Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 86

Record label: Pye

Produced: Mickie Most

Recorded: Hollywood and London; 1965 (title track) and summer 1966

Released: June 1967 (UK) September 1966 (US)

Chart peaks: (UK) 25 (US) 11

Personnel: Donovan (v, g); Eric Ford (g); Jimmy Page (g); Bobby Rae (b); Spike Healey (b); Shaun Phillips (sitar); Bobby Orr (d); Fast Eddie Hoh (d); Tony Carr (pc); John Cameron (k, ar); Harold McNair (flute); Danny Thompson (db)

Track listing: Sunshine Superman (S); Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; The Observation; Guinevere; Celeste; Writer In The Sun; Season Of The Witch; Hampstead Incident; Sand Of Foam; Young Girl Blues; Three Kingfishers; Bert’s Blues

Running time: 49.00 (UK) 41.22 (US)

Current CD: EMI 8735662 tracklisting runs: Sunshine Superman; Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; Three Kingfishers; Ferris Wheel; Bert’s Blues; Season Of The Witch; The Trip; Guinevere; The Fat Angel; Celeste; Breezes Of Patchulie; Museum (First Version); Superlungs (First Version); The Land That Doesn’t Have To Be; Sunshine Superman; Goo Trip (Demo – Mono); House Of Jansch (Demo – Version)

Further listening: Mellow Yellow (1967); A Gift From A Flower To A Garden (1967); Barabajagal (1969)

Further reading: www.sabotage.demon.co.uk/ donovan (fan site); www.donovan.ie

Download: iTunes; HMV Digital

Dismissed first as a Dylan imitator and then as a cosmic buffoon, Donovan Philip Leitch was nevertheless a bit of a trailblazer: the first pop star to be busted for drugs (jumping naked onto a policeman’s back while high on LSD) and one of the first British solo stars to top the US charts – with the title track of this album.

Born in Glasgow, raised in Hatfield, at 18 he was already a seasoned itinerant musician when discovered playing in a St Albans folk club by songwriter Geoff Stevens. A deal was quickly struck with Southern Music and Stevens suggested covering Gale Garnett’s American hit We’ll Sing In The Sunshine. But the teenaged troubadour wanted to record a poem he’d just set to music, Catch The Wind. Stevens alerted Bob Bickford, a scout for Ready Steady Go!, and the unsigned singer was booked for the show in February 1965. ‘Two nights on from sleeping on somebody’s floor I was on national television!’ Donovan wore a denim Breton fisherman’s cap, sat on a stool and made up a song in a Woody Guthrie style, Talking Pop Star Blues, which poked fun at the current acts in the charts. The show was flooded with positive mail and Donovan was quickly booked for the following week.

Catch The Wind was swiftly leased to Pye and by the end of March the song was at Number 4 and the teen magazines were full of advertisements for ‘The Donovan Cap’. An American scout caught Ready Steady Go! and booked him for a slot on Shindig, still only weeks after that support slot in St Albans. Catch The Wind made 23 in the US. A few singles later, he signed up with hit-maker Mickie Most and at the end of 1965 they cut Sunshine Superman and aired it on the short-lived UK TV show A Whole Scene Going. However, legal problems held its release over until September 1966, when its mildly trippy, upbeat blues sound chimed perfectly with the emergent hippy movement and the single sailed to Number 1 in the US and Number 2 in Britain.

This marvellous album was, in fact, released late in the UK and compiled from two American releases, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. Pye omitted three of the American version’s most psychedelic tracks – The Trip (later released on the flip of the Sunshine Superman single), The Fat Angel (a tribute to Cass Elliot which namechecks Jefferson Airplane and was later covered by The Band) and Ferris Wheel.

Whichever edition you hear, however, the album offers a daring musical blend of jazz, folk, rock, raga and Arabic influences, while lyrically exploring a combination of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology, wry social satire and beat poetry.