is Donovan really this much of a tw*t?

But it's The Sunday Times, people. A paper that is obviously going to value knowing your place, being class-obsessed, being blandly self-deprecating, and curling your toes over 1960s values, art values, or knowing how to spell the names of important writers.

Who?

This writer goes on and on about how Donovan doesn't measure up to Dylan. But is he making an honest assessment? I doubt he even has a real appreciation for Dylan, frankly. I think he just buys into the received view: Dylan is a Great, Eternal Artist, and Donovan is a Sad, Washed-Up Old Hippy. What do the records sound like? Er, get back to you on that...

Come on, dude, Burrows is the SHIT, man!

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0406977267.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I never saw that scene this way at all. To Sing For You is a great song, and like whoever said so above I think Dylan is pretty much a douche in that scene and in most of the rest of the movie.

Joseph Cotten OTM - the writer obv. came into this rarin' for a takedown.

"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," "I Shall Be Free" and "Ballad of a Thin Man" are all funnier and more surreal than anything Donovan or any other second-rate Dylan wanna-be could ever dream of.

Sorry, but this "Shucky darn, Donovan is so much better than Dylan and fuck Bob because he's no fun and a self-obsessed Important American has a bad singing voice and also Don't Look Back proved he was a dick" stance that always comes up on ILM makes me gag.

Honestly, this Dylan-is-the-true-twat-here! kinda thing is just reflexive contrarianism.

Which is fun and all, I know, but it leads to ghastly statements like these:

Does a Dylan song ever make anyone smile? Is he ever funny?

Someone else came up with the examples. But I do recommend that you try actually listening to Bob Dylan records someday, some are quite good.

And why tell your readers that Donovan has less influence than Dylan on young songwriters when influential characters like Devendra Banhart are citing Donovan and not Dylan in their interviews?

So -- by the "influence as measured by namechecks in interviews" standard, we have, in the Donovan corner, neo-freak-folkie Devendra Banhart.

Brooooce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Paul Westerberg, John fucking Lennon, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Johnny Cash, and just about everyone else who ever picked up a guitar post-1964 to thread please.

Dylan was a speed-addled asshole in the Don't Look Back period, but to go from there to "Donovan is more influential" is just fucking madness.

I think the point, for me at least, is that ok, Dylan is obviously the greater songwriter and contributed more to music and on the whole I will have logged ten times as many hours listening to Dylan as Donovan in my life.

But that doesn't diminish Donovan, who was a really great songwriter and musician in his own right, and whose best work actually sounds nothing like Dylan and often does a fantastic job of gently mocking psychadelia while reveling in its excess. Yeah, Dylan is greater. I just hate the cliche that sad, weighty songs are "important" and pleasant, sweet songs are "fluff," and that Donovan sounded exactly like Dylan, except when he didn't, and then he wasn't any good anyway because he was too "light."

But hey, Donovan's a nice guy though.

I like hime better than Dylan bcz of Season of the Witch (and multifarious cover versions) and Get Thy Bearings. I'm not saying he's more important, but I am saying I listen to him and I don't Dylan.

He would, being British. Dude also hated Springsteen, apparently. No accounting for taste, etc.

"Season of the Witch" is a great song, though, and has been covered excellently. I also have a soft spot for "Atlantis" 'cause of Goodfellas.

Donovan plays him the saccharine To Sing for You

as:

Donovan plays him the Saccharine Trust.

that would have been more interesting.

yes. dylan's not humorless but a lot of his "followers" are.

people are definitely better looking today

TS: Hurdy Gurdy Man vs. Tambourine Man

It's irrelevant in terms of the two's quality, but not in terms of their legacy, of which I think Donovan has fairly little.

So I will.

And I like Donovan's music. A "Best Of" suffices, though.

haven't heard "honest with me," have you?

anyways, anybody who could come up with "first there is a mountain" needs no one to defend him

otm.

Although I will allow I had a thought about Dylan this past week when I heard him in a CD shop - "why do so many people seem to hate Dylan? I mean he's not my preferred thing to listen to, but the hate is hard to understand"

Anyone who hastily dismisses his catalogue because of impressions or radio hits is potentially missing out. Hurdy Gurdy Man, Flower to a Garden, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Open Road, all stone cold classics--among others.

cheers

Friday, November 25, 2005

Donovan

Ticket Price: $35.00 adv / $38.00 dos
All Ages - Doors Open at 7:00 PM

------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------

Donovan ROCKING IN THE PERFUMED GARDEN OF DONOVAN

Donovan had everything going for him in the '60s. His jawdropping 1965 debut on London's cutting-edge TV series Ready Steady Go!-- strumming his Dylan-ish folk-rocking protest songs--got this denim-clad, shaggy-haired teenager plenty of early notice. A meteoric rise to stardom would follow in 1966, as Donovan's infectiously rocking, psychedelic epics "Sunshine Superman" and "Mellow Yellow" bolted into the top ten of record charts all around the world.

