But I'm not really a lover of eight-track – in fact, I make a lot of mono material. To be honest I'd rather record in Britain ... what I like is the atmosphere, and the skill of the technicians.”
    In his liner notes Donovan described the first disc of the double album as “music for my age group, an age group which is gently entering marriage.” The second disc (“For Little Ones”) can most accurately be described as being for children of all ages and is a delight from start to finish. With minimal accompaniment – flute, percussion and string bass – plus suitable sound effects, Donovan served up twelve charming songs in celebration of nature. “The Tinker And The Crab” (the single that never was) was one of several songs with a seashore setting. “Isle Of Islay” eulogised the Scottish island, while “Epistle To Derroll” was a lengthy nursery tale that served as a suitable closing number. “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden” was an elaborately packaged boxed set with a portfolio of illustrated lyrics for the second disc and a photo of the `Author' and the Maharishi on the reverse – all in all a pretty irrestible artefact of the Flower Power era.
    The album did not appear in the U.K. until March 1968, being preceded by a new a single, the pretty love song “Jennifer Juniper”, which bettered its two predecessors by reaching No. 5. Its non-LP B-side was “Poor Cow”, a folk-influenced number with an arrangement for strings. “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden” reached No. 13 in the U.K. album chart and might have fared better had a single been lifted off it for promotion, as in the States.
    May 1968 saw the U.K. release of the “Hurdy Gurdy Man” single. One of Donovan's finest achievements, it found the singer's vibrato vocals at their most effective. The musical backing marked a move towards a heavier sound which, perhaps unintentionally, recalled the psychedelic sound of the “Sunshine Superman” album. The song had originally been intended for a Danish group, but they had been unable to agree with Donovan about its production, so he had kept it for himself. A verse composed by George Harrison was edited from the recorded version of the song, but has been included in Donovan's recent concert performances of the song. Donovan's singing was equally strong on the non-album B-side, “Teen Angel”, a sad love song with sparse accompaniment. The single gave Donovan his biggest U.K. hit since “Sunshine Superman”, reaching No. 4. “Hurdy Gurdy Man” was revived by Steve Hillage eight years later.
    With hindsight, this period can be seen as the zenith of Donovan's career. The decline in his fortunes thereafter was most obvious in the U.K., where neither of his next two albums made the chart. The first blow was his split from manager Ashley Kozak, announced in the music press in May. No reasons were given for this parting. Donovan talked in more general terms about the guidance of his career to “Goldmine” in 1986. “You go into the whole thing with this wide-eyed, idealistic outlook,“ he recalled, “thinking you're in control of yourself and your music when, in reality, you're in control of neither. Someone else is, and when you find it out, it's a shock. You're being manipulated and ripped off and about the only thing you can do is to disappear for a while.”
    However, Donovan was not going to disappear just yet. In fact, his U.S. following was still growing. In June “Hurdy Gurdy Man” charted over there and reached No. 5, his highest position for some eighteen months.

    “Donovan In Concert” entered the U.S. chart in August, peaking at No. 18. The album found Donovan in a typically relaxed mood, performing solo or accompanied by percussionists John and Tony Carr and flautist Harold McNair. Two numbers otherwise only available as B-sides – “Poor Cow” and “Preachin' Love” – were included on the disc, along with the only vinyl appearance of the knockabout “Rules And Regulations”. “Pebble And The Man” was later recorded in an inferior studio version as “Happiness Runs”. The set featured three numbers from the “For Little Ones” half of the boxed set, plus a fine selection of older material.
    A new U.S. single, “Lalena”, charted in October. Weaker than its immediate predecessors, it only managed No. 33. With a simple flute and rhythm section accompaniment, “Aye My Love” is the last, and slightest, of Donovan's non-album B-sides from this period. However, its non-appearance in the U.K. also makes it the most elusive of tracks for collectors.
    The following month saw a new album, “Hurdy Gurdy Man”, enter the Billboard chart, where it was to reach No. 20. With its sides commencing with “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Jennifer Juniper” respectively, the album was Donovan's least coherent effort to date. Ranging from rinky-tink jazz, to calypso and whimsical vignettes, much of the material was pleasant but unexceptional. The heavier approach of the title track was evident on “Get Thy Bearings”, its sax, string bass and drum accompaniment giving it a stoned jazz atmosphere. Donovan's droned vocals on “The River Song” and “Peregrine” created a psychedelic effect furthered by the instrumental backing, which on the latter blended Celtic and Eastern influences. “Hi It's Been A Long Time“ was a fine, jaded love song, with an attractive piano intro and a woodwind, string and “Penny Lane”-style trumpet arrangement.

