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Revision as of 02:29, 31 July 2004 by Dunks58 (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Donovan Philips Leitch (usually known simply as Donovan) (born May 10, 1946) is a British musician. Emerging from the British folk scene in the mid-Sixties, Donovan shot to fame in the UK in late 1964 after a series of showcase TV performances. His success was initially restricted to Britain, but after signing with the American Epic label and joining forces with producer Mickie Most, he developed an eclectic but very successful style that featured a distinctive blend of folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia and world music.
Donovan quickly rose to become one of the most famous and popular British recording artists of his day, producing a string of trans-Atlantic hit albums and singles between 1966 and 1970 and also becoming a close friend of The Beatles. His commercial fortunes waned after he parted ways with Most, and although he continued to perform and record in the Seventies and Eigthies he gradually fell from favour, with his folksy musical style and 'hippie' image scorned by critics, especially after the advent of punk rock. Donovan withdrew from performing and recording several times during his long career, but he experienced a strong revival of interest in the Nineties with the emergence of the rave scene in Britain and late in the decade he recorded a successful album with noted rap producer and longtime fan Rick Rubin.
Donovan spent his early years in Glasgow, and although he contracted a bout of polio as a child he fortunately suffered no permanent injury. In 1956 the family moved to Hatfield, England. Influenced by his family's love for Scottish and English folk music, he began playing guitar at fourteen. After leaving school, Donovan and longtime friend Gypsy Dave travelled for several years around Britian, busking and playing folk songs.
He began writing original songs in the early Sixties and by late 1964 he had met his two original managers and was signed to a publishing contract. He recorded his first ten-track demo tape at the London basement studio of Peer Music in Denmark Street; this included the original recording of what was to be his first single, 'Catch The Wind', a song that showed the unmistakable influence of Bob Dylan. Although teh Dylan comparisons woudl dog him for some time to come, the tape also made it clear that he was already a performer of considerable skill and originality. He was also a very fine acoustic guitarist and self-accompanist, a talent that is often overlooked, as it so often is with his hero Bob Dylan.
It was while recording the demo that he met and became friends with Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. Soon after, he met Brian's girlfriend of the time, Linda Lawrence. She had already had a child to Jones, but when she met Donovan the relationship was breaking up and she and Donovan susequently became lovers and eventually married. Linda became Donovan's muse and was to have a profound effect on his music, inspiring songs including, 'Catch The Wind', 'Legend Of A Girl Child Linda' and 'Season Of The Witch'.
The demo tape was heard by Elkan Allen, producer of the television pop show Ready Steady Go! which led to the unknown musician (then only 18) being invited to appear on the show. Donovan made his TV debut on 6 February 1965. Unusually for pop programs of this time, Donovan played and sang live, and after his performance he was interviewed by host Cathy McGowan. His guitar was emblazoned with the words "This Machine Kills" -- a direct reference to his (and Dylan's) hero, Woody Guthrie, whose own guitar bore the famous slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists". Donovan's first appearance was so well-received that he was invited back for the next two weeks, and this in turn led to a recording contract with Pye Records and a meteoric career start.
Donovan's first UK single, a re-recorded version of 'Catch The Wind', was released soon after his third Ready, Steady Go appearance and it was a hugely successful debut, shooting to #4 on the UK charts and selling more than 200,000 copies. On 11 April he performed with the biggest stars of the day at the annual New Musical Express poll winners' concert at the Empire Pool, Wembley. The single was subsequently released on the small Hickory label in the USA, where it managed an impressive #30 chart placing.
Donovan's early musical style and appearance led to him being perceived and promoted as a British version of Bob Dylan and this brought with it a certain degree of criticism from folk purists, who wrongly assumed him to be a simple Dylan imitator. Not surprisingly, the meeting between the two musicians in April 1965 made headlines. However, although initially wary, Dylan was impressed by the young musician, as can be seen in the scenes featuring them in D.A. Pennebaker's film of Dylan's '65 UK tour, Don't Look Back, which was released in 1967. As a result Donovan was invited to tour with Dylan and Joan Baez.
Donovan's second single 'Colours' was released in May, reaching #4, accompanied by his debut LP 'What's Been Did And What's Been Hid', which reached #3 in the UK album charts. Retitled "Catch The Wind" for the US, it reached #30 there. He made his first trip to the USA at this time, performing in New York with Pete Seeger and Reverend Gary Davis and appearing on Hullaballoo and Shindig, as well as performing to critical and audience acclaim at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in July.
