
Donovan
Donovan can be booked through this site. Donovan entertainment booking site. Donovan
is available for public concerts and events. Donovan can be booked for
private events and Donovan can be booked for corporate events and
meetings through this Donovan booking page.
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up the performance or appearance fee for Donovan, we act as YOUR agent in
securing Donovan at the best possible price. We go over the rider for
Donovan and work directly with Donovan or the responsible agent for
Donovan to secure the talent for your event. We become YOUR agent,
representing YOU, the buyer.
In fact, in most cases we can negotiate for
the acquisition of Donovan for international dates and newer promoters
providing you meet professional requirements.
Donovan Biography
Upon his emergence during the mid-'60s, Donovan was anointed
Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, a facile but largely unfounded
comparison which compromised the Scottish folk-pop troubadour's own
unique vision. Where the thrust of Dylan's music remains its bleak
introspection and bitter realism, Donovan fully embraced the wide-eyed
optimism of the flower-power movement, his ethereal, ornate songs
radiating a mystical beauty and childlike wonder; for better or worse,
his recordings remain quintessential artifacts of the psychedelic era,
capturing the peace-and-love idealism of their time to perfection.
Donovan Leitch was born May 10, 1946 in Glasgow and raised outside of
London; at 18 he recorded his first demo, and in 1965 was tapped as a
regular on the television pop showcase Ready, Steady, Go! He soon
issued his debut single Catch the Wind, earning the first round of
Dylan comparisons with his ramshackle folk sound and ragamuffin look;
the single nevertheless reached the UK Top Five, with a subsequent
meeting between the two singer/songwriters captured in the classic D.A.
Pennebaker documentary Don't Look Back.
Donovan's follow-up single, Colours, was also a hit, and after making
his American debut at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he issued
Fairytale, his second and last LP for the Hickory label. Signing with
Epic in 1966, he released his breakthrough album, Sunshine Superman,
which in its exotic arrangements and pointedly psychedelic lyrical
outlook heralded a major shift from his previous work; the title track
topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, with the enigmatic
Mellow Yellow reaching the number two spot a few months later.
Donovan remained a chart fixture throughout 1967, generating a series
of hits including Epistle to Dippy, There Is a Mountain, and Wear
Your Love Like Heaven ; that year he traveled to India alongside the
Beatles to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a journey which
inspired him to renounce drug use and encourage his listeners to turn
to meditation. The ambitious double album A Gift from a Flower to a
Garden followed, and in 1968 Donovan resurfaced with The Hurdy Gurdy
Man, scoring a Top Five smash with the hallucinatory title cut; the
record also yielded the hit Jennifer Juniper.
Barabajagal from 1969 generated Donovan's final Top 40 hit, Atlantis ;
for the title track, he collaborated with the Jeff Beck Group, with
whom he also worked on 1970's Open Road. He then retreated to Ireland,
emerging from a period of seclusion by starring in and scoring the 1972
film The Pied Piper; a pair of new LPs, Cosmic Wheels and Essence to
Essence, appeared the following year to disappointing reviews and
little commercial interest. Following 1974's 7-Tease, he spent the next
years living quietly in California's Joshua Tree desert, mounting only
a small club tour to promote 1976's Slow Down; a self-titled LP
appeared a year later, and in the wake of 1983's Jerry Wexler-produced
Lady of the Stars, he essentially retired from writing and recording
altogether. The Donovan revival began in earnest in 1991 when Happy
Mondays titled a song in his honor for their groundbreaking Pills 'n'
Thrills & Bellyaches; he later toured with the group as well. Five
years later, Donovan released his comeback LP, Sutras, helmed by
producer-du-jour Rick Rubin. ther album had the misfiortune to be
released after Rubin's landmark Johnny Cash record, American Recordings
and was virtually ignored or misunderstood by critics. Donovan toured
briefly to support Sutras and then went missing once again, playing out
only sporadically. In 2004, however, he reappeared with the intimate
and stylish Beat Cafe, a collection of nearly all-original songs
produced by keyboardist John Chelew. Donovan also enlisted bassist
Danny Thompson and drummer Jim Keltner to round out his quartet. The
album also featured a pair of covers, a spoken-word rendition of poet
Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle, and a startling rendition of the
traditional tune, The Cuckoo. Sony released the double-disc CD/DVD
Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan, the following year. ~ Jason
Ankeny, All Music Guide
Written by Jason Ankeny