    In a November 1968 interview Mickie Most was sounding pleased about his artist. “I think he's ahead of the Beatles”, he told the `New Musical Express'. “We were doing flower power and love in '65. His constructions are better than the Beatles. He does a thing on an LP and later they do it.” Donovan retained his standing in the end of year NME readers poll, but his most recent offerings had met with less enthusiasm. “Donovan In Concert” (which marked the first U.K. appearance of “Fat Angel”) failed to chart on release in September. Neither “Lalena” nor the “Hurdy Gurdy Man” album had been issued in the U.K. and a new single in September, “Atlantis”, gave Donovan his lowest chart placing since “Turquoise”, peaking at No. 23.
    “Atlantis” clocked in at five minutes and included a lengthy spoken introduction which heightened the effect of the band's eventual appearance. At this point the song turns into a “Hey Jude”-style chant and, in fact, Paul McCartney contributed backing vocals to the song. In the States “Atlantis” was coupled with a different number: with female vocal accompaniment, “To Susan On The West Coast Waiting” was an understated commentary on the Vietnam conflict. Its topicality ensured that this was the original A-side of the U.S. release, which charted in March 1969. Having reached No. 35, Epic wisely flipped the disc and enjoyed a No. 7 hit with “Atlantis” in April.
    Donovan was still attracting cover versions as well as contributing new songs to other artists. At the Miami festival in January 1969, Mickie Most's new protege Terry Reid performed “Season Of The Witch” (already recorded by both Al Kooper and the Brian Auger Trinity with Julie Driscoll) and, in February, Mary Hopkin's album “Post Card” featured three Donovan compositions: “Lord Of The Reedy River”, “Happiness Runs” and “Voyage Of The Moon”. The following month Donovan was reported to have given the Monkees a song entitled “Valentine's Angel”, but the group did not record it.
    March saw the release of “Donovan's Greatest Hits” in a gatefold sleeve which housed several pages of illustrations. The album reached No. 4 in the States, but failed to register in the U.K., despite containing material that was either completely new to fans at home or else had not previously appeared on album. “Epistle To Dippy” and “Lalena” had only been issued in the States as singles. “There Is A Mountain”, “Jennifer Juniper”, “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Mellow Yellow” were making their first appearance on LP in the U.K. (live versions aside). The last-named was the only track on the new compilation not in true stereo. As a further bonus, “Sunshine Superman” appeared in its unedited four-and-a-half-minute version and Donovan and Most had recorded new versions of the artist's first two hits, “Catch The Wind” and “Colours”, that differed radically from the originals.
    Having fallen out with his manager, Donovan's relationship with his producer was now on the slide. “I had an argument with him over in Los Angeles about how a session should be controlled,” Most recalled for the radio series `The Record Producers', “and I felt that a lot of hangers-on shouldn't be there, apart from a lot of goings-on that I didn't like anyway. I said that I was paying for the sessions, he could either do it my way, or ... and he said he wanted to do the record with someone else, so that was goodbye.”
    If the LA session to which Most was referring was the November '68 one, then the working relationship was patched up at least briefly for a session in the spring of 1969 that teamed Donovan with another of Most's acts, the Jeff Beck Group. One track from this session, “The Stromberg Twins” (apparently about a carburettor, and therefore of interest to motor-mad Beck), was not released, but two others formed a new single that was released in the U.K. in June. “Barabajagal (Love Is Hot)” featured an electric guitar intro, before acoustic guitar, piano and percussion built up into a wall of sound that was easily Donovan's heaviest offering to date. The song included a short, frenzied spoken passage and female backing singers. Its flipside, “Trudi”, was a good-time hoedown that was titled “Bed With Me” on early U.K. copies of the single. For a change, the single was more popular in the U.K. than the States, peaking at No. 12 and 36 respectively.

    In August Donovan was poised for one of the largest U.S. tours to have been organised for a popular musician. Back home, Donovan Enterprises Ltd., run by the singer's father, set up office above the premises of his publicists, Nemperor. However, his U.K. record company seemed to be less on the ball and were promoting “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden” as Donovan's “current album”, despite its two successors.
    In September Donovan was reported to have given a compositon, “The Love Song” to labelmates the Foundations. The following month saw his version of the song included on a new album making its entry in the U.S. chart. Like the “Hurdy Gurdy Man” LP, “Barabajagal” was a mixed bag. Both albums sounded as though they were the products of several recording sessions at different dates and venues, and the sleeve notes to the latest offering confirmed this.
    The earliest two tracks on “Barabajagal” dated from May of the previous year. “Happiness Runs” was sung as a canon with the assistance of several other voices; “Where Is She” was much more appealing, being a mellow love song recorded with some of Donovan's regular British backing musicians. “Atlantis” and “To Susan On The West Coast Waiting” were joined by three other songs from the same LA session, none of which approached them in quality, with “I Love My Shirt” showing Donovan at his most inane. Both sides of the most recent single were included, with the title track appearing in a less powerful stereo mix with a shorter fade. Although not credited to the Donovan/Beck collaboration, “Superlungs My Supergirl” shared the heavy sound of those tracks, with electric guitar featured prominently along with a horn section. Its lyrics were ambiguous to say the least. The track also appeared on Terry Reid's new album and the promising singer/guitarist was billed as `Superlungs' in advertisements for it.
    As a new, more realistic, decade dawned, so Donovan's audience slipped away rapidly. “Open Road” (1970), fared well on both sides of the Atlantic but yielded no hit singles. Its follow-up, “HMS Donovan” (featuring one track, “Homesickness”, produced by Mickie Most and presumably left over from an earlier session), failed to chart.
    Donovan was suffering the consequences of his early and speedy rise to fame. Not only did he have financial problems to sort out (forcing him into tax exile), but he also had to come to terms with the personal effects of sudden stardom, not to mention his fall from grace in the Seventies. To weather that hostile decade, Donovan retreated with his family to remote Joshua Tree in the Californian desert.
    The singer's period of superstardom had effectively ended with the Sixties. Essentially Donovan was a man out of time in the new decade and he would have done well to have heeded the advice of friends who recommended an extended lay-off from the music scene. Instead Donovan tried to maintain his recording career, releasing roughly one album per year until 1977.
    A 1973 reunion with Mickie Most for “Cosmic Wheels” gave Donovan his last commercial success. “Donovan” in 1977 saw him working again with both Most and John Cameron, but this merely reflected the singer's failure to establish a fresh new musical partnership in the Seventies.
    Aided by his wife, Linda, Donovan has weathered the Sixties fall-out better than many of his contemporaries both in physical and mental terms but, twenty years after the `humble minstrel' captivated thousands around the world with his simple songs, it seems unlikely that he will ever thrill us with new material as strong as “Sunshine Superman”, “Season Of The Witch” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man”.

