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 Fame
& Fortune: Donovan
Record money comes and goes; songs live
forever
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They say if you remember the 1960s,
you probably weren't there. But Donovan Leitch begs to differ: He
was certainly there and remembers well how this "Sunshine Superman"
flew higher and managed to land more gracefully than any other singer-songwriter
of the flower power era.
The bohemian Scot with the whispery
vocal style and East-meets-West rock vibe embodied a cosmic consciousness
that turned on a generation to meditation, nonviolence and mind-expanding
botanicals. From his first hit, "Catch the Wind," Donovan
was the quiet voice with the seductive messages amid the raucous
"British Invasion."
Son of a Glasgow aircraft builder
who wrote and performed poetry, Donovan contracted polio as a child,
as a result of that city's overzealous immunization program. It
didn't ground this free spirit however; once he finished school,
he hit the road in the early '60s, playing for tips while buddy
Gypsy Dave read fortunes, mostly for pretty young women.
Scouts for the hit British TV music
show "Ready Steady Go!" tapped the teenaged troubadour
as its first live performer. He not only became an instant hit,
but soon found himself welcomed into the heady inner circle of an
extended family of older brothers, including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,
The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.
For the next six years, Donovan
would record 15 top-20 hits, including "Colours," "Mellow
Yellow," "Sunshine Superman" and "Hurdy Gurdy
Man." He would also jam, meditate and ultimately travel to
India with The Beatles, who shared his interest in Eastern mysticism.
By the dawn of the '70s, after
a career that rivaled or surpassed his "older brothers,"
Donovan quietly walked away from it all at age 24, having "completed
his mission," as he says in his new book, "The
Autobiography of Donovan: The Hurdy Gurdy Man."
Since then, he and his wife/muse
Linda, who had a son, Julian Jones, by Stones founder Brian Jones,
have delved further into Western spirituality while raising their
own daughters Astrella Celeste and Oriole Nebula. They have also
nurtured the acting careers of children Ione Skye ("Say Anything")
and Donovan Leitch Jr., ("The Blob"), Donovan's kids by
'60s girlfriend Enid Stulberger. When not overseeing his charity,
The Drukpa Trust, which supports Tibetan monks, Donovan still performs;
check for tour dates on the official Donovan
Web site.
Bankrate spoke with Donovan from
his home in County Cork, Ireland, about his magical, mystical, musical
journey.
Bankrate: You grew up
in a working class neighborhood in Scotland, right?
Donovan: (Croons the Lennon
tune) 'A working class hero is something to be.' (laughs) Yeah,
in Glasgow, but it wasn't the real bad scene way down at the bottom
of tenement life. I guess we were a cut above that. I'm a working-class
guy with a highly educated father, a self-taught scholar. My father
walked to school in bare feet, but then many of his generation in
1910-1920 did that anyway. There was always lots of poetry and music
around.
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