Imagine a world where recorded music is both expensive and hard to find. No easily copied CDs or tapes and certainly none of your new-fangled streaming or downloadable MP3s. That was the world we record buyers inhabited back in the 60s. No megastores, Amazon, internet shopping or Spotify for us. No eBay, record fairs or car boot sales either. LPs were a major cash investment and as such were often restricted to birthdays or Christmas. Thankfully, at that time London had a fair sprinkling of import record shops where cashed-up vinyl junkies could find solace. Here it was possible to pick up (albeit at a price) highly desirable US pressings of LPs that were either not yet released in Britain, or if they were available, the US versions invariably featured sumptuous heavy duty gatefold sleeves, posters or other inserts denied to UK buyers. Now, due to a complicated legal situation, the details of which I’ll spare you here, Donovan’s UK releases were something of a dog’s breakfast at this time and for a couple of years much of his output was only available to British fans in the form of pricey US imports. Hence, from 1967 to 1970 I was … Continue reading A Gift From A Flower To A Garden – or how I was (almost) cured of fandom