Source: Record Collector magazine; Issue 113 - January 1989, p. 39-44

Celebrated '60s folk pixie Donovan was not Britain's answer to Bob Dylan. For starters, Bob Dylan isn't actually a question and besides, between 1965 and 1968, Donovan evolved his own distinctive style. Admittedly, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan influences flavoured his 1965 acoustic hits, Colours and Catch The Wind, which appear here in 1969 re-recordings. By this time his delicate vocals no longer manned the barricades of such protest songs as Universal Soldier. Jazz had also influenced him from the beginning and, when he embraced psychedelia with such songs as Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, he fashioned a whimsical, melody pop groove quite unlike Bob Dylan's efforts in that area. This 20-track selection mostly stands up well two decades later but, be warned, the 1969 re-recording of Catch The Wind is seriously overblown. * * *

Donovan's image as a slightly out to lunch flower child was not only unfair but also meant his songwriting talents were never taken very seriously. In fact those early hits like Catch The Wind and Colours were actually quite good, while his later singles often managed to be adventurous and melodic at the same time. Despite its surface sentimentality, Jennifer Juniper with its Beatleish middle eight (an influence probably of the Indian Maharishi trip) was one of the tenderest love songs of the '60s. Mellow Yellow and There Is A Mountain easily stand the test of time while the highly inventive Hurdy Man with its echoey strumming, mystical lyrics and strange sound effects seems to have improved. Catch a record as weird as that getting in the Top 5 these days. All the hits are included except Atlantis and - unfortunately - Sunshine Superman plus more memorable album tracks: Hey Gyp, Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do, Universal Soldier and Sunny Goodge Street, marking a subtler, jazzy style which Donovan (or possible his manager) decided not to pursue. * * * *

Now here's a funny thing. Having spent years in the wilderness as one of the great unmentionables, Donovan Leitch, that purest embodiment of the whole first-time-round, trippy, hippy shebang is suddenly back in vogue and in demand. No longer, it seems, will even the gentlest whisper of his name result in instant banishment to the far-flung reaches of society. And all it's taken is some name-checking and a hefty thumbs-up from those party mad Mancunian wags Happy Mondays, themselves no strangers to the odd chemical infusion to stimulate the creative juices.

Rising, although freshly released, turns out to be a pleasurable, if hardly definitive stroll through the perennial pixie's back catalogue via a series of live performances captured somewhere between 1982-1986; precise dates and locations are a little murky. While keeping mostly his own company, he's joined on occasions by bassist Danny Thompson, Paul Horn on flute and reeds as well as Peter Mark's viola. Yet seeing how the likes of Jennifer Juniper, Wear Your Love Like Heaven and To Susan On The West Coast Waiting, pretty tunes all, are constructed on the flimsiest of frames in the first place, the takes here suffer little when set against the originals. There's maybe a toning down of that outrageously savoury, heavy whispering brogue of his, but time, if anything, has bestowed upon it an extra warmth.

As one whose career adapted more quickly than most to the fast changing fads of the '60s, no compass is needed to chart the shift from denim-clad, Dylan-drenched folkie Catch The Wind, Colours, Universal Soldier), through his flower child turn (Lalena, Sunshine Superman), on to the contemplative period at the feet of the Maharishi with four Beatles, one Beach Boy and Mia Farrow as he drolly puts it during a yarn-spinning interlude on Hurdy Gurdy Man, before disappearing into the purple ether on his Cosmic Wheels.

At his worst he took on the most whimsical, superficial tokens of the era. At his best - say, Young Girl Blues, even when shorn of two of its three verses - he achieves a grip on both tenderness and cruelty with an ease that suggests he often sold his talent short, getting too readily sidetracked by the times.

