Donovan

I saw him last fall in a tiny venue and he was excellent! His latest album was downloadable free for awhile and is good though more folk and less mystical.

[quote]I saw him last fall in a tiny venue and he was excellent!

You're kidding! I saw him in the early 80s and already the party was long over. We walked out after about 30 minutes, into the cool night air. I never felt so free.

He had a very swift and embittering descent from commercial success in the early seventies although some of those late Epic albums (Slow Down World etc) have their moments.

I am a huge fan. My older sisters would babysit me with their "hippie" girlfriends, and Donovan's Barabajagal album was played in heavy rotation. While I'm familiar with his output during his 60's heyday, I want to start seeking out his 70's albums, like Cosmic Wheels

Sang the son that should have won the Oscar over the treacle of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head".

i like the song he wrote for Joan Baez, Turquoise.

He invented twee. He also had that shallow and brittle Rob Lowe-type prettiness.

He was nothing like Rob Lowe....in any way at all.

I started my LSD career with him.

[quote]"Atlantis" and "Wear Your Love Like Heavan" are two favourites.

Atlantis is very nice - once you get thru that endless spoken intro.

R10, agreed, though that one line "Gods they were" in that thick accent (brogue?) turned me on.

I was a little kiddie in London in the 60s, so I'm well aware of him.

One of the first singles I ever got was 'The Hurdy Gurdy Man' when I was 5 years!! (I even remember going to buy it) - which is quite heavy when you listen to it now, but you can also understand why it might appeal to a little kiddie.

He should have asked Dylan for career advice.

I love Donovan.

Apparently, it was his idea to chant "Love, Love, Love" which John Lennon used for All You Need Is Love. Donovan and John were good mates.

His 2004 LP Beat Cafe was pretty magical with his signature droning & conjuring. I liked "Two Lovers" & "Whirlwind" especially. Donovan also put out a recent memoir I've been meaning to peep.

He was one of many of those British singers of the '60s whose success and fame ended when the numbers changed to 1970.

But his '60s music was very good and is much admired by younger generations, again and again.

There was musical magic in the air in England in the 60s and he captured it.

The first concert I ever saw was Donovan, at what was then called The Music Hall in Boston. My mom took me, and she was angry that people were smoking all around us. it wasn't until years later that I realized that she was upset that they were smoking POT. I was so young -- 8 maybe? -- I didn't even know what pot was at the time. What I remember most about the concert was that he came out with a long flowing white robe, and sat on the floor of the stage. There were no other musicians. Even then I knew that whole flower hippie thing was a put on, but I loved his music. I also very distinctly remember some fat chick behind me singing along to Lalena, ruining, for me, my favorite Donovan song.

I didn't know he had had polio as a child, which apparently is why he sits on the floor to perform.

"Catch the Wind" kills me every time I hear it.

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" was put to brilliantly effective use in the film "Zodiac."

wow, I'd forgotten how many hits he had in the 60s and I had no idea he was still performing.

Thank you for bringing attention to this wonderful and always positive artist. Some relative obscurities from his catalog that more people should hear include Sand and Foam (from the Mellow Yellow album), The River Song (from Hurdy Gurdy Man), Cosmic Wheels (eponymous), and Eldorado (can't think of the album title, a late album, he's wearing sunglasses on the cover).

Apparently abandoned his first two kids, Ione Skye and Donovan Leitch Jr. Ione once said that he'd told her it was good that she had dropped his surname professionally, since his younger daughter wanted to get into acting too (and shouldn't have to share the name with her half-sister or something).

Likes to claim that Jimmy Page played the electric guitar on Hurdy Gurdy Man, but Page says it wasn't him.

R21, I agree that Zodiac used Hurdy Gurdy Man brilliantly. Haunting and eerie.

Are Ione Skye and Donovan Leitch close to him at all?

Sounds like a prick.

love him from the get go. season of the witch used in To Die For was perfect for that scene.....his daughter had a relationship with Anthony Kiedis (RHCP)

anyway yeah, i still listen to his LP's I bought decades ago. Beautiful voice. UNIQUE.

"Atlantis" is on the April 1994 GAP In-Store Playlist!

His 2 biggest hit singles were Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow from 1966. They put him on the map big time.

I loved his albums pre-Sunshine Superman. When that song came out and was a big hit I couldn't believe it was the same folk singer who did Catch The Wind or The Ballad of Geraldine. I did like his album of children's songs (I think it came out in 1972 but could have been earlier).

He also did a movie in 1972, The Pied Piper, which was amateurish in the extreme.

His autobiography is one of the most egotistical ones I've ever read. He was so full of himself, it was hilarious. He basically claimed that he invented folk rock as a genre.

They said he was the Scottish Bob Dylan...

To answer that, I quote Lisa Simpson

[quote]Anything that's the "something" of the "something" isn't really the "anything" of "anything".

His daughter once worked in a spa in Desert Hot Springs. I wonder if her dad didn't cut her off.

Ha ha, I saw him tell the "I taught John Lennon 'love, love, love'" story to some ditzy interviewer who was like, "Um, what?" and he was like, "Forget it" but you could tell that he was annoyed.

Jack White's band The Raconteurs recorded a cover of the Donovan song "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)" on their upcoming album. It's a fine version, nothing earth-shattering, but I guess it's cool if they can introduce Donovan to a younger crowd.

The Simpsons used "Jennifer Juniper" to good effect many years ago, I like a lot of his songs including "Riki Tiki Tavi".