ALBUMS: The Real Donovan (1965 ); Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968); Barabajagal (1969).
MVC Ratings: Hurdy 4.5.$$$; The Real Donovan 3.5/$$$; Barabajal 4.0/$$$$
I am skipping ahead here only slightly in my alphabetical placement. I should be doing my Dire Straits and Bo Diddley and db’s before Donovan.
But in the previous post I compared up-and-comer Mac DeMarco to Donovan and since I brought him up, I figured let’s review my three Donovan records before I get back to my not-so-strict alphabetization. At least we’re keeping it in the D’s.
If Donovan sounds interesting to you, I’d probably start with one of his several greatest hits albums. The three records I have cover most of his hits: Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Atlantis, Catch the Wind, Mellow Yellow and Colours to name the bigger hits.
The first song of the 1965 album is called Turquoise and it was what first made me connect DeMarco’s style to Donovan. And from DeMarco, Salad Days, the title song, sounds like a whimsical Donovan song.
As for other comparisons, the Donovan song Atlantis with its repetitive singalong chorus could just as well have been an Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ song, had Donovan not done it 40-something years ago.
Donovan was born in Glasgow, Scotland and was a high school dropout and sort of wandering beach bum, according to his bio. His early work seemed heavily influenced by folk music and Bob Dylan. Although Donovan has said some of his songs that people say sound like Dylan were composed and recorded before Donovan even knew who Dylan was.
Donovan comparisons go only so far. Donovan isn’t or wasn’t as ‘chill’ as DeMarco, at least from what I hear on Salad Days. Donovan had some pretty heavy electric guitars in Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man, and Barabajagal to name some.
While DeMarco’s ‘lo-fi’ sound has just a tincture of psych, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck played on some of Donovan’s songs and Donovan dove head-long into that 60s psych-o-melodics. (My word, just going to try it out for a while.)
And then there’s Mellow Yellow and the ‘electrical banana’ — yes he wrote that.