I have loved Donovan’s music ever since I first heard "Colours" and "Catch The Wind" so many years ago. This may not be fashionable amongst all you metal heads out there. But he was a truly gifted writer and a major influence on the psychedelic music of the 60s. I have left the interview pretty much intact and that means leaving in all of his misspells and strange punctuation and even the multiple spaces between words (thought I think that’s more to do with formatting than anything else). I believe it truly lends a charm and honesty to the piece. And I have also left my questions in the same wording as they were sent to the singer.
Unfortunately, he was too busy or otherwise occupied to do a phoner, so this email interview was about as close as I can get. If you’ve read his book,
The Autobiography Of Donovan: The Hurdy Gurdy Man, you may have come across brief mention of his work with guitarists like
Jeff Beck and
Jimmy Page. But here he’s revealed as much information as he ever has on working with these musicians as well as the other subjects I asked him about.
I’ve included my message to him and then his response with the returned interview.
"(Dear Donovan: How are you? I truly appreciate your time in answering my questions. This is for a guitar-oriented website and that’s why the questions are aimed at the various guitarists with whom you worked. I know some of this is covered in your book [which I read] but please give me all the details you can on these various individuals and events. Thank you … Steven Rosen)"
His response: Dear Dorothy please pass to Steven
Hi Steven
Heers the piece ...I think it works
What do you say?
See attachment
Donovan
UG: Memories of working with: Jimmy Page. What was it like working with Jimmy in the studio? Was Jimmy easygoing or did he have specific ideas for the songs? Worked with Jimmy on "Sunshine Superman" and "Hurdy Gurdy Man?" Please talk in detail about these experiences.
Donovan: I am honoured to have had Jimmy on my tracks, and he says he enjoyed them too. Those days we recorded 3 songs 3 hours and an album in a week. All the ‘takes’ were essentially ‘live’, and that’s the feeling. Jimmy came in and was very quiet, one of the session guys. I wasn’t a band as such and the parts were written for the players on Sunshine Superman. John Cameron arranged from my ideas so I guess Jimmy followed the parts written and brought his own magic to the playing. Jimmy and I didn’t socialize after the sessions. Only later did I sit and chat with Jimmy, down the road when we both lived in Windsor.
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| "I envisoned this album in late 1965 and heard a fusion of world music, harpsichords, sitars, latin, celtic." |
Memories of working with Jeff Beck on "Barabajagal." What was Jeff like? Did Jeff come up with the riff for the song? Did you show him the arrangement? Do you remember any interaction with Ronnie Wood or Micky Waller? Didn’t Jeff also play on another song?
When Mickie Most my producer heard the song on my acoustic guitar he suggested Becks band, as Mickie was recording Beckola at the time. He said he wouldn’t play anything to the band who were off for a few days from the road. I walked into (probably Advision Studios) and the drummer Mickie Waller was tuning up his kit. A great drummer just passed this year and missed from the Pantheon of Great Musicians of Britatin. He was tuning his kit to a pattern that was right on for Barabajagal and I said "So you’ve heard the song?" "I ‘avnt ‘eard a bloody thing" was Mckies reply.
So I said to myself, that’s a good omen. Mickie Most had laid out the Hor Derves! and wine, then nicky Hopkins came in next, thin in a black suit, with a pallor like a wraith., sat at the piano,opened a SILVER SURFER comic and stared at it. Most said "Play Nicky the chords" I played them, all two of them, and Nicky listened for 30 secs and said "Okay gott-em"
Then Madeline Bell and Leslie Duncan strolled in, the two hottest back-up girls in town. I sang them the chorus and they "Gott it"
Woody next, the likely lad in his jeans and thatch of hair, and widest smile in ShowBiz.He got the chords too. All two of them.
We were ready, only one thing missing, lead guitar.
Then Jeff strolled in and we all were silent as Jeff took a seat and said nothing either. Mickie, the captain of this very odd mixture of Donovan and The Jeff Beck Band, said, "Okay Jeff, get your guitar out and Don will show you the song." Jeff looked around vaguely, left and right, asked "Where is my bloody guitar?"
It had been locked up in the van for the next gig. Well, what to do, asked Mickie Most. Jeff said "Just get any Fender Strat from the renta company." And when that company heard, they sent the best in town.
Did Jeff invent the riff?
Sure did! And we recorded this most unusual Donovan single to date, in 3 takes I recall, live all the way. Jeff and I met again recently at Nigel Kennedys new album launch ("A really Nice Album") at The Jazz Cafe Camden. Tanks Jeff and the boys and especially Mickie Waller who drove "Barabajagal" lke a wild train down the Analog Highway into Rock History.
