^The OP left out obvious Psychedelic songs like Mellow Yellow.

Donovan may have been personally related to prog, hanging out and jamming with King Crimson (http://www.elephant-talk.com/articles/fripp-yp.htm), opening for Yes, whatever.  But musically, he doesn't qualify.

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

Do you think I myself want to know that prog came out of bluesrock?
That psych came directly out of garage. That the line between garage and psych is so thin as to be....

Permy wrote: It is easy to dismiss that which you do not have any intention of understanding. Silly it is then.  Only it is a silliness shared by many major (vinyl) collector/dealer  heads - names that would mean nothing to you. I have not yet read Lundborg's (RIP) Psychedelia tome. It is quickly becoming THE main reference on the scene. Given time  Patrick's work   WILL - along with Morton Jack - be the main reference. I will go out on a limb and suppose his take on true psychedelia was  same as above stated.

Hmmm... you sound exactly like a former poster who made equally inane pronouncements regarding vinyl dealers and their allegedly sacrosanct record bin categorizations.

He was utterly wrong. And history repeats itself, apparently.

The British are clean out of the equation.
There was no movement for them - no Vietnam for one.

(With exception of foilkmusic and ocassional eccentricities like Comus, there is no darkness for the Brits only Alice In Wonderland, whimsey, garden gnomes....

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


Silly it is then.  Only it is a silliness shared by many major (vinyl) collector/dealer  heads - names that would mean nothing to you.

I have not yet read Lundborg's (RIP) Psychedelia tome. It is quickly becoming THE main reference on the scene. Given time  Patrick's work   WILL - along with Morton Jack - be the main reference.

I will go out on a limb and suppose his take on true psychedelia was  same as above stated.

What a ridiculous thread.

I'm not going to even comment on the prog "aspect".

As to psych, they say UK psych started with Sunshine Superman, but they like to parrot back and forth a lot on the internet. I myself have parrotted this on ocassion.

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.

A Gift from a Flower is a good record, but you must take the concept in full in order to enjoy the record.  It was an attempt by Donovan to get back to the acoustic folk of his earliest records, and it was also his first real concept record.  The gift is the songs, the flower is the mother/father and the garden the son/daughter - Donovan basically wrote an album of songs for parents and their kids (something he's done on several occasions, including with HMS Donovan, For the Little Ones and the Pied Piper albums).  It's a double album with the first record having a more "rock" feel, but still very mellow; the second record was largely acoustic and included themes of growth, love, teaching, morality, etc.  I personally love the album but don't put it on as much as Sunshine, Hurdy, Mellow and the late 60s/early 70s albums.  It's just not as dynamic, spacy or groove-oriented as the others. 

I have Open Road. That was good. "Rikki Tiki Tavi" was an obvious high point, but "Changes", "Curry Land", "Joe Bean's Theme", "Celtic Rock", "Roots Of Oak", and "New Years Resovolution" were good. A nice change of direction. I don't understand how that wasn't commercially successful. 

Some good points already raised.  Some of his songs, especially Guinevere, could be considered prog folk.