Skip to main content

Donovan

81
Donovan


Donovan
Epitomizing the flower power movement, Donovan’s trippy musings are redeemable from ‘60s nostalgia not only by his belief that there’s nothing funny about peace, love and understanding, but also by the sheer pop charm of his songs. Coming on as Bob Dylan’s breathlessly sincere Costs twin, Donovan was a quintessential folkie- acoustic guitar, harmonica, story songs, benign rebellion and making him distinctive, a Celtic romanticist. Dewy with hope, confident and ambitious, the title track of Catch the Wind and “Ramblin’ Boy” radiated mythic, wide-eyed yearning. As Dylan had done, Donovan went electric. But if Bob’s work was tough and bluesy, Donovan’s was pop, spun from sassy tunefulness of his mod peers. And it was psychedelic. Indeed, “SunshineSuperman” bounced along as wry, ultrahip manifest, its winking delivering hinting at all manner of illicit pleasure. “Mellow Yellow” (apparently about smoking banana peels) outright broadcasts the theme of blow-your-mind wisdom. With its cover shot of the maharishi and swooning ditties like “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” A Gift From A Flower to a Garden delivered the Donovan persona to the max- a troubadour Saint Francis who filled his lyrics with exotic and blissful poetry. After a string of late-‘60s hits- “Jennifer Juniper,” “HurdyGurdy Man,” and “Barabajagak” (with Jeff Beck)- Donovan’s moment passed. The 70’s gave us: ‘70’s Open Road, ‘73’s Cosmic Wheels, ‘73’s Essence to Essence, '74's 7-Tease, and ‘76’s Slow Down World. Rick Rubin produced an album in the ‘90s, 1996’s Sutras, in an attempt to resurrect his career, have a late-career renaissance, a la Johnny Cash, but it didn’t catch (into a ring of) fire. For those new to Donovan’s music, you can’t go wrong with Sony’s 2004 compilation The Essential Donovan. Donovan was one of the kings of Flower Power… and rightfully so. The music still holds up.
It’s…
Donovan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eels

91 EELS EELS After a couple of song-rich, keyboard-dominated albums released under the Man Called E moniker, Mark Everett morphed into the trio Eels with 1996’s [DreamWorks Records released] Beautiful Freak . At its best, the debut gave a trip-hop twist to the California singer/songwriter tradition; at its worst, it suggests one more bummed-out wise guy’s take on Beck’s collage-style rock. With a sense of humor that skews toward cynicism that’s alleviated occasionally by bouts of sincerity, Everett is not the likeliest subject to make a transcendent album about death. But he nearly pulls it off on 1998’s Electro-Shock Blues . The music is somber but not sedate, with bursts of saxophone, off-kilter orchestration, and outright noise evoking the turbulence beneath the deadpan vocals. The singer battles not only depression but also his penchant for irony, and his struggle to move beyond them makes for a fascinating if sometimes morbidly downcast listen. On 2000’s Daisies of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Björk

28 Björk Björk If Billie Holiday is an American treasure, well, if you were to put that treasure underwater, froze it, thawed it out centuries into the future and doused some acid & baking soda on it, out of that treasure chest would come Björk. Originally gaining fame in her home of Iceland with her band, the Sugarcubes, Björk was bound to break solo & she did just that with 1993's Debut . Following that was 1995's Post , 97's Homogenic , 2001's Vespertine, 2004's  Medúlla , 2007's Volta , 2011's Biophilia  (the first album where I was truly a fan), 2015's Vulnicura and 2017's Utopia . There's a lot to unpack there... you can't skip her first three or four albums, they're all amazing. I like Volta  just because it seems to be the loosest (and most fun) album she has. Vulnicura  was her break up album, with Björk expressing that the album reflects her feelings before and after her breakup and the healing process. Her legacy...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elton John

93 Elton John Elton John The Elton Run is a great road-trip game: Using the radio’s scan and seek buttons, see how long you can keep a continuous streak of Elton hits rolling. It’s been proven possible to follow the Elton Run up I-95 from Virginia all the way to Boston. The hazard: One sixth of your listening will be devoted to “ Your Song ,” Elton’s most overplayed standard even though everybody is over it at this point (Sample lyrics: “If I was a sculptor / But then again, no,” I think we can all agree we don’t need to hear that cheesy line anymore.) But Elton has a staggering number of hits; At least one in the Top 40 every year from 1970 through 1995 (!). With his electric boots and mohair suits, he’s the prima of all donnas, sitting like a princess perched in his electric chair. He entertains by picking brains. He sells his soul by dropping names. And for all his camp flamboyance, he’s aged into the most beloved entertainer on earth. Elton’s got about a million compilatio...
Post a Comment
Read more