Donovan

:For the American soccer player, see Landon Donovan.

Collaboration with Mickie Most

In late 1965 Donovan split with his original managers and signed with Ashley Kozak, who was working for Brian Epstein's NEMS Enterprises. Kozak introduced Donovan to American impresario Allen Klein (who would later take over management of The Rolling Stones) and Klein in turn introduced Donovan to producer Mickie Most, who was then riding high on the success of his chart-topping productions with The Animals and Herman's Hermits.

Related Topics:
Brian Epstein - NEMS Enterprises - Allen Klein - Mickie Most - The Animals - Herman's Hermits

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Most produced almost all of Donovan's best recordings. The tracks they cut together represent some of the finest UK pop releases of the period, and feature the cream of the London session scene, including Jack Bruce, Danny Thompson and future Led Zeppelin members John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page. Many of the earlier Donovan-Most recordings were backed by jazz musicians, the most regular players being Danny Thompson (from Pentangle) or Spike Heatley on upright bass, Tony Carr on drums and congas, John Cameron on piano and Harold McNair on sax and flute. Carr's distinctive conga style and McNair's flute are an intrinsic feature of many of Donovan's recordings, and both players also toured the U.S with Donovan.

Related Topics:
Jack Bruce - Led Zeppelin - John Paul Jones - Jimmy Page - Pentangle

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It has been claimed that Donovan introduced Page and Jones to each other and that this essentially created Led Zeppelin. In fact, Jones and Page had already known each other for several years -- they were among the top freelance pop musicians in London at that time, and worked on literally hundreds of well-known British recordings in that period, until Page retired from session work in 1968 to join The Yardbirds. Nevertheless, Donovan himself has stated that the 'heavier' sound of his 1968 single 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' had a definite influence on Page and Jones, although it is now generally accepted that the duo's work on the Jeff Beck single 'Beck's Bolero' (with drummer Keith Moon) was the real genesis of the Led Zeppelin style.

Related Topics:
The Yardbirds - Keith Moon

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By 1966 Donovan had shed the overt Dylan/Guthrie influences and became one of the first British pop musicians to adopt a 'flower power' image. More importantly, his music was developing and changing rapidly as he immersed himself in jazz, blues, eastern music and the new generation of US West Coast bands. He was now entering his most creative and original phase as a songwriter and recording artist, working in close collaboration with Mickie Most and arranger, musician and jazz fan John Cameron.

Related Topics:
1966 - Jazz - Blues - Eastern music

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The first fruit of their collaboration was the track 'Sunshine Superman'. One of the very first overtly psychedelic pop records, it was an innovative and eclectic blend of folk, rock, pop and jazz; the arrangement was augmented by prominent harpsichord, and set against a funky conga-driven backbeat. It also contained subtle but unmistakable references to LSD, notably the line "coulda tripped out easy, but I changed my way".

Related Topics:
Sunshine Superman - LSD

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Donovan's rapid rise temporarily stalled in December 1965 when Billboard broke news of the impending production deal between Klein, Most and Donovan, and then reported that Donovan was about to sign with CBS Records in the U.S.. Despite Kozak's strenuous denials, Pye Records abruptly dropped the new single from their release schedule and a lengthy contractual wrangle ensued. As a result of this dispute, Donovan's subsequent U.K. and U.S. record releases differed markedly, with most of his LP being released in different forms on either side of the Atlantic and several significant album tracks from the late Sixties were not available locally in the UK for many years.

Related Topics:
Billboard - CBS Records

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The legal dispute dragged on into early 1966, so during the hiatus Donovan holidayed in Greece, where he wrote one of his best songs, the wistful 'Writer In The Sun', inspired by the rumors that his recording career was over; he also toured the USA, playing some sparsely attended gigs. Returning to London, he collaborated with The Beatles, contributing lyrics (and uncredited backing vocals) to the song Yellow Submarine, which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 26 May 1966.

Related Topics:
Abbey Road Studios - 26 May - 1966

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By late 1966 the American contractual problems had been resolved and Donovan signed a $100,000 deal with the CBS subsidiary Epic Records. Donovan and Most then headed to CBS Studios in Los Angeles where they recorded the tracks for a new LP, much of which had been formulated and written over the preceding year. Although folk elements were still prominent, the album showed the increasing influence of jazz, American west coast psychedelia and folk-rock, especially The Byrds, whose records Donovan had been listening to constantly through 1965.

