Born Donovan Leitch in Glasgow, Scotland, the singer/songwriter later christened Donovan has achieved immortality on oldies radio thanks to the popularity of songs like "Mellow Yellow" and "Sunshine Superman." But there's more to Donovan than his greatest hits. First promoted as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, Donovan similarly began as a straightforward modernizer of folk music, achieving virtual overnight UK stardom in 1965 with a series of television appearances that introduced delicate, acoustic tracks like "Catch The Wind" and "Colours." When Dylan zigged in the direction of soul-deep blues, Donovan zagged in the direction of pop, embracing the flower-powered spirit of hippie mysticism that characterized the mid-'60s. Teaming with producer Mickie Most, Donovan put out a series of increasingly eclectic albums that tapped into the psychedelic spirit of the time before turning heavy and apocalyptic as the ‘60s drew to a close.
Often ahead of his time musically, Donovan was also one of the first to be subjected to a public drug bust, and one of the first to embrace Eastern philosophy. He was also among the first rock stars to opt for a more settled-down existence. After fathering two children (actors Ione Skye and Donovan Leitch) with American girlfriend Enid Stulberger, he resumed a relationship with Linda Lawrence—once the girlfriend of Brian Jones—that has continued to this day. Donovan continued to release albums regularly throughout the '70s, then less regularly through the '80s. In the '90s, he released Sutras, a high-profile collaboration with producer Rick Rubin, and last year put out Beat Café, an endearing, low-key tribute to bohemian ideals. Now Donovan is back on tour, having just released the three-CD/one-DVD box set Try For The Sun: The Journey Of Donovan and his entertaining, long-in-the works autobiography The Hurdy Gurdy Man. In the latter, he discusses his early hitchhiking existence with lifelong pal Gypsy Dave, his romance with Linda, hanging out with The Beatles, and the real meaning of "Mellow Yellow." Shortly before embarking on a still-in-progress tour, Donovan spoke to The A.V. Club, expanding on some of these topics while discussing his early days and why he's now decided to step out of his past semi-reclusive existence.
The A.V. Club: You have a reputation for being reclusive. Why put yourself out there again now?
Donovan: You know, I get bored. And, I have to say, I'm very, very grateful my songwriting has buoyed me up all these years, so it's not like I need to come out to work. But I enjoy working when I feel there's a buzz in the air, and the buzz is the 40th anniversary [of my debut], I guess. These last two, three years, I've been asked to complete a book that's been sitting on the shelf for a while, of memoirs and such, and I got enthused to present my music again. The 40th anniversary is kind of like a party. I also feel new music in me, so two and a half years ago I began a project called Beat Café, and that was released last year. It was kind of a preface, an exploration of where the '60s came from. Sony got excited and made a box set, and Random House said, "Is that book ready yet?" [Laughs.] So the book, box, 40th anniversary, and buzz to come out with new music—that's why I'm back.
AVC: What kind of culture shock did you experience when your family moved from Scotland to England?
D: Language was first, because I speak in a different accent. That took a while, but my father had taught me fine phonetics, and he would read poems in different accents, and turn my accent around, so that was easy. The culture shock was the green and the beauty of the southern counties after the grey streets of Glasgow. Twenty minutes away from Glasgow were the Highlands and the wilds of Scotland, but we never went, working class boys and girls.
AVC: So what was your first taste of the bohemian lifestyle?
D: Well, I didn't know until later, but my uncle was quite a famous bohemian in Glasgow, and he played guitar. My father was a kind of a poetic bohemian and he read me poetry. But I didn't see it at first. My first experience of southern bohemia was in the campus of a further education college. In England, we'd leave school at 15 and go on to a college, and I went to further education in a town called Welling Garden City. I fully immersed myself in bohemia there, which included poetry and modern art, jazz, philosophy, social radicalism. My father brought me up to be a socialist. He was a strong union man, and I was brought up in a time of Celtic mysticism and socialism, and I ran into the music of Woody Guthrie, my goodness, at 16. That was it. I saw how the elements could come together. The vision I felt in the poems my father read me, the zeal of the socialism and the rise of the working class out of its industrial slavery, and the presentation of ideas through music. That was 1960 or something, when I heard Woody Guthrie. Then Joan Baez. Then Pete Seeger. Then Miles Davis.
AVC: At a certain point, you shied away from direct political statement. Was it a conscious decision?
D: Well, of course, I joined the march banning the bomb. Me and Joan Baez linked arms with Vanessa Redgrave, and even little Marc Bolan was on the end of the line, I saw in the photograph. And we had marched before I marched with Joan. But it became clear, from my view of what was going on, that there was a more basic problem for human suffering than greed. It was too simple. There had to be something else, and that's when I heard the word "Zen," or saw the word "Zen," in Jack Kerouac's book On the Road. I was fascinated, and that led to reading Alan Watts, Christmas Humphreys, DT Suzuki, and Buddhism. I saw that the actual basic reason for suffering is a misunderstanding, a psychological problem of not understanding that every race on the planet is one—altruism taken to the max. We only hurt ourselves when we blame others. All these started to make sense, and I realized that changing a government was like changing the rider of the same wild horse. So meditation became very important to me, and radicalism and armed revolution didn't seem to be the answer—my father and I heatedly debated that. But meditation suddenly became the tool for great change.
AVC: How did you begin recording?
D: When I was a boy I had a grand big tape recorder, and I made late-night radio shows with glasses of water and funny voices. I just loved radio plays. Later, I was invited to London's Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street, to make some demos by two managers that discovered me. I said, "This is exactly what I want to do," and then I walked into this dingy little publishing house called Southern Music. Up on the wall was Buddy Holly, and as a teen I'd loved Buddy as a singer-songwriter, great artist, wonderful performer, and producer. Then I got to know this publishing company, down in the basement with a 4-track tape recorder in a dingy little room, a couple of great microphones, and I made nine demos at 17 years and a half. These nine recordings have been recently re-discovered, and they're on release on my website, on a CD called Sixty Four. I was playing for about a year and a quarter before I made those demos. I was an overnight success two weeks later on television shows without a record. I actually became successful without a record, singing live like a troubadour on television, and I made a record later. But that's how it started, in a little basement.
AVC: You got tagged early on as Britain's answer to Dylan. Do you think that helped or hurt you, starting out?
D: Well, it actually helped the whole folk invasion of the charts. It was kind of conscious, from Joan Baez on. And, earlier, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. We were trying to get on mass communication and to present songs of meaning and social comment. When [Dylan and I] were linked, it was extraordinary, as my book sort of suggests, that three of us—Joan Baez, me, and Dylan—were in the same spring, in the same country, with records and tours. There was a misunderstanding—of course: It was Guthrie, with the cap and the harmonica, that Dylan and I were copying. And the link was… interesting. Bob and I got on well, and he encouraged me, and the press had a field day. It hasn't left any main problem for me, no.
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