Memories of working with John Paul Jones. Was he cool? Did you get along with him?
Was he cool?Yes/ Did we get on? Maybe not at first, on Mellow Yellow session which he scored for horns. John listened close to my "vamping" guitar on this song, tuned down and very New Orleans. In the studio were the hottest Horn Guys in London. The track was cut and I felt it ws too brash from the horns, too "stripper" in its sound, Mickie Most always checked my re-action. He took me aside. "Whats wrong with it" "I cant quite tell yet"
John knew I was not yet pleased, daggers at each other for some minutes until the least important horn player in the band said "I know what Don means" All turned to look at him as if to say, what can he tell us? "Don means we have to put the ‘Hats’ on" Mickie Most said, what are the bloddy ‘Hats’? The lead horn player said "The Mutes Mickie". And then the horn band went back down to the studio and put the mutes on, which were like little metal bowler hats (like Acker Bilk wore). And when John and Mickie and I sat in the control room and heard the "mellow" sound come out of the speakers, we all smiled, me the biggest smile. And Mellow Yellow was truly mellow then. JohnPaul Johns is a master, so is Mickie and I just need to make the horns as mellifeous as my vocal on this one.
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| "Sunshine Superman eventually was released and only now known as the breakthrough experimental album." |
Memories in general of "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" session. How did John Bonham come to play drums on the track (he was not a session musician, was he)? Do you remember if Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones and John Bonham ever talked with one another during the session? Also, how did you know Allan Holdsworth? What exact guitar parts did Allan play and did Jimmy play? You originally wanted to use Jimi on the track. How did he react when you told him that?
This story I have told too many times and I now cant anymore. But yes Hendrix was my first choice to send this song too, for him to record. That’s all I can say about this track anymore.
Memories of Mickie Most – was Mickie a key piece in your creative profile? Was Mickie a truly musical guy?
Mickie was a great talent and loved making records He enthused one in the studio. His ears were tuned to the right kind of sound for his artists. Mickie said that his great achevemnet as a producer was working with me. And yes I also learned so much from him. When we met I knew we would be perfect and when he brought in John Cameron arranger, the trio was set to create the first experimental album of the Sixties, Sunshine Superman. This album now recognized as being before Pepper and Pet Sounds.I envisoned this album in late 1965 and heard a fusion of world music, harpsichords, sitars, latin, celtic. Jazz and classical, un heard of before. And the lyrics of poetry which preceded the new wave of bohemian psychodelia to come, all blended skillfully with Mickie,John Cameron and I.When it was finished Mickie said "Don’t play this to McCartney"
Of course I did, as we songmakers always want to impress our peers. The masterpiece was shelved until August of 1966 due to Law Suits brought on by Alan Klein taking me from Pye to Clive Davis of Epic Columbia USA. And when I was the first Drug Bust that year of 66 it looked bleak for a release. Sunshine Superman eventually was released and only now known as the breakthrough experimental album, before Pepper and Pet Sounds.
And as Spector said recently of his own work in comparision with Pet Sounds (which had drawn so much influence from Phils records), My Sunshine Superman album was made in real time, whereas The Beatles and The Beach Boys used multi edits to achieve the great sweep of sound - scapes that I achieved with Most and Cameron, in real time, as did Spector on his records. That’s what Mickie Most means to me, a master co-worker and Cameron the Master arranger and sound - painter of my poetic scenes in the songs. Marvelous. Take a bow Mickie and John, and I take one too. The dates of this albums completion prove its a first!
Please give me 25 words on conceiving/writing/recording the following songs: (Did you work on melodies for a long time or did they just come? Did you mess around with different chord progressions for finding the perfect chorus?)
"Epistle To Dippy": Tuned down in the early raja-rock tuning. Song for a school chum Dippy, our comic in our foursome of school chums.easy to write as it was all in the tuning. Recording was incredible with Most choosing it for the next single, and Cameron scoring it in mad quartet chunks and chopping drums parts, very modern classical. Favorite line in the song that Jim Morrison loved
"Elevator In The Brain Hotel": No need to worry about chord progressions on this one there were only two I think.
"Jennifer Juniper": I pass on this one.
"Atlantis": I read of Atlantis and knew it to be same as many Lost Continent tales from Ireland to Polynesia. Wrote a long poem. Now in studio figured out a chorus and recorded the poem first with effects Gabriel Meckler, producer friend helped, as I stroked a Duck Quill on the piano strings. Then the hot chorus kicked in as I ended the poem, and Atlantis Rose from the waves and was born. Jummy the engineer played the guitar solo, boots up on the control desk and his start plugged in to the board. Easy to find the chords, stately progression like an anthem for the Lost Wisdom of The Ages, that Atlantis and all lost worlds represent for me. And finally the Ocean Within ‘Where I Wanna Be “ is the Ocean of Bliss that I had recently been introduced too, safely, by Maharishi my teacher, when he gifted me my Manta!