For the rest of the decade, it was into the mystic for the Glasgow, Scotland-born troubadour. An entire generation of Summer Of Love kids sat at the feet of this robed prince to soak up wondrous ballads, ("Atlantis," "Wear Your Love Like Heaven") love songs, ("Jennifer Juniper," "Lalena") and mind-bending chants ("There Is A Mountain," "Goo Goo Barabajagal")--all from the perfumed garden of Donovan.

Meditating at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi along with the Beatles, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull and Beach Boy Mike Love, Donovan and his beatific smile were never out of the newspapers for long. Working on the Beatles'
"Yellow Submarine" in exchange for Paul McCartney's contributions to "Mellow Yellow" had to be a "wish I was there" moment for legions of young rock fans.

Then, in 1970, Donovan just walked away from a career that had seen him scale the loftiest pinnacles of the music world. "Six years of fame was enough," he told the press at the time. "You couldn't get any more famous, any more successful. I had done everything."

But now, with the release of the Sony/BMG Legacy Donovan box set, TRY FOR THE SUN: THE JOURNEY OF DONOVAN, he's back with a steamer trunk loaded with everything you ever wanted to hear by this generational icon. From rare early singles on the Hickory label plus all his Top Ten classics for Epic produced by hitmaker Mickie Most (Animals, Herman's Hermits), to obscure album tracks and unreleased gems--as well as amazing recent studio excursions--this is the 3-compact disc/1 DVD/60-track package Donovan fans have been clamoring for.

Relevance to today's indie-rock market? Donovan has it in spades. Current forays by budding superstar Beck--not to mention even more recent material from underground West Coast folk guru Devendra Banhart--will tell you all you need to know: Donovan easily straddles the decades as a musical titan. With the release of TRY FOR THE SUN: THE JOURNEY OF DONOVAN, it's all come back into focus. Donovan's time has come again.

TESTIMONIALS

"Donovan's importance is unquestionable."
- James Mercer, The Shins

"This re-release of some of his gems is really welcome."
- Jimmy Page

"The sound of his voice and guitar was an integral part of the soundtrack of the sixties."
- Country Joe McDonald

"Donovan was—Bob Dylan aside—the greatest folk troubadour to come out of the 1960s."
- Stephen King

"As much as any seminal artist, he represents more than just the music of that time…he represents the spirit of our younger selves, enchanted with pop music and its melodies, lyrics and stories."
- Mary Chapin Carpenter

"…a terribly ace songwriter...a top man in my book, and somebody I wish I would run into in a park on a warm Sunday."
- Billy Corgan

"There's a sense of peace in Donovan's voice which is unparalleled in rock. His music makes one want to get inside of it and relax into bliss. How lucky we are to have the chance to drink in his mystic vibrations."
- Rick Rubin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You don't have to be stoned to grow a friend."

Donovan- 1969

James Walton reviews The Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan Leitch.

Perhaps, like me, you've always thought of Donovan as a bloke who wrote a few nice songs in the 1960s. Well, it turns out we were wrong. According to his autobiography, he was one of the most significant people ever to strum a guitar. As he puts it in what proves an unusually modest comparison between himself and Bob Dylan: "His lyrics are without equal in popular music, but I think that musically I am the more creative and influential."

By his reckoning, that influence has certainly been widespread. In The Hurdy Gurdy Man, Donovan claims - quite straightforwardly and often repeatedly - to have invented folk-rock, Celtic rock, British psychedelia, New Age music, world music, flower power and the modern rock concert. "I am proud to have been an influence on acts like Van Morrison and Led Zeppelin," runs a typical sentence - and in the next paragraph he explains how he taught Marc Bolan everything.

At times, the debts owed to him might appear slight, but Donovan spots them anyway: "Soon Andy Warhol would create a record cover for the Velvet Underground which depicted a banana. It would seem that Andy had not missed the phrase 'electrical banana' in Mellow Yellow, my number-one song."

The early parts of the book give only a few indications of the rampant and disfiguring egotism to come, with Donovan unable to resist mentioning his key schoolboy achievements. ("In time I rose to the position of House Captain.") Otherwise, his childhood in Glasgow and his youth in Hatfield and St Ives are described with an appealing sense of place and period. There's even a pretty good chapter that opens with the promising words, "Let me tell you about the St Albans scene."

The trouble starts when the young Donovan turns seriously to music. "As I listen to my earliest recordings," writes the older one, "I am surprised to hear I was a virtuoso of all the folk-blues guitar styles by the time I reached 17." (His surprise, you feel, probably wasn't overwhelming.) For a while, there's still enough half-decent material to hold out the hope that, if he'd just stop boasting, the book might yet be redeemable. Once his career takes off, though, boasting is more or less all we get.

