Superman or Green Lantern Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Donovan!
I wanted to title this “Sunshine Came Softly through the Sutras Today” but it lacks zest appeal.
DONOVAN CAME ON FAST in 1965 with three Top 10 hits in the UK: “Catch the Wind,” “Colours,” and “The Universal Soldier.” None of these came close to duplicating that success in the US, where Donovan remained a peripheral figure on the waning folk scene. That didn’t prevent many who did know of him from labeling him a “Dylan imitator” for both his music and his adoption of working man’s clothing as his regular “look.”
The first is understandable: almost anyone singing folk songs with a guitar and harmonica would have been compared to Dylan at that time. And “Catch the Wind” did sound like an outtake from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album. But Donovan had been wearing practical attire since 1963, before most of England knew of Dylan.
“[Donovan is] a Scottish bloke. He’s been around and he plays very good guitar . . . he’s a very good guitar player. He’s better than you.” (Alan Price to Bob Dylan in ‘Don’t Look Back’)
Being labeled an imitator in any field of creativity is difficult for an artist…
