A rare talent!
5
By Jennifersman
The more I listen to this, the more I see what a rare talent Donovan was. Here’s a guy who started as England’s answer to Bob Dylan, complete with wool cap and weathered guitar emblazoned with Woody Guthrie quotes and thoughtful songs like “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier”. By the end of the sixties, with his elfin looks and gentle nature, he was a musical version of a Tolkien character with songs inspired by childhood fables eagerly snapped up by flower children everywhere. And then he walked away from it all in 1970 as the hippie dream ended. In between though were some songs that still sound great today. The turning point for Donovan was when he switched producers and began working with American Mickie Most, who encouraged his move away from his folkie beginnings and toward a more psychedelic sound. The results were songs like “Season of the Witch”, “Atlantis”, and his first number one hit “Sunshine Superman”. Along the way, he accumulated some great musical friends too. Paul McCartney does backup vocals on Mellow Yellow (and Yellow Submarine was supposedly inspired by his work with Donovan). John Lennon learned finger picking-style guitar from him while they studied with the Maharishi in India and was an inspiration for several songs on the White Album. The Allman Brothers would use “There is a Mountain” as the basis for their epic “Mountain Jam”. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham first played together on “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and formed Led Zeppelin soon after. And for his last major hit “Barbajagal”, he had the Jeff Beck Group backing him. Essential is just that, all of Donovan’s best songs in a perfect package.