During an early TV appearance, he unblushingly notes, the producer "saw in me a new kind of poet-minstrel". Shortly afterwards, in a predictable lurch into the third-person, "this denim-clad beatnik from Scotland with a limp and an attitude was becoming a shaman". No wonder that a few chapters later, he's "the hottest concert ticket in North America" - while in the studio "I had pulled off a folk-classical-blues-pop-jazz-poetical-ethnic jam of far-reaching influence in the years to come". (Given his endless bragging, maybe Donovan was a big influence on Snoop Doggy Dogg, too.)

Each new record or gig is accompanied by a glowing review - occasionally quoted from a journalist of the day, more often supplied by Donovan himself. At one point, he lists all the people who have ever covered his songs, up to and including James Last, the New Christie Minstrels and Jasper Carrott.

But as it transpires, our man didn't merely transform music. He also changed consciousness itself. By incorporating into the songs "a new way of seeing… I founded an Invisible School of Self-Awareness in the hearts and minds… of millions". The messianic complex that runs through the book reaches its climax when he bids the rain to stop during a concert in LA. (It does.) Sadly, his central statement of intent is undermined by an unfortunate misprint: "My mission was to prevent [sic] a cure for society's illness by introducing the Bohemian Manifesto into popular music."

Of course, a book like this (if there's ever been one before) could only have been produced by a man with no sense of humour. Admittedly, it does contain plenty of comedy - but all of it is inadvertent. Donovan, for example, keeps praising his own "meaningful and poetic lyrics", and then unwisely quoting some. ("Get together work it out/ Simplicity is what it's about.")

He retains his bullish tone long after his career is in decline. ("The single Atlantis was particularly successful in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.") Above all, he talks constantly about the importance of self-awareness, while displaying absolutely none of it.

Which just leaves the mysterious question of why nobody saved him from himself before publication. There might even be a case to be made that Donovan hasn't had the credit he deserves. Yet surely somebody from his family or publishers could have pointed out the obvious fact that 300 pages of mad boasting isn't going to make people think you're great after all. Instead, it's far more likely to make them think you're a berk.

Don't put artists up on pedestals, they are ordinary people not gods. OK Donovan comes across as a bumptious twat sometimes, Dylan as a sneering clown, Lennon as a nasty piece of work ........ and so it goes on. Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were pretty wild when they were at their prime too.
You just have to consider their work, and either it appeals to you as an individual or it doesn't. Personally I think that Donovan's best work is of real value, I find his lyrics as close to real poetry as anyone in the realm of rock/pop has ever come and I love his voice. A fair guitar player too in my book.
This opinion does not disqualify me from similar feelings for loads of other artists nor does it blind me to the fact that Donovan's canon does inclue some lesser works. I don't think there is an artist born who has been consistently brilliant. I was just happy that Don came back with two pretty good albums.

Seems like the "Burrows" thing was down to the doubtless thrusting Thatcherkid STimes writer TOO BUSY to check the spelling of authors' names.

Either that or Donovan possesses the autobiography of top sixties/seventies session singer Tony Burrows (and anyway, isn't it "Burrowes"?).

Donovan plays him the saccharine To Sing for You, with which Dylan appears visibly unimpressed. After a pause, Dylan plays his formidable It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue and viewers experience the deep embarrassment of watching a lesser talent crushed.

Ah, received knowledge. It got so accepted that this was what happened. Funnily enough, I watched "DLB" not that long ago, and was surprised to hear Donovan actually request Bob to sing "Baby Blue". The only problem was, this fairly intimate scene got broadcast to millions, and earned an undertone that wasn't there at the time.

Since when did they cut and paste Feargal Sharkey into LANDMARK (or at least the Bed Shed) DYLAN FILM?

He's right. Anyone who says the 60s were great is right.

You were there were you?

fake Geir?

You were there were you?

I don't need to have been there to acknowledge that 60s music, along with 70s music and music from the first half of the 80s, was great.

james brown was in the 60s. therefore great. i am right.

he's right!

If only he left

I thought I heard something about this.. Was this the Mountain Goat band or something like that??

J0hn Darn1elle to thread.

-- A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:32 (2 years ago) Link

people who get me drunk enough often get to hear this story, which involves Donovan turning up at a show and having his manager demand that he sit in and throwing an absolute shitfit when we said "no"

lololol

Good thing it wasn't Don McLean.

nb by "'get' to hear" I probably mean "are forced to endure"

I was feeling pretty groovy
when the radiator burst
So I ran across a meadow
a magical antelope saw me first
And then Jennifer Juniper
and then a floating merman from Atlantis

I loved my shirt so much I gave it to
a very friendly praying mantis

Don't worry, I'm done now

http://www.javno.com/slike/slike_3/r1/g2007/m04/x82137689653212655.jpg

and then a floating merman from Atlantis

dude you know I could seriously sell this line on that beat

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=73158&in_page_id=7&in_a_source=

Oh hey, that didn't work.

The gist was that Donovan is opening the "Invincible Donovan University". But this youtube link it better. He sings about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldJWJk34ag

Listen to the cunts whooping.

lowl

Funny how when hippy dudes talk (brag) about how at peace and in tune with the universe they are, the more insecure and fucked up they sound.