I’ve seen Donovan here before. I was looking forward to it. He is quite a character. As a young kid of sixteen I was very taken with a documentary about him and Gypsy Davey wandering around the Scottish islands in what looked to me like the idea bohemian freedom.
He’s worked with the likes of the Beatles and in between songs regaled us with anecdotes that were humorous and insightful. It made for an interesting evening.
Donovan with his guitar and songs was delightful. He tended to focus on his early work and particularly his first two albums which was great for me – bit of a nostalgia trip. I enjoyed it a lot. It was great to hear the Buffy St Marie Universal Soldier!
Here’s a few photos:
That’s an exaggeration to say he’s worked with The Beatles.
All he did was show Lennon how to finger-pick and co-wrote with McCartney some terrible wee song titled ‘Heather’ of which went no further than a rough as-they-made-it-up demo tape. Both events taking place when they went to India to see the loony guru.
Other than that he had nothing to do with The Beatles.
According to Donovan Paul used to pop round to his flat in London and they worked on lyrics together. He claims to have written ‘Sky of Blue
Sea of Green’ for Yellow Submarine – which sounds plausible to me. It is his kind of thing.
Gosh, a whole 6 words!
Stop the press, Opher, re-write all the books.
I think had Donovan indeed come up with anything more constructive we’d have never heard the end of it from him.
My friend David Thompson, who as an art school student shared a flat for 2 years with Brian Jones. He wrote a lot of their song ‘Off The Hook’, but never did he ever make claims of ‘working with the Rolling Stones’.
If you see him live you realise that we don’t hear the end of it!
Perhaps David should have. If he worked with Brian, who I think was the main man and musical force, he has a claim.