DONOVAN
important work in color
1965: Catch the Wind * Fairytale.
1966: Sunshine Superman * The Real Donovan. 1967: Mellow Yellow *
A Gift From a Flower to a Garden (a double album also released
separately as For the Little Ones and Wear Your Love Like
Heaven). 1968: Donovan in Concert * Hurdy Gurdy Man. 1969: Donovan's Greatest Hits * Barabajagal *
World of Donovan. 1970: Open Road. 1971:
HMS Donovan (UK only, double childrens album). 1972: World of
Donovan (compilation). 1973: Cosmic Wheels * Live in Japan (Japan
only) * Essence to Essence. 1974: 7 Tease. 1976: Slow Down World. 1977: Donovan. 1980: Neutronica (Europe
only). 1981: Love is Only Feeling (Europe only). 1983: Lady of
the Stars. 1991: The Classics Live. 1992: Live in Concert *
Troubadour: The Definitive Collection. 1996: Sutras.
The Hickory albums released sporadically in the sixties -
Catch the Wind, The Real Donovan and Like It Is
- represent Donovan's earliest recordings. They capture a folk
artist with a smooth vocal sonority, but a folk talent not too
distinguishable from many of his peers. The songs include the
obvious ("Keep on Truckin'," "You're Gonna Need
Somebody on Your Bond") and the dubious (the patriotic hymn
to Manifest Destiny in "The Alamo"). Early self-penned
tunes were Dylan derivatives: "Ramblin' Boy" is based
on the same tune as Dylan's "Don't Think Twice;"
"Catch the Wind" is fashioned after "Blowing in
the Wind."
Perhaps to stake out some
territory of his own, Donovan supercharged a journey into
fairy-tale land with dense adjectives: hills of velvet, sea-shell
trees, crystal walls, golden chains, diamond skies and goofy
lines like, "as dry as the ocean on the wings of a fly"
or "a hundred small fingers scratched their heads in
dismay." He depicted "exotic" locales but the
pretty landscape never seemed enough. "Three King
Fishers," "Guinevere," "Celtic Rock,"
"Roots of Oak," and the majority of songs on Wear
Your Love Like Heaven and For Little Ones suffer from
an underwritten emotional quality despite the lush description.
There wasn't enough irony present in Donovan's fairy-tale work,
and perhaps not enough metaphor either. He offered guilelessness
as art, but it doesn't quite work: when Donovan writes about
astrology, he's talking about astrology; when he writes about
diamond trees, he's really talking about, you know, diamond
trees. His love tunes, which placed his lovers among the stars,
left them stranded and isolated from most human interaction. When
a journalistic quality was present his songs were a bit better
("The Trip," "Age of Treason," "Writer
in the Sun"). Most of the time his early work seems out of
touch with reality.
According to a recent interview, Donovan credits producer Mickie Most for prompting him into a sturdier rock format in the mid-sixties (BAM 2/9/96). Outside of a good batch of singles represented on Donovan's Greatest Hits, Donovan's most interesting work came on Barabajagal; paired on a few songs with the Jeff Beck Group, Donovan pushes things a bit. Open Road is insoucianct, and insouciance was a stronger emotion than Donovan often displayed. The good things about Donovan come to the surface: the sonority of his swinging, jazz-inflected grooves; the delicate guitar work; his beautiful voice; his "positive vibrations." Cosmic Wheels also has verve, but is a song or two away from canonization. Perhaps feeling a bit too driven by Godless rock and roll, Donovan plunged back into slow cosmic balladry hampered by a disinterested studio atmosphere on Essence to Essence and 7 Tease. A reformed band helped spark a purer form of Donovan essence on the underrated Slow Down World (punk tyranny was upon us). Donovan's work has fitted the compilation format perfectly and the two CD set, Troubadour puts the majority of what is good about the artist in one place.
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