Those who found the elfin-featured minstrel hard to swallow first time out are no more likely to be swayed now, especially when confronted with the built-in wince of Make Your Mind Up. Old hands and newcomers, though, might be charmed by the innocence of it all. Liking Donovan, always called for a certain blissed out suspension of reality and on the evidence of what's here he can still cast the old spell. So, bring forth the wacky baccy and be prepared to hold hands with a total stranger. * * *

Yet another Donovan compilation, reprocessing a disparate bunch of old songs with no obvious purpose other than to cash in quickly on what might have been something of a Donovan revival had the one-time tousle-haired troubadour decided to come back as a singer instead of a clown. For the umpteenth time, then, we get Catch The Wind, Colours, Sunshine Superman and Hurdy Gurdy Man; Turquoise, his second single and never a favourite with Donovan collection compilers, is here too, though, as are four songs which never got released in the UK, though they were included on an American album in 1968. Donovan seemed to give up trying with his new songs in the mid-'70s, and has since contented himself with trundling his back catalogue infrequently around. But then came the Mondays, and Trev 'n' Simon, and the rest - and all of this 22-track collection - is history. * * *

Yet another '60s Donovan compilation to cash in on his recent reflation at the hands of kiddie show hosts and Happy Mancunians. For once, Trip (admittedly titled to pinpoint its prospective audience) passes over familiars like Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow to delve instead into the albums of the same name - the latter two were US-only rehashes of UK tracks - plus 10 from 1968's A Gift From A Flower To A Garden which at least provide a broader portrait of the legacy. Like Shaun Ryder said, half of Donovan's lyrics were double-stupid; certainly, he predated Marc Bolan's love of onomatopoeia and pixie folklore, but Donovan could also take his piping melodies and pastel organ/guitar colours beyond the precious and whimsical. There are odd, touching blues, vaudevillian motifs and jaunty popsicles like Sand And Foam but best of all are tracks like Sunny South Kensington, Three Kingfishers, Isle Of Islay and House Of Jansch, where emergent psychedelic flowerings are strewn with delicate folky melodies and matching string/woodwind arrangements that wouldn't have disgraced Nick Drake. Hard to believe, but then all previous re-issues would have us think otherwise. * * *

As with the Loch Ness monster or fairies at the bottom of the garden, you either believed in Donovan or you didn't. By 1968, the year of A Gift From A Flower To A Garden, the speckle-tongued Scot had risen inexorably to become the world's head hippy, hobnobbing with The Beatles and The Maharishi and dispensing his ingenuous mantra of universal brotherhood against a backdrop of Vietnam and global riots. Walking the thin line between childish and child-like, the original double boxed set brought new meaning to the word whimsical but, as a marker for that era, probably shouldn't be placed far behind Sergeant Pepper. Despite the obvious dearth of hit singles, it's graced by some genuinely pretty little tunes like Skip-A-Long Sam and Wear Your Love Like Heaven, while the relaxed, jazzy pacing to the first part in particular has weathered the years better than might be expected. In fact, taken with a large pinch of salt it remains an oddly palatable hymn to hope and innocence.* * *

Source: Q magazine; Issue 86 - November 1993, p. 144

review of the album One Night in Time by Janet Butler

At The Philadelphia Be-In Festival in 1988 I talked with Donovan about his then upcoming album One Night In Time. The album produced by Bob Rose and mixed by Paul Lane, was released in 1993 on cassette in Japan.

This electric collection of ten unreleased recordings blends some of Donovan's various styles from the 60's through to the 90's. Donovan took his time recording the album because "Record companies want a certain style. They don't usually want mixes," he said. "I've got two easy and strong moody rockers recorded, One Night In Time and You've Got Me Reeling.

Some record companies say " give us another eight of those" but I might put two acoustic ballads, a medium tempo rocker and a jazz thing all on the same album."

An array of multi-talented artists helped out on the album, including Jim Keltner on drums; Steve Jones (formally with the Sex Pistols) on guitar; Maire Brennan of Clannad is joined by Donovan's daughter, Astrella Celeste, on back-up vocals and harmonies. This collection of songs does indeed include acoustic ballads, rockers and a Jazz number.

The title song One Night In Time is a mystical tribute to one moment of realization in a love relationship. On Dear Heart Matthew Seligman plays bass, Robbie Blunt (from Robert Plant's band) plays slide guitar and Maire Brennen contributes a beautiful gentle soprano accompaniment to Donovan's deep vibrato.

You Got Me Reeling is an easy and strong, moody rocker that accentuates Steve Jones Beatle-like rhythm guitar and Lawrence Jubor's searing lead guitar. These authentic rock licks harmonize perfectly with Donovan's folk style harp and acoustic guitar.

Donovan's exceptional interpretation of J J Cale's jazz song, The Sensitive Kind, is a delightful surprise, sure to make you smile. Donovan's warm, sensual lyrical style is backed by his own excellent classical guitar.

Runaway has a fairy tale and mythical quality which hints at being autobiographical.

When All The World Is Young is a re-make of a song Donovan wrote in the early 60's (the Sacred Dance) which illustrates his poetic use of dreamy descriptive nature images, with Celtic melodies played on Irish Harp, Mandolin, recorder/whistle and barong drum. By constrast an intence rocker, You Do Belong (Teenage Suicide), encourages youth never to give up on life, despite the destructive circumstances that surround them, such as the current job shortage and the recession.

Two more love song What's A Girl and Forever Your Love balance the mix of easy rockers and acoustic ballads.

