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Fame & Fortune: Donovan, the
Hurdy-Gurdy man
Record money comes and goes but songs
live on forever |
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Bankrate: Was it a shock
to suddenly be flush with cash?
Donovan: I was signed in the traditional
way by a publisher, Peermusic, called Southern Music then. Old man
(Ralph) Peer recorded the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers in that
(Bristol, Tenn.) hotel in 1928. I walked out of that publishing
office a month or two later with a bankbook. I walked into the bank,
pulled out a couple hundred quid, and when I got to the door, I
must say, I did stop and turn around expecting someone to say, 'Just
a minute, there's been a mistake.' Then I walked into the street
and went, 'Well, it seems like it's happening.'
Bankrate:
Did The Beatles and The Stones teach you how to deal with sudden
wealth?
Donovan: No, they were
in the throes of dealing with it themselves, albeit maybe two years
ahead. When I look back at it, it was actually time off. Time has
gotten less as the world has gone on. The world of leisure was supposed
to have gotten larger, but we had more time, it seems, in the summer
of 1966 for hanging out. And what I saw when we did hang out was
how we were handling it. Isolated, they had to be isolated, all
my friends, or on the road all the time. There was a mania going
on. But there was an excitement in the studios. I learned immediately
my vocal techniques by listening, of course, to Buddy Holly and
then The Beatles. Those were the two main teachers of recording
style.
Bankrate: You were among
the rock elite who embarked on the famous retreat to the Indian
ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. How did that affect your life and
music?
Donovan: We had already
had an interest and been initiated before we went. The intense,
long meditations were extraordinary, incredible. We had walked away
from fame, from engagements, from recording, from everything, and
that was an extraordinary change, especially for my friends from
Liverpool who really needed that, to get away and have some privacy.
And we all returned, in a way, to student bohemian life. We could
actually sit around for no reason whatsoever and play guitar and
share stories and study meditation. The outer story of India became
a scandal of some sorts, but the inner world we brought with us.
And George agreed that in our own life when we returned, we brought
to the West something very powerful. We had dived deeper than we
were diving before into ourselves.
Bankrate: Disputes over
money contributed to the breakup of The Beatles. Did it play a role
in your disillusionment with pop stardom?
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