As all Afterworders already know, any and all great music composed since the early 60s is indebted to one man and one man alone – take a bow DONOVAN (oh! you already have).
Now I see that the great man is dedicating a concert in April at London’s Cadogan Hall to Greta Thunberg.
But, thank the Lord for DONOVAN, for without him poor Greta would be lost:
The pioneer songwriter of Ecology will perform his classic Top 20 hits with his young band (‘Mellow Yellow’, ‘Sunshine Superman’, ‘The Hurdy Hurdy Man’, ‘Season of The Witch’, ‘Jennifer Juniper’, ‘There is a Mountain’, ‘Catch The Wind’, ‘Colours’, ‘Universal Soldier’) plus selections from his new release, Eco-Song, 21 climate change compositions by Donovan.
Donovan stood alone among his superstar peers singing out his climate change warning to the world. Donovan says, ‘It took 50 years from my first climate change protest song in 1968 and now, at last, here comes Greta the Great! It’s about time… and we have so little time left!’
Just think, without DONOVAN writing that first song there would be no Friends Of The Earth, no Greenpeace, no climate activists and Greta would still be in school. The world would be inevitably doomed. Out last chance would be gone.
DONOVAN stood alone – mercy, mercy me, just think no other artists thought of singing songs to the last whale, about cars polluting the air, about poisoned water, about damage caused by mining bosses or anything. No, indeed DONOVAN stood alone. The one man singing songs about saving the planet. A prophet! A messiah!
The planet is blessed to have this saviour still among us.
That you DONOVAN, we owe our existence to you.
Donovan stood alone… bloody hell. Bert Jansch knew the Creator was running out of ideas in 1967 at least (though he only recorded ‘Poison’ in 1969 – obviously, influenced by Don to do so).
Neil Young had a go in 1970 – may not be the first, maybe he just followed Donovan’s lead
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies
“Where have all the flowers gone?
I’d better go ask DONOVAN”
One of my favorite “eco” songs. Hell, it’s one of my favorite songs! I wish I could play slide like Eric Bell.
I know you guys like mocking Donovan for claiming to have invented modern music, but here’s a thought for you: maybe some of it is true. He is certainly in Don’t Look Back with Dylan, he really was at Rishikesh with the Beatles and you know what? His own records sold in their millions in the sixties and almost all of those sixties tunes were great, pioneering and influential. It’s true that his career fell off a cliff in the early seventies, but Sutras from 1996 is a wonderful record too. Despite the apparent hubris of modern Donovan (I agree he’s completely risible at times) he’s a genuine nice bloke. I’ve met him and he was friendly, generous and charming.
Young band you say? I saw him in Stratford in 2005 and he introduced the drummer as Rat Scabies. Blimey – it was!
Alan Price was in Don’t Look Back also and as we all know, Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear is solely responsible for kick starting the animal rights movement. Even though he didn’t actually write it.
John Renbourn & Dorris Henderson were also in it, in the hotel scene, and were, of course, solely responsible for the success of Patrick Moore, Brian Cox and all modern astronomers with their album ‘Watch the Stars’. Similarly, future Jethro Tull manager is in the film (as a nerdy newspaper reporter) – so Donovan essentially invented Jethro Tull. 🙂
I remember my surprise at seeing John Renbourn mooching about in the background of that hotel room scene in the film. I had just been getting into his music so it was a bit surreal to suddenly see him looking *slightly* drunk and wasted, having accidentally wandered into a Bob Dylan movie.
I always read the playful Donovan criticism on these pages as being just ever so slightly in jest! I think he truly was a great talent, but with a self-inflated image that doesn’t seem to be aware of the limits of that talent.
Barabajagal is still one of my favourite songs. It truly rocks and is truly funky.
That’s because Don also invented Jeff Beck.
Really don’t understand why Donovan gets such a kicking on here. One of the first singles I ever bought was “Sunshine Superman”. What’s there not to like ?
Agreed! Brilliant song!
Isn’t it just that his er, over enthusiastic self promotion is sometimes so thickly plastered on that it invokes chuckles of amused disbelief in the reader or listener? And as a result he gets a sound ribbing. None of which necessarily affects the ribbers’ own enjoyment or appreciation of his profoundly brilliant canon of work. I’ve got a deep pile of his stuff here, from a lovely original boxed set of the “Gift…” vinyl, original Hallmark compilation albums and a Golden Hour right through to CDs of all the early (now EMI) albums and the 70’s stuff about Intergalactive Laxatives and whatnot and on into the recent resurgent releases. But I still think he deserves the odd ribbing for his over-the-top autobiographical historical revisionism!
See also: Dave Clark with his “Beatles, Stones, DC5… and some others”
He may have been in Rishikesh, but his claim to have taught the Beatles finger picking is ridiculous. One of George’s major influences was Chet Atkins, whose style of playing was…
I didn’t say “young band” I was quoting the on-line blurb. Unfortunately the italics don’t show on the main page, but they do (above) on the reply page.
I think John admitted Donovan helped him out with his technique.
Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my DONkey?
Very good 😀
I don’t think it’s that ridiculous. He was talking about Lennon. McCartney has corroborated that and added that it was harder to learn left handed. There were only acoustic instruments at Rishikesh, so the acoustic songs on The Beatles were influenced by that at least.
The point about “young bands” was that Donovan chooses his bands well and they are likely to be very good musicians. Also, “young” compared to Donovan does not mean teenagers.
I agree. Sorry Carl, I think you are mistaken here!
Ian Macdonald is good on this subject – the sudden appearance (in Lennon most prominently) of a rudimentary “folk” picking technique after Rishikesh is definitely noticeable. There’s no doubt that Donovan showed him a “new thing” to do with his guitar that unlocked a stream of songs for the white album. Lennon was a strummer before that.
The “unlocking” also had something to do with Lennon not tripping on LSD around the clock for the first time in 18 or so months.
MacDonald was also perceptive in noticing the Beatles’ obsession with arpeggios from 1968 on (Dear Prudence to I Want You et al.). I remain convinced that John McLaughlin’s ‘Mahavishnu arpeggios’ approach – a whole new style of music largely based on unresolving cycles of colossal, unusual strings of arpeggiated chords in berserk time signatures – was derived directly from late-period Beatles, of whom he was a big fan.
Careful, you nearly got me interested in the Mahavishnu Orchestra there….
😀
….and who really wrote Bungalow Bill and Mother Nature’s Son, both early Eco-songs?
You’re forgetting ‘Across the Universe’ and the album it originally appeared on. Bruce Forsythe… Lulu… er, Rolf Harris… nope, no sign of Don, there…
https://www.discogs.com/Various-No-Ones-Gonna-Change-Our-World/release/1128399
Note the release date, December 1969. When it was recorded in Feb 1968, it had nothing to do with climate change. Add a few noises of swans flapping about and it becomes an Eco anthem.
Hanging on to the Golden Age by its fingertips (released in December 1970), DONOVAN’s Celia of the Seals supported the stand model Celia Hammond made against modelling fur.
Pretty ahead of its time, I’d say, and John and Yoko certainly weren’t doing that.
As a rule I think any Golden Ager should be written in capitals and non Golden Agers in lower case.
DYLAN, HENDRIX, strummer, morrissey, madonna, DONOVAN etc.
It would make it easier to access the good stuff.
Careful now.