IT was 50 years ago this week that American radio stations began to play a song that would become one of the seminal anthems of the hippie era and an abiding hit that has lasted well beyond flower power.

The official release date in the USA of Mellow Yellow by Donovan was Monday, October 24, 1966, which coincidentally was the day on which Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea FC, was born.

SO WHAT’S THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION?

SURELY everybody knows that Donovan, he of the ethereal look and matching voice, was born Donovan Philips Leitch in Maryhill, Glasgow, on May 10, 1946, meaning that he was just 20 when he wrote and released Mellow Yellow.

It’s the song that for many people rivals Scott McKenzie’s San Francisco or California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas as the defining hit of the brief but influential period of flower power. Its lyrics have often baffled people, but Donovan later confirmed that the reference to an ‘electrical banana’ came from a yellow-coloured ladies’ vibrator that was popular at the time. It remains arguably his most famous song.

Other contenders for that description are Catch the Wind, his debut single that made it to No 4 in the British charts in 1965, and which has been covered by more than 30 artists including Cher, Glen Campbell, Eartha Kitt and Rickie Lee Jones.

Or what about Universal Soldier or Colours, all hits from his first vinyl discs in the days when he was classed as a folk musician?

After moving to the US to work with legendary producer Mickie Most, Donovan left behind pure folk and began to be influenced by jazz, blues and popular music in general. He released Sunshine Superman in July 1966, which gave him his only American No 1. His music developed a harder rock style and later in his career he wrote and sang the edgy Hurdy Gurdy Man, his own favourite chart hit which became the title of his 2005 autobiography. All great songs, and still played to this day.

A QUICK RESUME OF HIS LIFE AND CAREER

HE was raised in Maryhill by parents Donald and Winifred (nee Philips, hence his middle name) who loved Scottish and Irish folk music and taught it to their son. He caught childhood polio which left him with a limp before the family moved to Hatfield in Bedfordshire, and after famously finding an old guitar in a bin and running away from home, Donovan was soon playing on the music scene in nearby St Albans.

Curiously for a “folkie” heavily influenced by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, not to mention some British and Irish musicians of the time, his rise to fame was electric.

One minute he was busking with his friend Gypsy Dave and then the next he was haring up the charts, thanks to producer Elkan Allan giving him a short residency on ITV’s Ready Steady Go and who could thus claim to have ‘discovered’ Donovan.

He signed first to Pye Records in the UK but then was taken over by the Epic label in the US, which led to some managerial tussles and meant that Donovan’s work often went on sale in America much earlier than elsewhere, as was the case with Mellow Yellow which did not come out in Britain until early 1967.

Donovan continued to have hits such as Atlantis into the late 1960s, but was becoming more interested in songwriting rather than performing, and he wrote three songs for Paul McCartney’s Welsh protégé Mary Hopkin, she of Those Were The Days fame. He wrote film music, too, before his last chart success, the album Cosmic Wheels in 1973.

He did some tours but the advent of punk and the 80s glamour scene saw Donovan take a back seat and make only occasional appearances such as the Amnesty concert The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball.

In his later career, Donovan concentrated on retrospectives and promoting transcendental meditation of which he is a long term exponent.

WAS HE REALLY A FRIEND OF THE BEATLES AND BOB DYLAN?

HE most certainly was a friend of The Beatles in mid-1960s London, and taught Lennon and McCartney the finger-picking style of guitar-playing which he had learned from folk musicians. Donovan features in a background role on the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band album, while he dedicated Sunshine Superman to Lennon and McCartney. He was one of their extensive group that travelled to India to meet and study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

His relationship with Bob Dylan came about because the press said he was a “Dylan clone” but when the newly announced Nobel Prize winner toured Britain in 1965, the two met and got on famously. Donovan would later credit Dylan and Joan Baez as among the greatest influences on his own music.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HIM?

HE was once a naughty boy – Donovan was the first major musician to be arrested for possession of cannabis, even before The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

He is the father of the actor Donovan Leitch, who married Scottish supermodel Kirsty Hume, and the actress Ione Skye, his children from his first relationship with the model Enid Karl. Donovan married Linda Lawrence, the widow of tragic Rolling Stone Brian Jones, and he had two children with her, Astrella and Oriole, as well as becoming a devoted stepfather to Jones’s son Julian Brian.

Now 70, Donovan is currently on a tour to mark the 50th anniversary of Sunshine Superman becoming his only No. 1.

IS HE STILL A PROUD SCOT?

HE has never lost his polite Scottish accent, and last year when he was inducted into the Scottish Music Hall of Fame he said he was “more proud of this award than any of my other awards”.

Since they include induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a festival named after him in Ireland, the BBC Folk Lifetime Achievement Award, the French Order of Arts and Letters and an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire, it shows that Scotland is still dear to his heart.

Which begs the question why none of the universities around Glasgow have honoured this No Mean Son of the city.


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