Donovan – Early Treasures (1973)

Donovan had at least two different parts to his career. He started by playing acoustic folk songs in the style of Bob Dylan and later he adopted more and more psychedelic influences, most likely as a result of The Beatles. Considering these influences, it's quite clear that I like Donovan. This compilation album focuses much more on the early songs and thus it is quite a pure folk album. Donovan is one of the few artists I first came to know through my mother. I've been talking about my dad's records a lot in this blog, but not much about my mum. That's probably because she wasn't listening to that much music at home. Nevertheless, I do remember her being really into Donovan. This is not her album though, I bought it myself, but the spark to listen to Donovan originally came from her. She was always into the hippy music of her childhood and early teenage years.

I think Donovan is a good composer. His songs have very interesting, yet catchy melodies and I don't have anything bad to say about his sounds either. At least on the early recordings, Donovan strives to be a protest singer like Bob Dylan, but his lyrics don't quite compare and as a result, the lyrics are sometimes a bit cheesy. This mostly doesn't bother me as I don't really listen to the lyrics that much to begin with. Early Treasures is a great selection of Donovan's folk hits, but I feel like I should also buy some of his later albums, because I do enjoy his psychedelic era as well.

The album begins with Donovan's massive folk hit Catch the Wind. This song is included in almost all of the hippy era compilation albums. It's so iconic that it almost sounds like a prototype of hippy era folk song. Colours is quite a happy little song and there's true hippy spirit in this song. I like that you can make a song just by using a guitar and a bass without any drums to back up the bass. Sunny Goodge Street has beautiful string instruments and a wavy, kind of bluesy, groove. Donovan's vocals are particularly beautiful in this slightly melancholic song. There are some jazzy parts as well towards the end. Ballad of a Crystal Man sounds really a lot like Bob Dylan with the prominence of the harpsichord. However, this is one of the few songs where Donovan actually sounds Scottish in a wonderful way. Jersey Thursday is another one of the darker songs Donovan occasionally wrote. This is a kind of storytelling song that I'd expect to hear being played around a fire in the wilderness. Candy Man has lots of country and Americana influences. Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness) has bluesy and rhythmic groove that reminds me of some White Stripes songs released over 30 years later. Universal Soldier is another massive hit, albeit not written by Donovan, made popular by him. This is one of the defining songs that protested against the Vietnam war. Summer Day Reflection Song has some excellent guitar picking and the mood of traditional English folk. Turquoise already has some of the psychedelic influences even if it was released quite early on. I think it's the vibrating organs in the background. The album ends with To Try for the Sun, which is another very purist Americana folk song with lots of harpsichord.

Most of these songs are on the first two albums, but a significant number of them are actually on none of the albums. I find it really interesting, how in the 60s, many of the biggest hit songs didn't end up on the albums at all. Those songs were sold as singles. Today, it would seem insane to leave the biggest hits off the album release, but I guess that's because not that many albums or singles are sold today in any case.

I think there's something very calming in Donovan's music. I don't know if I can say that anything he's done has been particularly masterful, or unique, but I generally really enjoy his music. That's probably also why I'm finding it hard to think of that many things to write about him. I just really like these easygoing folk songs.

Listen to the album on Spotify.