"There Is a Mountain": London and the SKA Clubs and Carribean Family gatherings where I heard the "Sound" mon of early reggae and Calypso, and then I would try the rythyms of the Carib Boys who played that stuff..got one..and it was a kinda Barbados "scratch" thing on me guitar..then it was me putting Zen Haiku poems to it with Derrol Adams giving me the phrases from the Japonese..into the studio and Harold Mc Nair (Little G they called him in Jamaica where he come from Mon.. what a counter riff he wrote for this track …mmmm.. Natty Little G..Natty.. Tony "The Maltese Falcon" Carr on the congas and Danny Thompson on Bass and we had it. raw and wild and cool to the max. Little Steveie Wonder extatic about it in Melody Maker..one chord change and that’s it..
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| "I spent more musical, social, spiritual time with this band than any of their contempories." |
Your most memorable live performance: where was it/why was it so profound? Songs you performed?
1)Lost are memorable …Madison Square Gardens, sold out as solo …broke the box office record for solo guy on stage.. oh yeah just me an the guitar!
2)Another Royal Albert Hall first 1965 with the John Vcameron Orchestra, The Beatles in the Box above and the new sound I making of the Sunshine Superman album, on stage for the first time, amazing my Peers and the whole industry …yeah mon!
Quick overview about hanging out with the Beatles/Stones/Hendrix (your favorite Beatles/Stones/Hendrix songs)
Nothing quick could describe it, but I knew I had to meet with the four guys from Liverpool and we got on very good. Not until Martin Lewis told me did I realize I spent more musical, social, spiritual time with this band than any of their contempories. We shared a highly skilled talent for songwriting and the path that searched for some sanity in a sick and lost world. Our songs reflect it. Never spent that much time with Stones, though I thank Brian Jones, the inventor of The Rolling Stones, who helped me on to Ready Steady Go TV Show in 1965. I raised his song with Linda. Jimmy Hendrix and I met in 1967, I was the first with gypsy Dave to welcome him of the plane and into London. Chas Chandler has asked Gypsy to come to the airport to pick Jimmy up and bring him to a rotten little Hotel in Bayswater where Gyp and I were staying after we fled our flat that was busted. Chas put Jimi with Noel and Mitch and said we should come to The Bag Of Nails club.The whole of London music scene was there and when Jimi and Noel and Mitch ripped into the first number. All our mouth fell open and the rest is history.
I completed Hurdy Gurdy Man song and thought of Jimi, that he should record it. Mickie Most said no its my next single. Hendrix I then wanted on the track, but that didn’t gell. The rest is History!
Why were the 60s in England so amazing music-wise? Was there a feeling that the war was over and there was this new future coming?
The Great Renaissance of The Sixties happened like the one in Europe in 1400’s on. An amazing amount of hidden wisdom and joy became available and enlightened the nations. An amazing amount of Bohemian Ideas from British Artschools, jazz Clubs, Blues Clubs, Folk Clubs and Coffee House scenes invaded Popular Culture and took over a sleeping nation. The war was over and cheap little 45 RPM discs were available to millions of Baby Booms Kids. This deceptively harmless little piece of plastic was to open the door to the Great Wave of Music held back in Bohemia for so long. There was a mission in Bohemian Circles to bring Poetry back to popular song and with it,meaningful lyrics,to speak of Civil Rights, The Protest Movement, Feminism, Ecology, Literature, Philosophy, Spirituallity and shine a great light on the Dark World of Greed and Suffering that threatened to destroy the World with the Nuclear Bomb. This was the release of the amazing amount of music which sang out the song of freedom and sanity. When the world cries in pain, the Poets amd musicians sing out and the youth responds! Only now 40 years on are government taking action on these bohemian Ideas which are now seen as common sense.
What is your favorite song that you ever wrote? Why?
Too many to choose but lets try, The Hurdy Gurdy Man. As it is that call to freedom. The Hurdy Gurdy Man is the one who is the Herald that brings the message of Freedom from Suffering. I completed this song in India when The Beatles and I were studying with Maharishi. We had searched the books The Beatles and I and realized that meditation was it and we needed a Guru to teach us.Not a religeon, but a simple technique to find that ancient secret place within each of us, which can heal the world. And we found it and now I pass it on.Check out The David Lynch Foundation to see David, my wife Linda and I in action, bringing meditation to students all over the world with amazing results! Here comes the Hurdy Gurdy Man singing songs of love.
Interview by Steven Rosen
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