History Music / Donovan

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* LongTitle: "In an Old-Fashioned Picture Book", "The Lay of the Last Tinker", "Voyage Into the Golden Screen", "Legend of a Girl Child Linda", "The Sun Is a Very Magic Fellow", "The Land of Doesn't-Have-to-Be"... the list goes on. The majority of these examples are from the ''A Gift from a Flower to a Garden'' album, too.

* ShoutOut: Apart from the titular reference to Cass Elliott as discussed previously, Donovan name-drops Music/JeffersonAirplane in "The Fat Angel". They were a relatively obscure act at the time, so you've gotta figure the ColbertBump must have been in effect.

->''Franchise/{{Superman}} or Franchise/GreenLantern ain't got nothing on me.''
--> -- "Sunshine Superman"

Donovan continued to release seminal works throughout the '60s – eventually returning to his more humble musical roots as psychedelia grew farther and farther away from his own sensibilities – in his own unique style, exploring genres such as jazz, blues, and calypso along the way. Notably, he was part of the famed group of artists that traveled to India to learn transcendental meditation from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; among them all four [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]], Prudence Farrow, and Mike Love of Music/TheBeachBoys. During his stay, Donovan would pass on his finger-picking style to Music/PaulMcCartney and Music/JohnLennon, which the two used to write songs that would end up on what would be known as ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''.

Come the wane of the flower power movement at the close of the '60s did Donovan's own popularity share much the same fate, his chart success gradually dwindling until the mid-'70s when he stopped charting altogether. He would--and still does--retain a sizeable following and status as an EnsembleDarkhorse cult hero, continuing to tour the world and experimenting with new songs, ideas, and sounds. His autobiography ''The Hurdy-Gurdy Man'' reveals the path of his life and art in intriguing detail.

As of 2020, he and his wife Linda have begun a project called ''[[http://donovan.ie/product/eco-song/ Eco-Song]]'', dedicated to environmental activist Greta Thunberg and the [[https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/ Fridays For Future]] movement. It's a collection of 21 songs on this subject from across his career; and it will also be a stage musical, to be performed by children and young adults worldwide.

Donovan became an overnight sensation after a fateful appearance on ''Ready, Steady, Go!'', scoring an early hit with "Catch the Wind". He was quickly deemed by the media a Music/BobDylan copycat on account of the many similarities "Catch the Wind" had to Dylan's songs of the period such as "Blowin' in the Wind". They had, in fact, both drawn inspiration from traditional Irish balladry; Dylan himself, as well as Music/JoanBaez, came to Donovan's defense, but unfortunately, he seems unable to [[NeverLiveItDown ever live it down]]. Perhaps spurred on by this snag on his path, Donovan reinvented himself [[NewSoundAlbum for the first time]] with his 1966 album ''Sunshine Superman'', codifying (if not serving as the {{Trope Maker|s}}) parts of the framework of the new-fangled "psychedelic" music that would explode into the mainstream shortly thereafter.

Donovan continued to release seminal works throughout the '60s -- albeit returning to his more humble musical roots as psychedelia grew farther and farther away from his own sensibilities -- in his own unique style, exploring genres such as jazz, blues, and calypso along the way. Notably, he was part of the famed group of artists that traveled to India to learn transcendental meditation from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; among them all four [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]], Prudence Farrow, and Mike Love of Music/TheBeachBoys. During his stay, Donovan would pass on his finger-picking style to Music/PaulMcCartney and Music/JohnLennon, which the two used to write songs that would end up on what would be known as ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''.

Born and raised in the ruins of post-war factory town Edinburgh, as a teenager, Donovan – inspired by the writings of beat poets such as Creator/AllenGinsberg and Creator/JackKerouac, along with books on various Eastern philosophies – left home to live like a Bohemian, together with his HeterosexualLifePartner Gypsy Dave (or "Gyp", for short). Though Donovan's father was a factory lifer, his love of classic English poetry was a large influence on the young Donovan, one that can be heard throughout his discography. As chance would have it, Donovan found his creative muse in music, eventually becoming a skilled guitarist; he was well known for his a distinctive "clawhammer" finger-picking style, taught to him by banjo virtuoso Derroll Adams, whom Donovan idolized.

