| CD REVIEW Donovan |
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Band : Donovan There's a good chance that, if you belong to the younger generation of music fans, you've never even heard of Glasgow born travelling troubadour/ poet Donovan (full name Donovan Leitch). Yet in his most influencial time (the sixties and much of the seventies) he was equally as important to Pop music as the likes of Bob Dylan (to whom he was compared a lot by music journalists, something which was refuted by Folk queen Joan Baez, who stated that although there might be similarities, Donovan was very much a personality of his own, and certainly not a copy-cat) and The Beatles (who were an early influence, as well as his poetry reading father and literally hundreds of Folk artists). He wrote such hit songs as "Sunshine Superman", "Colours", "Jennifer Jupiter", and "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (later covered by several artists who did equally as well with the song saleswize). Although in essence a Folk musican and traveller (in his beginning years he even hit the road on his own, accompanied only by his friend and companion Gypsy Dave), the recordings would contain a full band's backing, including electrified guitar (as you may remember, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" even had some sitar played in it). Along the way he made friends with The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones (which indirectly resulted in Donovan's appearances on the Ready Steady Go! television show), Dylan and The Beatles (with whom he travelled to India to spend time with the Maharishi Maresh Yogi, from whom he learned the subtle art of trancendental meditation).Donovan's style of protest songs kinda died out with the coming of Punk music, and so the artists' popularity waned. He still released an album now and again, but his days of glory were somewhat gone. From playing in big arenas Donovan saw his audiences shrink ever more, and eventually took the decision to start travelling the smaller clubs again. In later years however, people from all walks have been re-discovering Donovan, and he's even been given the Maharishi Award for his work in the field of transcendental meditation (along with renowned movie director David Lynch, Donovan and his wife & muse Linda have never stopped propagating the benefits of meditation) and in 2003 he was given a doctorate in letters by Hertfordshire University. In 2007 Donovan announced that he would build The Invincible Donovan University For Conciousness Based Education And The Arts in his native Scotland. I have to say that, originally the editor-in-chief hadn't even planned to let me do this review...but that was counting without the awareness of yours truly about the musical background (amongst others) of this Dr. Leitch! And the review may have been delayed by the fact that there were so many other releases needing my attention, but I can honestly say I've now seen the whole DVD package thrice! And that's not a small thing, as the two discs together last a small 5 ½ hours. Disc one contains a documentary with Donovan himself telling his tale...from the very beginnings to current day, touching on several details which are far better explained than in the story I've given above. On disc two you'll find full-length versions of parts (which were edited to the bare essentials) which were filmed for the documentary. You'll also find full versions of the tv appearances used in the documentary, as well as the music videos and concert footage. Additionally, there's video recoded footage of 4 unreleased songs, and a section labelled as "The Private Donovan", containing some really interesting footage, and closing off with a slide show of pictures from Donovan's personal Family Album. To conclude, this document is a tribute to a truly great artist...and a wonderful individual who's had an incredible impact on the whole Flower Power movement (he never liked being called a "Hippie" though), a troubadour who used poetic lyrics and his notion of Transcendental Meditation to make truly compellingly attractive songs. And if you're at all interested in musical history, you would be wrong to exclude Donovan from your music collection. And...once you've seen this DVD, you'll probably agree! Tony. |