Donovan: Early Prog or Just Psych?

My definition of prog is pretty wide when it comes to psych bands but other than his mellotron drenched "Breezes of Patchuli" I've never heard much prog in Donovan.  A lot of very cool and adventurous psych (and also folk in his early career) though...

In the music of the 60's, there are many signature lines and melodies which influenced Progressive Rock that are not obvious to the ear. Maybe you're doing a review and desire to make detailed points that you want to back up with examples. The best method of training your ear to do this is to start listening to The Doors and picking out whenever Jim Morrison starts singing like Frank Sinatra. You can start with "Touch Me" , "You're Lost Little Girl" and several others. After your ear develops a bit more, you'll be able to more easily pick out the guitar line in the center of the song "Airborne" by Camel which is the one used for "Flying" by The Beatles. 

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" was a Psychedelic Rock song that Steve Hillage covered in the 70's. Basically what you have is Steve Hillage from Gong and Clive Bunker ex-Jethro Tull drummer and other members of the Hillage band performing "Hurdy Gurdy Man" which is telling. When listening back to the song, I can almost hear the Gong band doing a version of it with Daevid Allen on vocals. Gong was a Progressive Space Rock band that took on many Jazz elements and also included a full dosage of Psychedelic Rock. Maybe Steve Hillage doing a cover of a Donovan song tells us that Donovan's material is respected and if were re-done by other Prog artists, could reveal what is a mystery about him. Because he appealed to a "Pop" audience could mean less to what his personal image and creativity was all about. That might be why a progger like Steve Hillage would cover one of his songs. Apart from the fact that he may have simply liked the song, it could mean more than that to him or members of Gong. Technically..Donovan is connected to the Prog world in that way because Hillage is not some fly by night Progressive Rock writer...especially when he wrote GREEN. So,...apart from realizing that he personally liked the song, an interest may exist within the Prog community of musicians. Donovan wrote interesting chord changes along with an element of unusually sounding vocal chords..as he was a good singer, but was more in link with a Nick Drake, (to some extent), or The Zombies. Those two concepts are an important part of Progressive Rock.

There have been some very interesting cross-overs from early rock 'n roll crooner to psych belter - just look at Bobby Darin (changed his name to Bob Darin to make it sound like Zimmy), Ricky Nelson, Vicki Carr, Little Richard (the Rill Thing album is a psych-soul classic), Burt Bacharach (well, maybe not his perfoming but rock artists using his songs and psyching them up), and my personal favorite David Axelrod (is he on PA?). 

Permy wrote: It is easy to dismiss that which you do not have any intention of understanding. ...

Why do people who make that claim have similar problems?

Permy wrote: People - including myself - do not WANT to be told certain truths. ...

And yet you have no problem grandstanding your own.

Permy wrote: ... Truth is NOTHING that came out of the UK is psychedelic music in the truest sense. And if your  automatically thinking America , there was precious little there as well. Mock psych there is tons, but the real deal, coming mainly out of Texas, was a very slim timeline with mere handfuls of bands.

So only real psychedelia only occurred when following in the vein of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall and Stacy Sutherland, eh? So much for a church of your own choice.

Aside from Mellow Yellow, there were quite a few pop groups in 1967 that jumped on the Psych band wagon with varying degrees of success. The two that stick out like sore thumbs to me are the singles Incense and Peppermints from The Strawberry Alarm Clock (if that's not a Psych band name, what is?) and Watch The Flowers Grow by Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons. (The later demonstrated that a doo wop group could became gurus of 60's counter culture consciousness, overnight. Not!) 

Edited by SteveG - November 23 2014 at 14:00

dr wu23 wrote: Permy wrote: No idea what its about.   For what it's worth...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellow_Yellow   " The song was rumoured to be about smoking dried banana skins, which was believed to be a hallucinogenic drug in the 1960s, though this aspect of bananas has since been debunked.[5] According to Donovan's notes accompanying the album Donovan's Greatest Hits, the rumour that one could get high from smoking dried banana skins was started by Country Joe McDonald in 1966, and Donovan heard the rumour three weeks before "Mellow Yellow" was released as a single. According to The Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, he admitted later the song made reference to a vibrator; an "electrical banana" as mentioned in the lyrics.[6] This definition was re-affirmed in an interview with NME magazine: "it's about being cool, laid-back, and also the electrical bananas that were appearing on the scene - which were ladies' vibrators."[7] The phrase "mellow yellow" appears towards the end of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, where it is used to refer to Mrs. Marion Bloom's buttocks.[8] But it is not known if Donovan took the phrase from there"

Right on, Doc. People at the time actually thought you could get high smoking banana skins. I think the craze lasted for about 2 months before people found out it was not true. Not that I tried it myself, of course. ()

Edited by SteveG - November 23 2014 at 13:41

The Dark Elf wrote: dr wu23 wrote: The phrase "mellow yellow" appears towards the end of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, where it is used to refer to Mrs. Marion Bloom's buttocks.<sup ="reference" id="cite_ref-8">[URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellow_Yellow#cite_note-8" rel="nofollow]<span>[</span>8<span>[COLOR=#0066cc" size="2]][/COLOR]</span>[/URL] But it is not known if Donovan took the phrase from there" I don't believe Donovan ever started a song with "stately, plump Buck Mulligan" either.

It is about the meadow saffron. Right in the song it tells you. Now if you know anything about botany you will be able to understand. Polyploid vs. diploid............http://www.cannabase.com/cl/bcga/breeding/colchicine.htm

No idea what its about.