The album concludes with the philosophical Celti-sounding ballad, There Are No Roads, a song about friendship and love. When I asked Donovan what he meant when he said he was an interpreter of a generation, he said "Musicians and artists tend to express trends. Often they lead the trends, not in the sense that they invent them, but rather artists tend to be part of a small group that are following a way of thinking, a way of painting or singing. Or, they may be leaving a way and looking for something new. Bohemia is what they used to call it. Of the 15 or 16 artists from England, I represent the poet, the thinker, the introspective look, the meditation."

One Night In Time was worth the wait for this reviewer, and is truly worth you listening. Donovan's love, wisdom and harmony come through quite clearly on this album.

review of the album A Gift from a Flower to a Garden by Jo Dumbrill

In an earlier issue we re-printed what one of the national music press had to say about A Gift From A Flower To A Garden and we devoted the entire magazine to it, reproducing the original artworks, lyrics and general layout. Now, as you have seen by the poll results, it is once again Donovan's most popular and best loved album. The album means so much to each of you — and it probably means something different to each of you as well. It is on this basis that Pat asked me to review the album now that it has been released on CD and share with you the reasons why it affected me so much, and still does.
I can remember rushing home that fateful day in 1968 clutching the beautifully packaged box set containing the double discs of Donovan's new collection of songs. I was living at the time in the east end of London, not the easiest domain for a flowering love child surrounded by the beginnings of the skinhead movement, and had bought the album from WHSmith & Sons — the only decent record shop in the area. I had already heard several songs being played on pirate radio as the album had been released in America some months previously but couldn't wait to lock myself in my bedroom and lose myself in the embroidered web of Donovan's illusions.
And that illusion has stayed throughout the years. It is not Donovan's best album, we could argue about that of course, but it is the one that brings back the fondest memories for me and will always have a special place in my heart.
The front of the box displayed the first of several photographs by Karl Ferris and, with illustrations by Mick Taylor and Sheena McCall spread throughout and the overall Art Direction by Sid Maurer it was an extremely impressive piece of merchandising and I'm glad to see it has transferred to CD perfectly - but why is it in Mono! Several tracks are available on compilation CD's and they are in stereo. Way back in 1968 mono was still the preferred format, not many people owned the equipment for stereo reproduction (or was it called Hi-Fi in those distant days?) and so I would guess many of you out there who have the original probably only have it in mono. This was a missed opportunity for BGO Records. For not only would most of us been able to replace our worn out vinyls for state of the art CD quality, we could have finally got the entire album in stereo for the very first time! Perhaps someone will realise the mistake and it will eventually come out in stereo, I sincerely hope so.
The first album, which the CD refers to as the Electric Album, consists of ten songs several of which were getting a lot of air play on the various pirate radios that rode the waves, musical as well as marine, at that time especially Oh Gosh and Skip-along Sam. All the songs except Under The Greenwood Tree were composed by Donovan and flow freely between the beautiful visions of songs like Little Boy In Corduroy and The Land Of Doesn't Have To Be to the sincerety of Sun and Wear Your Love Like Heaven to the natural humour of Mad John's Escape (isn't it reassuring to know that our superstars eat double egg chips and beans). The side concludes with Someone Singing, a song that Donovan was to revise sixteen years later as a duet with his daughter Astrella re-titled Love Is Only Feeling.
The acoustic album proved conclusively the direction Donovan's music was taking. There had been hints on previous albums but this one showed just how influential mother nature had been on him and on his songs. As he states on the CD he was living in the cottage surrounded by woods filled with the sounds of the animal kingdom, especially birds, and they were there accompanying him as he sang and wrote every song. The sound of the sea reflected another early force that added to his musical make-up and this also flows (forgive the pun) magically thoughout the album. And so each important influence is here, the sights and sounds of mother nature, the smell of the sea and the beach, the colours of life and joys that trip so gaily entwining themselves with his words, his distinctive voice and beautifully simplistic guitar style. The whole album is a celebration and I could never pick out any favourites, especially on the second album, I love them all and over a quarter of a century later still thank Donovan for sharing them with me.

By the early 1970s, Donovan had moved away from the folk psychedelia of Sunshine Superman and, on Essence To Essence and Cosmic Wheels, was moving into the role of rock balladeer. 1973's Cosmic Wheels contains both the best and worst of that transformation. On the glam-spaceyness of the title track and the funky blues of Earth Sign Man, Donovan remains convincing, but on The Intergalactic Laxative, he is lyrically embarrassing. Over and above this, the greatest change is the loss of producer Mickie Most. A producer who instinctively knew when to keep a Donovan performance simple - check out Sand And Foam on the Mickie Most-produced Sunshine Superman album - he would never have surrendered to the pointless orchestrations that overtake the early stark simplicity on Cosmic Wheels finale, Appearances. * *

John says: "Excellent review, eh? Didn't Most produce Cosmic Wheels though? And wasn't Sand And Foam on Mellow Yellow? Hmmmm."

"One quarter genius, three quarters nincompoop."

