Radio Free Donovan

OK, so when you are a 59 year old folkie these are the kids you want coming to your shows and nabbing the set list! Clearly.
It was November 25th. The day for Donovan. He had a gig with his young band at the Aladdin Theater but the festivities got kick started earlier in the day with a four hour Donovan special on KBOO Community Radio.


Crowded into the air studio was Yaney, her son Max, Yaney's brother, and another of their friends. Jeff Rosenberg and myself. Jeff and I took the helm for about an hour and played some favorites and also fielded a phone call from Derek Parrott. Derek is an old friend of mine and Donovan's as well. He called in from Hawaii where he's having a holiday and told some old stories about Donovan and did a bit of mapping of what the Brit. music scene was all about back in the early days.

Jeff and I kicking around KBOO.

Then on down to the show. Donovan had this cool four piece band of kids from Berkeley with him. Hammond B3 and keys, drums, upright bass, and electric guitar. The kids lit a bit of a fire under the old fellow. When they came crashing in to the opening chorus of Hurdy Gurdy Man I knew I was seeing something special. By the time they got to the out-lines of Riki Tiki Tavi "I saw you today on the number 12 bus you were going my way...." I was in heaven. Donovan played electric and acoustic and seemed in fine form. A little bit more frail perhaps than I was expecting but his voice was spot on and the song selection was more adventurous than anything he's done for years.
Cameras weren't aloud so I only snuck one shot of the Atlantis, Mellow Yellow encore. I must say that the long ending of Atlantis was absolutely stunning. Don didn't play guitar on ether song so I'm not exactly sure which this was....


This is me one second away from delivering a copy of "Songs for Miriam and Other People" to Donovan. There's a picture of his gypsy wagon that's the cover of it. tying the circle back 'round the photo was taken by Derek Parrott on the Isle of Skye in 1969. Don looked rather astonished when I told him what the photo on the cover was, said "I wish we could do the email thing man", then the crush of bits of paper and album covers enveloped him. I'm still wondering about that email. Maybe I'll drop him a line when his long tour is over. Three cheers.