Donovan
 

Great musician. Check him out.

http://www.myspace.com/ddonovan

Weird

I`m in the middle of downloading his greatest hits album.

Been aware of him for years , he did a duet with Alice Cooper on Billion Dollar Babies.

Donovan was a legend. The only times I ever seem to listen to him is when I find a compilation album in someone else's cd case and get excited.

Anyone see the Futurama episode with him in it? He sings the Lost City of Atlanta and busts into the Atlantis chorus...oh, and Zoidberg builds a house under the sea.

That sounds madly awesome. I totally have to watch it.
I love his pop singles but his folk music is crappy. I'd say you're better off with the greatest hits album unless you're into mediocre folk.

I'm not a huge Donovan fan, but his album A Gift From A Flower To A Garden, despite being unquestionably the fruitiest album ever made by anybody ever, is actually really good.

:rofl:
Most accurate description of Donovan's music ever.

Catch The Wind, what a song! He had a lot of great material but it seems like everytime I read about him, someone brings up him & Bob Dylan.


Didn't something happen along the lines of Donavan playing his hero Dylan a song, & Bob just looking at him and saying something like "..I like it, I even wrote it.." or something??

Also, isn't Donovan mentioned in a Dylan song??

I quite like his idiosyncratic take on folk music but for what it's worth my favourite song is Hurdy Gurdy man, on which he is backed by Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

Downloaded the greatest hits a few weeks ago after I saw Sunshine Superman on some BBC4 show about singer-songwriters. I really knew nothing about him, but Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow are lovely.

Agree

Thanks. It's quite a heady mix, Led Zep and folkie leanings. It probably shouldn't work but it does!

...I Love Donovan's music...one of my favourites is Turquoise...

...this is very interesting...talking of John Lennon...and his introduction into folk music...



...the full song...



...sung by the woman who it was written for...



Your Smile beams like sunlight on a gull's wing...
...and the leaves dance and play after You
take my hand and hold it as You would a flower...
...take care with my Heart...oh Darling...she's made of glass

I`m not sure about that. I wonder if you`re thinking about this famous meeting, from the Don`t Look Back movie, in which Dylan`s verdict on I`ll Sing A Song For You is " Yeah, that`s a great song , man."



For me, Donovan was too much of a nice guy: with his soft voice and the rather predictable floor/door, sad/bad rhymes,this song, like so many of his others, becomes a kind of lullaby for adults.
Donovan`s a kitten, but Dylan, playing the self-same acoustic guitar, has real claws and can bite too.

aha~

Donovan wrote some of the great folk rock songs of the Sixties era like Jennifer Juniper, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Season of the Witch and Fat Angel. He was and still is a good friend of Jimmy Page and they share a common interest in Celtic folklore, the occult and ancient rituals of magic.

Donovan was different from Dylan in many ways. Dylan was influenced by delta blues, country music and traditional American folk music, especially Woody Guthrie. Donovan, on the other hand, was more of a traditional Celtic bard influenced by jazz standards and classical music. Listen to the baroque horn arrangement on Jennifer Juniper, it's perhaps the loveliest example of chamber pop from the 60s era. Donovan was also the first British musician to experiment with psychedelic themes and lyrics in his music.

People forget that Donovan wrote the psychedelic noir song Sunny Goodge Street way back in 1965 which put him months, if not years ahead of the psychedelic music movement.

Donovan’s stoned out lyrics on Sunny Goodge Street are nothing short of brilliant as he weaves seemingly disparate observations concerning the pre-hippie beatnik movement. Notice his novel jazz arrangement of the song with a flute, trumpets and cello. Donovan recorded this song recorded 2 years before the Beatles released their epic masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which is considered the first great album of the psychedelic era. Sunny Goodge Street (and many of his other songs) is evidence that Donovan was not a British Dylan imitator but an artist with his own unique musical vision.



Sunny Goodge Street (lyrics)

On the firefly platform on sunny Goodge Street
Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine
Involved in an eating scene.
Smashing into neon streets in their stonedness
Smearing their eyes on the crazy cult goddess
Listenin' to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic.
"My, my", they sigh,
"My, my", they sigh.
In doll house rooms with coloured lights swingin'
Strange music boxes sadly tinklin'
Drink in the sun shining all around you.
"My, my", they sigh,
"My, my", they sigh, mm mm.
"My, my", they sigh,
"My, my", they sigh.
The magician, he sparkles in satin and velvet,
You gaze at his splendour with eyes you've not used yet.
I tell you his name is Love, Love, Love.
"My, my", they sigh,
"My, my", they sigh.
"My, my" - sigh.