HOW WAS IT THAT OUR `CELTIC' hippy friend put it to Queen magazine in 1967? Oh, yes: “Pop is the perfect religious vehicle. It's as if God had come down to earth and seen all the ugliness that was being created and chosen pop to be the great force for love and beauty.” He was always a bit like that, Donovan, tousle-topped troubadour, flitting through the mystic, wallowing in the whimsy. Mad as a hatter with a pixie nose. How wrong they all were to call him a “Dylan imitator” just because he turned up on Ready Steady Go with a cap and one of those mouth organ holders. And an acoustic guitar emblazoned with the legend This Machine Kills (after Woody Guthrie's This Machine Kills Fascists). Donovan Leitch's guitar never killed anybody. How could it? He was here to bring flowers and “grapes made of rubies” (from Legend Of A Girl Child Linda) and that sort of sweetness to a world. Gentle is the word. The music? When he was good he was very, very good – and when he was bad he was awful.
    The four LPs collected here are the ones the wee fellow did with producer Mickie Most, never before released in their entirety in the UK (for boring technical/contractual reasons). Without Most, Donovan would, more than likely, have whizzled into obscurity (which, of course, he did eventually, making babies in the west American desert – by choice, the clot!). He'd have turned up on a yearly basis at the Cambridge Folk Festival like his heroes Bert Jansch and John Renbourn to do Catch The Wind and Colours and that vaguely pre-`gay' thing about the gypsy boy. He would, probably, have grown a beard. But Most, he of the pop sensibility, came down to earth just like God and snatched the rapscallion from such a fate, made a pop star of sorts out of the lad. Within moments, the weeds of America were adoring this fey pop entity; he was the prince of the bed-sits (if bed-sits exist over there).
    When John Lennon made his infamous remark about The Beatles being more famous than Jesus, middle America was outraged, but “Don” could get away with similar because he was...well, let's face it, so obviously harmless. Until he gave up on the pop stuff, decided it wasn't God's way at all and took to turning up at every pop festival of the early 1970s, being extremely boring for a very long time with silly boots and an acoustic guitar that no longer had the `meaningful' legend on it, but some wonky quarter moons and stars instead. Geroff! That's what we all said as we waited, impatiently, for Steppenwolf or somebody good to take the stage. Donovan Leitch never took a blind bit of notice. He was always in his own `head space', so to speak.
    What should we think of him now? Are these records – certainly the least self-indulgent he ever made, but that's not saying very much (do you recall A Gift From A Flower To A Garden?) – any cop? Is it all right for a music reviewer to confess: I just don't know? He's such a tricky customer, Donovan; his approach to music best summed up, probably, by his song Atlantis. This comes in two halves: the first is a monologue performed in his affected Celtic slur of sensitivity about the lost continent of fable and has him going on about antediluvian kings colonising the world and that sort of tosh, but then – bong! – the whole thing changes and we find ourselves plunged into a crackers and brilliant repetitive chorus that leaves Hey Jude for dead. From twee to trembly in one easy move.
    That brief period, when Donovan was possessed of an engaging musical schizophrenia, didn't last very long, did it? Only on these four albums is there anything that could prevent one from thinking “old goat”. After the last, and the best, Barabajagal, it was all downhill as '60s pop died and the deserts and the babies (most of which are famous now except for the one that was Brian Jones's – oh, yes, Don's love life was “complicated”, in the spirit of the times) and the tommy-nonsense beckoned.
    But let us examine the Donovan/Most heritage. There are the singles – all excellent. Mellow Yellow, the one that prompted an outbreak of banana-skin smoking across the Western world, although it was about dildoes. Sunshine Superman, hazy and drony and rather thrilling. Barabajagal, a burst of super pop guitar from Jeff Beck and Donovan's in performing tongue-twisters. And Hurdy Gurdy Man which is just stuttering brilliance. There are other fine items: Season Of The Witch, the best two chord song outside Neil Young ever; Superlungs My Supergirl, a bit vulgar but none the worse for that. But then so much of the rest is made up of quaint quirkings that lean on Temperance Seven-type jazz and twittery `Eastern' noodlings (`raga rock' never sounded so phoney), that these LPs are impossible to enjoy in their entirety. I Love My Shirt. What is that? Juvenilia. The Sun Is A Very Magic Fellow? Er, stupid. Drugs, evidently, did different things to different people back then. Why was Donovan often singing about “little pebbles” and sounding like a manager of Crabtree & Evelyn when he was also capable of something like The Trip which was properly and bracingly weird?
    What a silly fellow. One quarter genius, three quarters nincompoop. But you wouldn't have it any other way, would you? Inimitable...

There is a large picture of Donovan and it has the caption: `"A great force for truth and beauty" or purveyor of tommy-nonsense? The Donovan debate rages.'

