Donovan

Donovan, who lives in Ireland is widely regarded as one of the most influential songwriters and recording artists working today. At his induction into the R & R Hall of Fame in 2012 it was stated, “Donovan singlehandedly initiated the Psychedelic Revolution with Sunshine Superman”.

This masterwork album he created late 1965 at 19 years of age, one year before his friends The Beatles, influencing their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, and leading the way for many other artists. 

 It is now history that Donovan became the tutor of The Beatles on the famous trip to India, where he taught John, Paul and George the finger style guitar and many of his unique chord patterns, that would create many of the best songs and styles of The White Album. Most notable John’s ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Julia’ (which John asked Donovan to help him write), Paul’s ‘Blackbird’ , George’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and many others on The White Album.

 Donovan encouraged and nurtured Harrisons’ songwriting , in particular teaching George Donovan’s other secret descending chord patterns that he did not share with John or Paul, patterns which resulted in George writing the hugely successful song ‘Something’ .

 And yet Donovan is much more than the creator of the first Psychedelic Album, Sunshine Superman announced Flower Power for the first time and presented to the world the first World Music fusions of Folk, Classical, Jazz, Indian, Gaelic , Arabic and Caribbean. At the age of 16 Donovan set his artist vision, to return Poetry to Popular Culture and he has done so on a worldwide scale. He was 4 years younger than The Beatles, Dylan and The Rolling Stones when he achieved all this.

 As if this is not enough to say, he is chiefly responsible for introducing meditation and Eastern Philosophy into Modern Lifestyle and songwriting.

 As highly influential and successful as Sunshine Superman album was, Donovan had already scored 4 Top Twenty singles, E.P.’s and two albums in his so-called ‘Folk Period’ of early 1965. Donovan received the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for his very first song Catch The Wind, at 18 years young.

Apart from The Ivor Novello Award for his first song, Donovan is also the recipient of Doctor of Letters for Ecology ,Hertfordshire University, An Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters of The French Republic, BMI Ikon Award, The Mojo Maverick Award, LifeTime BBC Folk Award , The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and many International Awards. 2014 saw Donovan inducted into The Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Donovan presented his new release and live concert ‘ECO-SONG’ at the Cadogan Hall, London in October 2020.

www.donovan.ie

“Donovan singlehandedly initiated the Psychedelic Revolution with Sunshine Superman”. Induction into 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame