spanning his career — Sony Legacy boxed set (no #) ***** for Donovan
fans:
The large purple-flocked box reminded me of Al “Jazzbo” Collins (who
drove a purple-flocked Porsche), not premiere folksinger Donovan, but
then his fans probably never heard of Collins, so no matter. The singer
did wear brocade robes — perhaps occasionally purple. All that
would fit in with the New Age, transformational, mystic, spiritual (he
visited the Maharishi along with the Beatles), Celtic troubadour slant
of this folk-rock guru. What Donovan represented — especially to young
girls — was a performer who had the gentle/cute/cuddly down to a degree
not even touched on by the Beatles or anyone else. Physically, what we
have in this package are three capacious CDs with 20 tracks each, plus
a video DVD of a 1970 film documentary never before issued, and a large
color printed booklet on Donovan, heavily illustrated. A number of the
tracks are live performances, some not before easily available.
Born in Glasgow, Donovan Leitch picked up strong social consciousness
from his socialist father, and absorbed the songs of Woody Guthrie from
childhood. Discovering Bob Dylan and then the Beatles stimulated the
folk troubadour into launching his own career, which has continued to
the present day. He quickly became part of the royalty of pop
music in the 1960s, and both those tracks as well as his rare first
singles of Hickory/Pye are included in this collection. In 1965 Donovan
began working with producer Mickie Most, who moved him away from
acoustic folk to psychedelic pop. Some of his tunes began to show a
jazz influence — namely Sunny Goodge Street and Sunshine Superman. Even
Mellow Yellow had some jazz elements. Donovan’s next album took him
into the Flower Power era. Later he moved into the mainstream of
rock with tunes such as Barabajagal. But by the end of the 1960s
he had begun to fade and his songs became repetitive. In 1970 he
chucked it all, married his teenage love and moved to Joshua Tree in
the California desert to raise a family. By 1990 he was recording
again, and some of the last tracks on Disc 3 cover that period.
Some stories in the book are great reading. There is a complete exposé
of the Mellow Yellow connection of the Donovan song with hippies
smoking banana peels to get high. Donovan was totally innocent it
turns out; the real story involved Country Joe McDonald and the Goon
Show. The variety of subjects covered by Donovan in his songs is
explored; also the variety of instrumental styles in his backing
groups. Some wandered quite a ways from the minimal guitar-and-voice of
most folk music, inspired by some of the classical-leaning
orchestrations the Beatle were coming up with.
The video, There Is an Ocean, is a relaxed and folksy record of a
cruise around the Greek Isles by Donovan, his family and band, on his
own large yacht. It is punctuated by several off-the-cuff performances
for young tourists, watched from afar by curious islanders. Both the
image quality and sound is surprisingly good considering the home movie
nature of the film. Some of the evening performances are filmed in
black and white — probably because the color film of the time was too
slow for low light situations. It runs about 40 minutes.
Tracks = Disc 1: Catch the Wind, Jose, Co’Eine, Colours, Universal
Soldier, Sunny Goodge Street, Hey Gyp, Sunshine Superman, The Trip,
Legend of a Girl Child Linda, Three King Fishers, Season of the Witch,
Gunievere, The Far Angel, Mellow Yellow, Sand and Foam, Young Girl
Blues, Museum, Hampstead Incident, Sunny South Kensington. Disc 2:
Epistle to Dippy, Preachin’ Love, There is a Mountain, Wear Your Love
Like Heaven, Oh Gosh, Isle of Islay, Epistle to Derroll, To Try for the
Sun, Someone’s Singing, The Tinker and the Crab, Jennifer Juniper, Poor
Cow, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Get Thy Bearings, Lalena, Barabajagal (Love Is
Hot), Lord of the Reedy River, Moon in Capricorn, To Susan on the West
Coast Waiting, Atlantis. Disc 3: Celia of the Seals, The Song of the
Wandering Aengus, The Ferryman’s Daughter, She Moved Through the Fair,
The Traveling People, Riki Tiki Tavi, Clara Clairvoyant, Young but
Growing, Keep on Truckin,’ Stealin,’ I Like You, Maria Magenta, A
Working Man, Tinker Tune, Sailing Homeward, Your Broken Heart,
Dark-Eyed Blue Jean Angel, Please Don’t Bend, Love Floats, Happiness
Runs.
— John Henry