Source: MOJO magazine; Issue 14 - January 1995, p. 100-101

The much-maligned Donovan is caught post-acoustic (Catch The Wind, etc) on this four CD collection, neatly boxed, individually pouched in original sleeves, and with accompanying fold-out sleevenotes. The albums themselves span 1966 to '68 and run chronologically through Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Barabajagal, none of which were released in these incarnations in the UK. Included is much hippy pondering, folky meandering and general crustiness. However, amid this Eastern-influenced Celticness shimmer classic songs and some eccentric but essential muses. The oft-eerie grooviness is supplemented by superb homages to Bert Jansch, journeys into ethnic instrumentation, psychedelic wig-outs and jazz fusions gone awry. Classics roll by; Season Of The Witch, The Trip, Museum, Hampstead Incident, Jennifer Juniper, Superlungs My Supergirl, Atlantis and so on. Blissful and highly under-rated. * * * *

In the sixties he was famous for his fisherman's cap and psychedelic waistcoats, but for his twenty fifth wedding anniversary, folk singer Donovan chose to return to the elegance of the twenties. The man who once epitomised the dreams of youth with songs like "Mellow Yellow" and "Jennifer Juniper" is now a forty nine year old grandfather whose chose to dance the night away in white tie and tails to the strains of a traditional jazz band. It was a private party for family and close friends of Donovan Leitch and his wife Linda at The Oakley Court Hotel near Maidenhead - once the setting for the Hammer House of Horror and St Trinians movies.

Their daughters Astrella, twenty three and Oriole twenty two, and Oriole's two children Sabastian - 3 and Sion - 18 months were at the celebrations along with Linda's song Julian, by the late Rolling Stone, Brian Jones, and Donovan and Linda's immediate families. Yet at the end of the sixties, Donovan would never have dreamed that this celebration would take place. He had a whirlwind romance with Linda in 1965 but they split up for four years. It was only a chance encounter that brought them together again.

Sitting by the River Thames, in the August sunshine, the musician tells the story with wonder in his voice. "Linda and I met in March 1965 on a "Ready Steady Go!" show. We had a wild nine month af fair and I asked her to marry me, which was unheard of in the sixties, when you were just nineteen", he recalls. "But she was still getting over a relationship with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and I didn't really understand her feelings. She also saw that what I wanted would not fit into her life right then. Her wisdom prevailed, but not without pain and suffering to both of us. We split up in December and I immediately wrote "Sunshine Superman" which entered the American charts by spring 1966. I am sure that if we had married in 1965, the celebrity status which then came to me would have wrecked our relationship".

Four years past when my fame increased to mega status. But on every album I wrote a song about Linda. During this time she was living in California with her son Julian Jones, and although she dated then, she refused any offers of marriage".

While Donovan was touring the world, Linda was listening to his hit songs on the radio and going to his concerts. "The whole "Sunshine Superman" album is about our relationship", she says. "And when I heard the songs I wondered what was going on. He even wrote a song called "The Girlchild Linda". I know he loved me but he had other girlfriends, although in the album he predicted that we would find each other again." But as Donovan travelled around there were no plans for Linda in his life. "I decided to become a tax exile. I bought a yacht because of a boyhood dream of sailing around the world, then I went on a world tour. It was while I was in Japan, that my girlfriend of the time pointed out that I was living a nightmare of hotels and concert halls. I realised she was right and decided to go home. I arrived back at my cottage in England and slept in the woods for three days to nurse myself through a mini nervous breakdown. After a few days a friend who was renting the cottage turned up and brought along Linda, who was back from America looking for a cottage. We married two months later and have never left each other since."

It was ironic that Linda had given up pining for Donovan when she met him again. "When you stop wanting something badly it often comes to you", she says eagerly. "Don and I thought love was out there somewhere else until we realised it had been between us right from the start".

Their devotion two each other was obvious as they greeted the guests at the start of their party. Among them was a Buddhist monk, who Linda and Donovan had invited to perform a special dedication ceremony. "We both believe in reincarnation and we are fascinated by taro and astrology", she says. "The priest recited a prayer for purificcation to renew our spirits".

But missing from the guest list were Donovans American children, actress Ione Skye - twenty five and singer Donovan Leitch - twenty seven, by former girlfriend Enid Stulberger. "I wanted them to be here but they are both working", says Donovan, who is trying the reconcile his English and American families. "My relationship with their mother was a rebound affair after Linda and I split. We lived together for eighteen months, even though I was touring a lot. But it ended in sadness when I realised that Enid was not Linda and I could never make any woman into Linda. I never really had a chance to form a relationship with my children as the boy was only a year and a half when I left and the girl was younger, soo I made the decision to see them when they were older. The stories that came out about me abandoning them were very painful. I think they did feel I had left them, but I supported them financially all their lives".

Ione is a successful actress whose films include "Gas, Food, Lodging" with her brother Donovan Leitch, "Rivers Edge", "Dream for an Insomniac" and most recently "Four Rooms" with Bruce Willis, Tim Roth and Madonna.

Brother Donovan is also a musician and is forming a band called "Nancy Boy". "I have heard a couple of songs and quite like them, but he needs to write more", says his father. "It was been my daughter Astrella who has brought the family together. She has made friends with Ione and both of kids have been to see us at our home in Ireland".

Astrella and Oriole are in relationships with two brothers Paul and Shaun Ryder, respectively, from the former rock group "The Happy Mondays". Oriole and Shaun have a daughter Sion but Oriole's son Sabastian is from a former relationship with another musician, Lance Pisal.

