Donovan - 1968 - Atlantis FLAC

 Atlantis/There Is A Mountain/Hurdy Gurdy Man /Lalena

 

 Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock, and world music (notably calypso). He has lived in Scotland, Hertfordshire (England), London, California, and since at least 2008 in County Cork, Ireland, with his family. Emerging from the British folk scene, Donovan reached fame in the United Kingdom in early 1965 with live performances on the pop TV series Ready Steady Go!.

Having signed with Pye Records in 1965, he recorded singles and two albums in the folk vein for Hickory Records (US company), after which he signed to CBS/Epic Records in the US – the first signing by the company's new vice-president Clive Davis – and became more successful internationally. He began a long and successful collaboration with leading British independent record producer Mickie Most, scoring multiple hit singles and albums in the UK, US, and other countries.

His most successful singles were the early UK hits "Catch the Wind", "Colours" and "Universal Soldier" in 1965, the last written by Buffy Sainte-Marie. In September 1966 "Sunshine Superman" topped America's Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week and went to number two in Britain, followed by "Mellow Yellow" at US No. 2 in December 1966, then 1968's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" in the Top 5 in both countries, then "Atlantis", which reached US No. 7 in May 1969.

He became a friend of pop musicians including Joan Baez, Brian Jones and the Beatles. He taught John Lennon a finger-picking guitar style in 1968 that Lennon employed in "Dear Prudence", "Julia", "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and other songs. Donovan's commercial fortunes waned after parting with Most in 1969, and he left the industry for a time.

Donovan continued to perform and record sporadically in the 1970s and 1980s. His musical style and hippie image were scorned by critics, especially after punk rock. His performing and recording became sporadic until a revival in the 1990s with the emergence of Britain's rave scene. He recorded the 1996 album Sutras with producer Rick Rubin and in 2004 made a new album, Beat Cafe. Donovan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014. 

 

"Atlantis" is a song written and recorded by Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan. It was released as a single in 1968, and became a worldwide success; becoming a No. 1 hit in Switzerland in 1969, No.2 in Germany and South Africa, No. 12 in Canada, No.4 in Austria and No.15 in Australia. In the United States, where it served as the b-side to "To Susan on the West Coast, Waiting," it reached No. 7, whilst in the singer's native country the single managed only a modest No. 23 placing.

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" is a song by the Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was recorded in April 1968 and released the following month as a single. The song gave its name to the album The Hurdy Gurdy Man, which was released in October of that year in the United States. The single reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and number 4 on the UK Singles Chart  in Australia it peaked at No.5.

 "Laléna" (also spelled "Lalena") is the title of a composition by Donovan for whom it was a Top 40 single in the autumn of 1968, reaching #33 on the Hot 100 in Billboard and No.72 in Australia.

"There Is a Mountain" is a song and single written and performed by British singer-songwriter Donovan, released in 1967. It charted in the UK at No.8 It charted in the USA at No. 11 on Billboard's Hot 100 and at No.9 on the Cashbox chart it also charted at No25 in Australia.

D0n0v@n – 1968 - Mell0w Yell0w

Mellow Yellow/Wear Your Love Like Heaven/Jennifer Jupiter/Sunshine Superman



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 U.K. 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.”

  arabajagal 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 1970s 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. (The album had the misfortune 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 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.”