Donovan and Dylan were the sound track to my life then. A time of beauty, of innocence, of exploring first love and awakening to the world around me. I feel wistful remembering the person I was back then.
Donovan can't have been fooling around all the time. He must have practiced the guitar a lot because he was a very accomplished guitar and harmonica player.
Here because I'm currently reading 'Hurdy Gurdy Man', Donovan's autobiography. In it he mentions this documentary a few times, so thought I'd best check it out. In the 60s I was still quite young, but because of my sister, who was five years older, the house was full of music. Donovan was, quite literally, the soundtrack of my childhood. For that I am grateful.
@@johnhiley594 Be interested to hear what you made of it. I nearly gave up only a few pages in as I wasn't coping very well with it being written in 'dialect'. I found it better as the English became more standard! He certainly seemed to have been at the forefront of many musical highlights in the 60s.... teaching the Beatles to fingerpick! Pual McCartney sitting in on Donovan's recording sessions..... absorbing ideas!
Wiki: "Public attention was drawn to his marijuana use by the TV documentary A Boy Called Donovan in early 1966, which showed the singer and friends smoking cannabis at a party thrown by the film crew. Donovan's arrest proved to be the first in a long series involving the Beatles and the Rolling Stones."
According to IMDB this was released in January 1966, which means it was filmed in 1965. That makes sense given the music is his early folk stuff, and not the pop-psych songs of Sunshine Superman.
Beautiful poetry here between the gentle songs. A visual and auditory poem about a long-lost time of youth in a country that had free places in it, which the young found.
This is included in the 3 hour video "Sunshine Superman", which was produced by Donovan himself and hosted by him, from his home in Ireland. This is just the start. There's lots more and it's nice and clear, not blurry like this . This is ok, but that will blow your mind.
I loved Donovan’s songs, 1966 was a good year for music, we still had the British bands in the U.S. The Beatles came in 1964 & many British bands followed, loved them all.👍♥️
Missed Donovan as I was only five at the time. Now I discovered him two months ago at sixty! Vaguely recognise these songs, but was into Uriah Heep at twelve! He's really nice and good.
TY for posting. I discovered the phenomenon of Donovan back in 1990 while listening to the Lost Lennon Tapes. I had a chance to meet him in the late '90s at a Beatles fans convention and present him with a copy of my extended version (I penned 2 additional verses) of 'Circus of Sour' on CD.
We like this recording as is, don't change it, thanks RU-vid. Donovan your awareness of the sea your words of soft hues travel into our ears, around our minds, creating thousands of images, We tiny specs in the universe are bigger when you sing. The natural poet. Sincerely a friend.
I don't know anything about what's involved with the process but just curious, is it a relatively easy process to clean up this video to make it clearer and bring it up to a sharp image? I agree it should be done. Can anyone do this that has the right equipment to do it? Or are there copyright restrictions that only the owners of the video can do this?
we see here Donovans initial UK fanbase through the close of 1965, the majority of which he alienated later in 1966 when he bolted record labels and re-signed with US Epic Records (for sunshine superman) abandoning his previous recording contracts. Anything but a legal much less smooth business transition, and Donovan was penalized by the courts forced to forfeit all his sales royalties from his early records
This is really fantastic, but it is quite obvious that the tape is slowed down. D's voice was never that low. It's about a whole step down from the recorded versions.
Not sure on this one. Dylan and Donovan met in London May 8th 1965. This was released Jan 1966. I think this could have been filmed anytime early to mid 1965? Makes sense to be in Cornwall in the summer, and they are camping out so I’m hypothesising summer ‘65, after he met Dylan?! Derroll Adams is here too with the banjo, he too was at the hotel….
@@henrydemonfreid1985 In the filmed meeting , where they both sing a song , Donovan is already a star , so I doubt he still lived as a vagabond . The actual dates of these events are unknown to me .
Definitely. Dylan has the newspaper cutting of Donovan, right? Someone else here is saying this was filmed late 65, which makes it after the meeting…. It’ll always be a mystery… Both legends. Both doing something different from each other. Love Don - I tuned his guitar and handed it to him once!
@@jameskennedy721 I've uncovered some more info! My Dad as a great book called "Folk In Cornwall" and there are a couple of Donovan-heavy chapters. The book reckons it was filmed late '65, that there was an actual film crew, and that all the extras got paid 3 bob a day... The mackerel and the tin foil had to be brought in from another town... Amazing to think Don is 18/19 years old here!
Did you know this was located in Russia? It was bought by USSR state TV in 1966 from Rediffusion (they had a cultural agreement to swap shows) and this is the reason it exists! It was disposed of after Rediffusion merged into Thames TV. The reason the title card and end credits do not exist is because they were not used in the USSR. While the Politburo had no time for pop music per se, Donovan was seen as an anti-capitalist who wrote folk songs....
Wow, I have just seen this for the first time but the soundtrack covers 100% of the early Donovan songs I love! I'm also a fan of Shawn Phillips - too bad about his uncle.. (don't google David Atlee Phillips CIA JFK). Oh and the tape is running too slow
❤️ I still want to pass on these sentiments. I so want to help, please give me a job I can do, to help keep passing it on. This is so ace, I will follow.
Hi! Can someone help me finding a Donovan's lost radio session tape that was here on y.t? I can’t remember the name of the radio station. It was recorded in real time and you can hear a false start of a song because he started it in the wrong tune…can’t remember which one…It was great and Donovan played songs such as: Josie, Catch the wind, Colours, To sing for you, Why do you treat me like you do…I think it was recorder on 1965/1966 or earlier. I think it has been removed from y.t.. I’d like to know if there’s a way to have that record.Thanks so much!
@@novalogics5391 thanks for the reply! I think it might have been published as an album: "Donovan - Radio Sessions 1965" (release date: 2019). However, I haven't had the chance to listen that album yet so I can't say this for sure.
If only Donovan hadn't smoked. Same for Ian Anderson, Joni Mitchell and probably other greats. And I guess he and Gyp were lovers, right? Sure seems so.
