Donovan, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Rob Adams, 3 stars
“You’ll never be more than three or four songs from a hit,” promised Donovan – and he kept his word. The proud Glaswegian with the wandering accent opened this retrospective of his fifty years of professional troubadourship with two of his most famous items, Catch the Wind and Yellow is the Colour, and after a shaky first half he recovered to become quite the entertainer.
Sitting rather awkwardly on a stage riser with mostly just his guitar for company, he has more than a few stories to tell and although he’s not shy of taking his proper place alongside folks such as that group from Liverpool who accompanied him to India, he also gives due credit to the family who kindled his interest in folksong and writers including Buffy St Marie and Shawn Phillips whose works he interpreted and learned from.
St Marie’s Universal Soldier, still sadly all too current, has weathered better than some of Donovan’s 1970s efforts, but the hits remain well worth hearing, not least Sunshine Superman, with its impressive guitar intro, and Lalene, whose theme of the oldest profession was embellished by suitably dark, atmospheric saxophone from Waterboy Anthony Thistlethwaite.
The saxophone also featured in a slightly embarrassing karaoke-style finale of Mellow Yellow but we’ll overlook that in favour of the fine reading of traditional song The Trees They Do Grow High, the still mirthful Intergalactic Laxative, Hurdy Gurdy Man, with a verse contributed by George Harrison, and the recollections of 1960s female attention which culminated in Donovan’s sidekick, Gypsy Dave, looking back while escaping and suggesting that there might be some merit in letting a few of the pursuing pack catch up.
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