His next recording was a four-track EP, "Universal Soldier", which included his classic cover of the Buffy Saint-Marie title track, along with three other overtly anti-war tracks. As Australian rock historian Glenn A. Baker has observed, this was quite a radical move for an emerging pop performer -- the Vietnam war still had majority popular support in 1965 and Donovan's pioneering pacifist stance is often overlooked by his critics; nor would it be his last anti-war recording. Despite its contentious subject matter, the record was a significant commercial success, topping the British EP chart for eight weeks and even reaching #14 on the singles chart. It was also released in Australia, where it reached #17 on the singles chart.
'Colours' was also released in the USA but it fared rather poorly, reaching #40 on the Cash Box charts but only reaching #61 on the Billboard chart. At this point Donovan's American success was greater in sales than in radio airplay, since American Top 40 radio tended to avoid folk-style recordings, preferring more highly arranged pop records. The Catch The Wind LP had also charted better in Cash Box than Billboard, reflecting the fact that Billboard's charts factored in radio airplay, whilst Cash Box did not.
A single version of "Universal Soldier" was issued in the USA in late August 1965 but it mimicked the mediocre chart performance of 'Colours', reaching #45 in Cash Box but only #53 in Billboard. Pye released Donovan's second UK album, "Fairy Tale", in October 1966, along with his next single, 'Turquoise'. These too were less successful than his previous releases, with the album only reaching #20 and the single peaking at #30. Donovan made a second US tour in November, and Hickory released the American version of Fairy Tale later that month but, as in the UK, it did charted much lower than the first LP, only reaching #85.
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.
Mickie Most was to produce almost all of Donovan's best recordings. The tracks they cut together repesent some of the finest UK pop releases of the period, and they feature the cream of the London session scene, with contributions from Jack Bruce, Danny Thompson, legendary London session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan and future Led Zeppelin members John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page. Many of the Donovan-Most recordings were regularly backed by a group of players drawn from the jazz scene, including Danny Thompson (from Pentangle (group)) 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 intrinisic feature on many of Donovan's recordings, and bothe players also toured the U.S with Donovan.
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 1967 to join The Yardbirds.
Nevertheless, Donovan himself has stated that the 'heavier' sound of his 1967 single 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' had a definite influence on Page and Jones, although it is now generally beleived that the duo's work on the Jeff Beck single 'Beck's Bolero' (with drummer Keith Moon) was the real start of the Led Zeppelin style.
By 1966 Donovan was abandoning 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 Most and arranger, musician and jazz fanatic John Cameron.
The first fruit of their collaboration was the funky pop-psych classic 'Sunshine Superman', an innovative and eclectic blend of folk and psychedelia, a sinewy jazz arrangement augmented by classical elements including a harpsichord, set against a catchy percussive backbeat. It also contained subtle but unmistakable references to LSD such as the line "coulda tripped out easy, but I changed my way".
Unfortunately, it was at this point that his career threatened to stall. In December 1965 Billboard lifted the lid on the impending deal between Klein, Most and Donovan and then followed up on 18 December with a report that Donovan was about to sign with CBS Records. Despite his business manager's denials, Pye Records abruptly dropped the single from their release schedule.
The dispute dragged on into early 1966, so during the hiatus in his recording career Donovan holidayed in Greece, where he wrote one of his best songs, the wistful 'Writer In The Sun' -- inspired by the rumours that his recording career was over -- and also toured the USA, playing some sparsely attended gigs. Returning to London, he collaborated with The Beatles, contributing lyrics (and possibly backing vocals) to the song 'Yellow Submarine, which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 26 May 1966.
By late 1966 the American contractual problems had been resolved and Donavan 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 rock, American west coast psychedelia and folk-rock, especially The Byrds, whose records Donovan had been listening to constantly through 1965.
The LP sessions were completed in May and the title track was released in June. It was a huge success and furnished Donovan with the crucial American chart breakthrough, selling 800,000 copies in just six weeks and 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.
The Sunshine Superman LP is probably the best, most consistent and most durable of Donovan's albums; it contains many superb songs. Donovan and Cameron's beautiful and imaginative chamber-style arrangements are another highlight, featuring an eclectic range of instruments including acoustic bass, sitar, tablas, harpsichord, strings and oboe. Highlights include the swinging 'The Fat Angel', a song written for 'Mama' Cass Elliott of The Mamas And The Papas and which famously namechecked cult San Francisco acid-rock band Jefferson Airplane long before they became successful. Other standout tracks include 'Bert's Blues', (a tribute to British folk legend Bert Jansch), and the stately, poetic 'Guinevere'.