Donovan who has spent the latter years of his career playing in festivals and clubs, is writing songs for a new album while his daughter Astrella is making her first album

"I'm working with a producer called Rick Rubin who is a great fan of sixties pop music. I have written a hundred and ten songs so far, but it is hard to better what has happened in the past. The younger generation are very influenced by the music I made in the sixties but I don't know how the new songs will be received".

Linda has supported Donovan throughout "I fell in love with the person not the musician", she says. "But when he is playing he music, the magic pours out. It was the magic that brought us together".

Picture from left to right back row: Linda, Donovan, Oriole, Sion, Shaun Ryder, Julian, Lionel Bart Gerald (Donovan's Brother), Violet & Alec (Linda's parents), Astrella.
Front row: Donald & Winifred (Donovan's parents) Sabastian, Kate (Gerald's daughter), Venessa (Gerald's wife) Amellia & Paul Ryder.

At the start of 1965, Donovan was hardly known outside The Cock in St Albans. Four months later, an overnight star after promotion on “Ready Steady Go!”, he was hobnobing with The Beatles, Ginsberg and Dylan and by the time he recorded this album, we was minstrel to the peace and love generation. In an inspired move, hot pop producer Mickie Most plucked Donovan from his denhim folkie milieu and paired him with classical arranger John Cameron, who created a unique setting, using harpsichord, string quartets, woodwind trios and jazz musicians to complement Don's full bodied Gibson and microphone friendly voice. The faerie queen of his love songs, the cocksure sunshine superman and the hippy dippy “Legend Of A Girl Child Linda”, was Linda Lawrence, mother of Brian Jone's child, soon to be Mrs. Donovan, his muse for every more.

The Lyrics of Sand and Foam, his Polaroids of Mexico and the evocotive “Young Girl Blues”, his piquant obvservation of bedsit gloom, were as close to poetry as many velvet looned hippies would ever hear. “Writer In The Sun” was written in Greece, where he retired until contractural hassles could be resolved. Donovan's inocense was seductive, his melodies gorgeous, but when he fell under the spell of The Maharishi and publicly renounced drugs, his songwriting went to pot.

By Craig Marine
EXAMINER STAFF CRITIC

HE WAS A one-namer well before Madonna, a contemporary of Cher and probably predates Charo, if anyone does. His name is synonymous with the '60s, when his music climbed the charts right next to, and often above, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And now, Donovan is back.
  In all honesty, it's not as though he's really been away, it just seems like it. He put out something like a dozen albums in the '70s and '80s, but you'd be hard-pressed to name a song from one. His string of hits in the '60s rivaled anyone's. “Mellow Yellow,” “Sunshine Superman,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” “Season of the Witch,” “First There Is A Mountain” — it's almost frightening.
  Sometime in the spring of next year, the new Donovan album will be unveiled, an effort with AC/DC and Red Hot Chili Peppers producer Rick Rubin. In the meantime, Donovan has been testing his new material — mixed with plenty of his hits — at small venues around California, culminating in a concert Friday at the Fillmore. It's a show that should be equal parts curiosity, nostalgia and, potentially, plenty of surprises.
  “I found when I looked around that my job was still vacant,” Donovan said by phone from Southern California, explaining his decision to re-emerge. “My position during that time was unique, almost a countermeasure to the frenzied rock of the time. I think there is still a place for what it is that I do.”
  What Donovan does is write intensely melodic songs, often with lyrics that tap all the touchy-feely lingo of the times. They make sense if you want them to, sort of. But for Donovan, the lyrics aren't really the meat of the songs.
  “Words sometimes confuse,” he says, “but the melodies carry the true message. By that I mean that there are tunes that people of all languages seem to enjoy, whether they understand the words or not. Melodies are universal, they transcend barriers.”
  Donovan's speech is peppered with buzzwords of the '60s — chakras and the I Ching pop up from time to time. Yet he maintains that the work he's doing is intensely contemporary, that Rubin has helped him find his musical voice.
  “We went back and he helped me rediscover my own style. I noticed that I invented a musical style for each song that I did. I tried to go back and copy some of the guitar parts, and realized I had a lot going on in those songs. It helped me in writing my new material.”
  Donovan wrote nearly 100 songs once his pairing with Rubin began a couple of years back, when the producer, a longtime fan, phoned inquiring whether the singer had any inclination toward recording a new album. From the 100 songs, the pair picked their best 20 and have been spending the winter months taking Donovan's acoustic tracks and layering in the appropriate keyboards, percussion and strings.
  “We're starting to experiment, painting in each song like a picture,” he said.
  The crowds have given Donovan warm receptions thus far, which the singer appreciates. “I didn't really know what to expect, to be honest,” he says. “Playing new songs before an audience is like sending your babies out into the world, you're never quite convinced that they're ready yet. But we've gotten very strong reactions, I'm pleased and relieved to say.”
  Donovan was particularly fond of working with Rubin, though he had never heard of the producer before he called. “Once I heard of his work with Johnny Cash, I knew we could work well together,” Donovan said. “He really has a tremendous ear for sound and we both have a love of the depth of field that comes with analog recording. I'm hoping that the new work will bring an entire new generation of fans. That's the hope.”

submitted by Jeffrey Marshall