Born and raised in the ruins of post-war factory town Edinburgh, as a teenager, Donovan – inspired by the writings of beat poets such as Creator/AllenGinsberg and Creator/JackKerouac, along with books on eastern philosophies – left home to live like a Bohemian, together with his HeterosexualLifePartner Gypsy Dave (or "Gyp", for short). Though Donovan's father was a factory lifer, his love of classic English poetry was a large influence on the young Donovan, one that can be heard throughout his discography. As chance would have it, Donovan found his creative muse in music, eventually becoming a skilled guitarist; he was well known for his a distinctive "clawhammer" finger-picking style, taught to him by banjo virtuoso Derroll Adams, whom Donovan idolized.

[[caption-width-right:300:Someone's singing and, oh gosh, we're pretty sure it's him.]]

'''Donovan Philips Leitch''' (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter who, in the mid-to-late [[TheSixties 1960s]], attained worldwide fame as an icon of the burgeoning "flower power" movement, chiefly through songs espousing the virtues of love and altruism. Though a self-professed contemporary bard in the classic sense of the term--most well-known for simple, acoustic balladry on the guitar--Donovan was, and remains, a hugely eclectic artist, making a majority of his albums {{Genre Roulette}}s that experiment to a greater degree than his inexorable public image as a long-haired, tunic-clad "hippie" -- a term that the man himself seems to dismiss to some extent -- would suggest.

Born and raised in the ruins of post-war factory town Edinburgh, as a teenager, Donovan--inspired by the writings of beat poets such as Creator/AllenGinsberg and Creator/JackKerouac, along with books on eastern philosophies--left home to live like a Bohemian, together with his HeterosexualLifePartner Gypsy Dave (or "Gyp", for short). Though Donovan's father was a factory lifer, his love of classic English poetry was a large influence on the young Donovan, one that can be heard throughout his discography. As chance would have it, Donovan found his creative muse in music, eventually becoming a skilled guitarist; he was well known for his a distinctive "clawhammer" finger-picking style, taught to him by banjo virtuoso Derroll Adams, whom Donovan idolized.

* BalefulPolymorph: "Lord of the Reedy River". It's actually unbeknownst how balefully the lady who fell in love with the titular swan views her situation -- she may have (and the song clearly implies) done it herself, in which case it's not baleful at all. The creepy and ominous atmosphere of the song doesn't give off a very comforting vibe, in any case... possibly for the people who "sadly mourn and sigh" over her supposed loss.

* FilkSong: The spoken intro of "Atlantis" is basically a synopsis of Ignatius Donnelly's 1882 book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis:_The_Antediluvian_World Atlantis: The Antediluvian World]]''.

* SongAssociation: "Atlantiis" nowadays is almost always paired up with ''Film/GoodFellas'' whenever it's brought up in online discussions.

* MoodWhiplash: "Little Ben" and "Lord of the Reedy River" break the otherwise child-friendly atmosphere of ''H.M.S. Donovan'' into tiny atoms out of nowhere. If you were trying to use the album to lull your kid to sleep, there is now a chance they may never sleep again... or they'll be fine, but ''[[AdultFear you]]'' might not.

* CoverVersion: Not really a guy for it, parts of ''H.M.S. Donovan'' being a marked exception, as well as "Universal Soldier", written by Buffy Sainte Marie.

* RaisedCatholic: Donovan's mother was one, while his father was a protestant.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: The majority of his catalogue doesn't even register, but he's been known to kick it up to three-four if need be.

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: "Barabajagal".

* AscendedFanboy: To Derroll Adams.

* AndStarring: "Barabajagal" was officially credited to Donovan and The Music/JeffBeck Group, with singer-songwriter Lesley Duncan, and soul songstress Madeline Bell also getting special mention for their involvement.