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re: Donovan


rasputin1963

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Count me in as a big Donovan fan!!

 

 

"Hurdy-Gurdy Man" and "Sunshine Superman" still sound so cool to me.

 

I had a friend, though, who had fought as a U.S. Marine in Viet Nam... He could not bear to hear the song "Sunshine Superman", because there had been an actual moment in which he was standing waist-deep in a rice paddy... his transistor radio was playing that song-- and it was at that precise moment that he was unexpectedly shot through the torso by VC fire.

 

To this day, he says, hearing that record throws him right back to that precise moment in 1968. I knew this guy as a club bartender in the 90's, and he very politely asked me not to play that song on our jukebox.

 

 

 

ras :thu:

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Not a reflection on the music but I doubt I've ever seen anyone come across as more up himself in an interview as Donovan on Irish tv a while back. Insufferable adoration of himself. I'd seen an article/interview with him shortly before in The Times and the interviewer had pillored him for those same reasons. The tv one showed exactly why.

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Never been a big Donovan Leitch fan myself, although I will say he can't be all bad. He's the guy who supposedly taught John Lennon how to do the clawhammer fingerpicking pattern. :D

 

As for your friend, I completely understand...and yet I find myself thinking... If I were on patrol in a rice paddy in a VC infested area, I'd be keeping as low a profile as possible, and I certainly wouldn't have a transistor radio on... :eek:...unless I was to hang it from a tree and then try and sneak around on his flank while he was following the music to try to find me.

 

"Hey Charlie...over here, we're coming, dude!"

 

But that's all water under the bridge, now...and glad he made it back to tell the tale!

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Originally posted by bluesway

i don't love him, but his whole persona was cool, right? just some chillin' hippie who hung out with all the stars and lived the life. i dig that

 

 

I think you'd need to know a bit more about someone to judge him cool or not. As I said the greatest tit I've ever seen in an interview, anxious to be viewed as a legend.

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I recently heard these songs on a new retro-oriented radio station in my area and was surprised by how good they sounded. I wasnt a big fan of his in the day ( too folkie - I was into Jeff Beck and Hendrix type stuff).

 

I seemed to like the tunes much better now then I did then.

 

Why doesnt anyone use tremelo anymore?

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Mrs. BP bought us tickets to a Donovan gig when he came to our home town a while back. I was a life long fan and was delighted beyond reason. When the guy came on stage he was so drunk or stoned that he could only barely stand up - never mind entertain an audience. He stumbled his way through a few of his hits and went into long meandering sililoquies about nothing much between songs. When he shuffled off for a break I went outside to find the promoter trying to deal with a very angry crowd indeed. After the break most of the audience had gone, leaving himself to perform to a very small crowd indeed - old hippies like me who hung on to the bitter embarrasing end. A disgusting way to treat your audience. I've seen children falling off bicycles looking more professional. All Mrs. BP could say was "You should never meet your heroes."

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Originally posted by blackpig

Mrs. BP bought us tickets to a Donovan gig when he came to our home town a while back. I was a life long fan and was delighted beyond reason. When the guy came on stage he was so drunk or stoned that he could only barely stand up - never mind entertain an audience. He stumbled his way through a few of his hits and went into long meandering sililoquies about nothing much between songs. When he shuffled off for a break I went outside to find the promoter trying to deal with a very angry crowd indeed. After the break most of the audience had gone, leaving himself to perform to a very small crowd indeed - old hippies like me who hung on to the bitter embarrasing end. A disgusting way to treat your audience. I've seen children falling off bicycles looking more professional. All Mrs. BP could say was "You should never meet your heroes."

 

Makes me glad I don't go to his concert. :cry:

 

I've heard him live on the air here, and he sounded great. Probably was on his best behavior though.

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There have been tons of stories of stars performing in varying degrees of sobriety... Grace Slick, certainly Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, country star George Jones, and a ton of others. George Jones missed a lot of gigs 'cuz he was too drunk to perform. Grace Slick just hollered embarrassing things out from the stage and got booed off. Point being that many stars have had to crash before they got back up again. And it's good to hear when they do get back on their feet and start turning out good performances again. ;)

 

But sadly, some never do.

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My recent appreciation of him elsewhere was based on his 60s and early 70s work. I haven't seen or heard him perform or give interviews since back then. And sounds like I might not go out of my way to do so.

 

That said, I, too, appreciate him a lot more now than at any time since I first started hearing him around '66 or so.

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Originally posted by Ed A.

I saw Donovan open for Yes once. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much of him before I saw him perform, but he won me over. He wasn't bad at all.

 

 

I saw the Eagles and Edgar Winter (in that order) open for Yes... Donovan and Yes is considerably less the culture mash... (Actually, someone else was in between the Eagles and Winter... I'm thinking it was someone I had little use for, like Black Pearl or something. At least Black Pearl and Winter appealed to the same audience. Weird damn show. Absolutely no one but me and one or two other people in my party paid the slightest attention to the Eagles who were unknown by most rockers at the time, just another country rock band downstream of the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.)

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Originally posted by Tedster

There have been tons of stories of stars performing in varying degrees of sobriety.

 

 

Plus, the grandaddy of 'em all -- Hank Williams. I've read two books about him recently and it is astonishing how much of a drunk he was. I had heard stories locally, people who personally knew him when he was on the Louisiana Hayride and the books back up those stories and then some. He became a sot when he was like 11 years old. And then spent the next 18 perfecting the technique. Pitiful, actually. Add in back pain and two mean bitches, ya got a drunk.

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Originally posted by Ed A.

I saw Donovan open for Yes once. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much of him before I saw him perform, but he won me over. He wasn't bad at all.

 

 

 

I saw the same line up somewhere in the 70's. Had seen Yes before but not Donovan. He blew me away as I only knew a couple of his songs before then.

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Originally posted by blackpig

Donovan has a fine new(ish) album out called Beat Cafe. I just wonder how someone so legless on stage can cut it in the disciplined atmosphere of the studio.

 

 

I heard cuts from it, it sounds good. His voice is strong, and still has his trademark vibrato, which is what based my initial post from. So I dunno.

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