In marked contrasts to the gentle, lyrical mood of most of the album were the jazzy, swinging 'The Trip' (titled after the L.A. club of the same name), which was loaded with references to Donovan's sojourn on the West Coast and which namechecked Dylan and Joan Baez. One of his most enduring recordings from this LP was the brooding, portentious 'Season Of The Witch', recorded with a pick-up band he had met in an L.A. club, and featuring Donovan's first recorded performance on electric rhythm guitar. This classic track was later successfully covered by Brian Auger and the original Donovan version was used to fine effect, years later, in the memorable closing sequence of the Gus Van Zant film To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman.
On 24 October 1966 Epic released a new single, the rollicking, brass-laden 'Mellow Yellow', arranged by John Paul Jones and featuring Paul McCartney on uncredited backing vocals. Believed by many to be about the supposed practice of smoking banana peels, the "electrical banana" line is believed to have actually been a coded reference to a vibrator. It became his signature tune and was an even bigger commercial success -- it reached #2 in Billboard, #3 in Cash Box and earned Donovan his first US gold record award for sales of more than one million copies.
During the first half of 1967 Donovan worked on a new studio project. In July Epic released another single, 'There Is A Mountain', which became a Top ten hit in the U.S. and was later covered by The Allman Brothers. In the northern autumn he began a new tour of the United States; dressed in flowing robes, on a stage decked with feathers, flowers and incense, he played to a packed house at the Phliharmonic Hall in New York. His performance was rapturously received and immortalised by Lillian Roxon in her Rock Encylopedia. A similarly ecstatic performance at the Hollywood Bowl was followed by a notable landmark -- Donovan was interviewed by writer John Carpenter and this featured as the first ever Rolling Stone interview in the magazine's debut issue, published on 9 November 1967.
Later that month Epic released Donovan's next album, an ambitious 2-disc set entitled A Gift From A Flower To A Garden, one of the first rock music boxed sets and, after Dylan's Blonde On Blonde and Zappa's Freak Out, only the third pop-rock double-album ever released. It was split thematically into two halves, the first record, subtitled "For Little Ones", was a collection of songs Donovan had written especially for chlldren; and the second, subtitled "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" was the parents' album. The session players included Cream bassist Jack Bruce.
The psychedelic and mystical overtones of the work were unmistakeable -- the front cover featured a heavily solarized photograph of Donovan dressed in a robe and holding flowers, while the back cover photo showed him holding hands with Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Fearing that it might be a poor seller, Epic boss Clive Davis insisted that the albums were split and sold separately, and although it took some time, the boxed set sold steadily, peaking at #19 on the US charts and achieving gold record status in the U.S. by 1970.
The first single lifted from the
Later hits include the psychedelic nugget 'Hurdy Gurdy Man', and his snarling 1968 freakbeat classic 'Barabajagal' on which he was backed by the Jeff Back Group, who were also under contract to Most at the time; the anthemic "Atlantis" (again featuring an uncredited Paul McCartney) is as pagan and hippy-dippy as they come.
Donovan was by now a close friend of The Beatles and on 9 February 1967 he was one of the invited guests for the all-star orchestral overdub sessions for the brilliant Lennon-McCartney collaboration 'A Day In The Life', the grand finale to the Beatles' new opus Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Donovan also penned "Jennifer Juniper" in honor of Jenny Boyd, sister of George Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd and the following year he accompanied the Beatles and Mike Love of The Beach Boys when they travelled to Rishikesh in India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
In 1969 he married Linda Lawrence and became the father to her daughter from her earlier relationship with Brian Jones.
In the late 1960s, seeing many of his friends and many in his audience succumb to hard drug use, Donovan went on record opposing the use of drugs. His rejection of drugs was perhaps also motivated in by the fact that in early 1967 he had become the first in a series of high-profile drug busts targetting British pop stars, which culminated later in the year with the famous arrest and trial of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard.
The problems began when Donovan found himself in the sights of the Murdoch-owned tabloid 'News Of The World'. In late January 1967 the paper began a three-part expose entitled "Drugs & Pop Stars - Facts That Will Shock You", in which it was alleged that Donovan and many other leading pop stars including members of The Who, Cream (group) and The Rolling Stones regularly smoked marijuana and other drugs, including the hallucinogen LSD. It emerged much later that Murdoch's showbusiness reporters were using their access to the stars to covertly observe their drug use and then pass information to the Drug Squad. More than twenty years later, a story in The Guardian revealed that News Of The World reporters had tipped off the Drug Squad about the party at Keith Richard's house, 'Redlands', which was famously raided in the early hours of 12 February 1967, just after George Harrison and his girlfriend Patti Boyd had left.
Donovan became a student of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, embracing vegetarianism and Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.
He provided the songs for Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1973), Franco Zeffirelli's film about St Francis of Assisi.
Donovan has two children who have become actors, his namesake son, Donovan Leitch, Jr., and his daughter, Ione Skye.
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