Related Topics:
CBS - Epic Records - The Byrds

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The LP sessions were completed in May and Sunshine Superman was released in the USA as a single in June. It was a huge success, providing Donovan with the crucial American chart breakthrough, selling 800,000 copies in just six weeks and eventually reaching #1. The LP followed in August, preceded by advance orders of 250,000 copies, and it reached #11 on the US album charts.

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The U.S. version of the Sunshine Superman LP is probably the best, most consistent and most durable of Donovan's albums, it remains one of the keynote records of the psychedelic era. It boasts superb songs throughout, with restrained but imaginative chamber-style arrangements featuring an eclectic range of instruments including acoustic bass, sitar, saxophone, tablas and congas, harpsichord, strings and oboe. Highlights include the swinging 'The Fat Angel', written for a Hells Angel and not 'Mama' Cass Elliott of The Mamas And The Papas as is often quoted. The song is also notable for namechecking cult San Francisco acid-rock band Jefferson Airplane, well before they became known internationally. Other standout tracks include 'Bert's Blues', (a tribute to British folk legend Bert Jansch), the stately 'Guinevere' and 'Legend Of A Girl Child Linda' which ran for almost seven minutes.

Related Topics:
Chamber - Sitar - Cass Elliott - The Mamas And The Papas - Jefferson Airplane - Bert Jansch

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In contrast to the pastoral tone of the rest of the album, several songs, including the title track, had a decidedly harder edge. The driving, jazzy 'The Trip' (titled after the L.A. club of the same name) features sitar by American folk singer Shawn Phillips, and was loaded with references to Donovan's sojourn on the West Coast, namechecking both Dylan and Baez. The third 'heavy' song, destined to became one of his most enduring recordings, was a brooding, portentous number called 'Season Of The Witch'. Recorded with a pick-up band he had met in an L.A. club, it featured Donovan's first recorded performance on electric rhythm guitar. The song was covered by Brian Auger on his first LP in 1967, and Al Kooper and Steven Stills recorded an 11-minute version of the song on the classic 1968 album Super Session. Donovan's version was used to great effect, years later, in the memorable closing sequence of the Gus Van Zant film To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman.

Related Topics:
Shawn Phillips - Brian Auger - Nicole Kidman

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Because of the contractual problems, the album was not released in the UK for another nine months, and then in an altered form -- it had a different track order and omitted three important tracks, 'The Fat Angel', 'The Trip' and 'Ferris Wheel', replacing them with ' Hampstead Incident', 'Young Girl Blues', 'Writer In The Sun' and 'Sand And Foam'.

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On 24 October 1966 Epic released the rollicking, brass-laden single 'Mellow Yellow', arranged by John Paul Jones and featuring Paul McCartney on uncredited backing vocals. Although it was rumoured at the time that the phrase "electrical banana" referred to the practice of smoking banana peels to get high, it appears that it was actually a coded reference to a vibrator -- the earlier line "I'm just mad about Fourteen" leaves little room for doubt that the primary theme of the song was sexual. Nevertheless, it became Donovan's signature tune and was a huge commercial success -- it reached #2 in Billboard, #3 in Cash Box and earned a gold record award for sales of more than one million copies in the U.S.

Related Topics:
24 October - 1966 - Paul McCartney

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During the first half of 1967 Donovan worked on an ambitious new studio project. In January he gave a major concert at the Royal Albert Hall accompanied by a ballerina, who danced during a twelve-minute performance of the song 'Golden Apples'. On 14 January New Musical Express reported that he was to write incidental music for a National Theatre production of 'As You Like It', but nothing came of the proposal.

Related Topics:
Royal Albert Hall - 14 January - New Musical Express

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Later that month Epic released a new LP, Mellow Yellow, which reached #14 in the album charts, and a new non-album single, 'Epistle To Dippy', a Top 20 hit in the USA. Written in the form of an open letter to an old school friend, the song had a strong pacifist subtext, in spite of its florid psychedelic imagery -- the real 'Dippy' was at the time serving in the British Army in Malaysia. According to Brian Hogg, who wrote the liner notes for the Donovan boxed set Troubadour, Dippy heard the song, contacted Donovan and left the army as a result.

Related Topics:
British Army - Malaysia

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On 9 February 1967 Donovan was one of the guests invited by The Beatles to join them at Abbey Road Studios for the final orchestral overdub session for the brilliant Lennon-McCartney collaboration 'A Day In The Life', the grand finale to their new opus Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Related Topics:
9 February - 1967 - A Day In The Life - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

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