DONOVAN...

...was a Scotsman. From the land of Scotland.

With his penchant for vague protest tunes and poetic folk songs, he was sometimes regarded as Dylan lite. Too, his haphazard harmonica playing and unremarkable acoustic strumming were good but not great and certainly lent to the characterization. Pigeonholing an artist though, is an impossible task, and Donovan defied categorization by finding inspiration in world music, rock and jazz, as well as folk. As the 1960s wore on and, perhaps due to the types of chemical stimuli favored by hip young artists, he started mixing ingredients and getting psychedelic, man. Reflecting these influences are tracks like “Season of the Witch” and “Atlantis,” among others, that flow and breathe with a living quality and make use of an array of unusual instruments and strange effects. The harpsichord, compressed reverb (which were fairly typical in the freak-folk scene of that day) and lyrical content on “Epistle to Dippy” are particularly far out. I always liked “Hurdy Gurdy Man” with its dark and stony sound. It’s a creepy song and it’s been used well in films to convey a sense of tense uncertainty and/or impending turmoil. At one point, the crunchy guitar resounds in a manner consistent with a sitar and at another, it thrashes chaotically in a mire of fuzzy distortion (listen closely at 2:03--probably the heaviest 40 seconds in his entire catalog) while the vocal echoes as if it was recorded close-up with a super-sensitive mic in a dank cave. The song is eerie and unsettling, almost like a bad dream. And like a bad dream, it sticks with you long after ending.

LISTEN TO WEAR YOUR LOVE LIKE HEAVEN