page 14

The Mellow Fellow ..........Dissected

Donovan Leitch, the prototypical wandering minstrel, has quite a history. Leaving behind a heavy, hard-drinking, hard-working Glasgow background - incorporating along the way generous dollops of an image angled towards divine decandence, he became the precursor of the gentle revolution philosophy, the voice of the facet concerned with the soft and spiritual.

He was also a cardinal figure in the English rock music scene's hierarchy, the inspiration for 'Hey Jude' and even further back - pre '64 - for such luminaries as Paul Simon

'Lou's folk scene - we all influenced each other' he said during the course of an interview conducted while he was visiting Wellington.

When it's put to him that he was possibly more of an imitative trend, rather than purely innovative, he laughs and says 'Dylan, you mean'. Yes, and outside of that the Maharishi and flower power. 'Dylan did influence me, and I was.... kind of ...two years behind every change in this sense, because I was also two years younger.

The Beatles, the Stones and the Yardbirds were three or four years older, generally'. So it seemed he was behind, but if you look back far enough into the Beat generation, pre 1964, when it was happening, you find that Donovan and coterie had still been about four years ahead of the changes.

Archie Fisher. Who? Archie Fisher that's who. The count, the strong Scottish influence for the English folk-blues schene. As good a technician as Pentangle's Ren-bourne and Jansch, he taught the latter his picking as well as acting as the major seminal influence upon Donovan. He was also the first British exponent of the style know as claw-hammer. Fisher picked the blues (and the sitar) long before other English musicians work exploring the same terrain. Along with Davy Graham quadumvirate formed what Donovan calls the early people. 'Ones that were probably the only ones at the time who knew how to do it, therefore - in the line of influence - their position is very strong.'

Donovan's upbringing was initially within the old Scottish grand matriachal social structure 'After the war, granny was kicked out', and - at 10 - he was brought south to England and the structure was snapped. 'No more folk family feeling. It was kind of the south of England, and I listened, when I was 12, to Elvis, the Everlys and Holly and the English artists, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury but at 13 or 14 my consciousness was awakened, and I became more aware of folk and blues. And I'd write poems when I was younger and, I guess, round about 12, I started reading Kerouac, Zen poetry, the beat poets from both sides of the Atlantic, and listening to jazz. So, slowly, I picked up on rare music.'

He was catapulted to stardom in early 1965 with the first every residency on 'Ready Steady Go' - probably rock music's televised acme where he functioned as a hippy troubadour who commented on the scene. 'I had a record and a following. It seems the grannies would go 'Oh, really nice', and the young kids would say 'Who is that?', because I was dressed in just denims and a guitar - and through that appeal they released a record. I sang it to people on their sets, the camera coming in real close, the 18-year-old curly headed folk singer singing the songs to them - and that was the beginning'.

Colours was released back to capitalise on Catch the Wind's success and Donovan, it appeared, had the world in his pocket. Through the psychedelic phase, which hardly needs to be re-hashed, he jumped out to join up with electric musicians of the highest calibre. Surprisingly, he can't remember, he says, who played guitar on 'Hurdy Gurdy Man'. 'Yeah, I know', he replies to the question. 'I can't even remember. I think it was Jimmy Page'.

Not Mick Taylor?

'No, not Mick Taylor, because I'd never worked with him before. I think it was Jimmy. But it was all in those days when everything was happening so fast nobody really knew what was happening. I wasn't even there for the cut. The guitar player put it down. I think it was Jimmy'.

His collaboration with Jeff Beck he enjoyed. They really did only two cuts - 'Trudi' and 'Barabajagal'. And they never played live; Beck's notoriously strong ego preventing it. 'He was a bit nuts, but only because he treads a tightrope. And many artists tread tightropes. And sensitive artists, sensitive people, I've found are prone to become successful, because millions of people will open up to you, and Jeff walks a tightrope, and he explodes now and again. Just as Brian Jones walked a tightrope, and many artists tread tightropes, and Brian's dead, and Jimi's dead and Joplin's dead. They all walked tightropes. Various degrees of accuracy every time they put their foot down. But, of course, for a few of them, the next time they put their foot down, the tightrope wasn't there'.

The Open Road album was also important in that it contained a specific blow at organised religion, 'Poke at the Pope', which was motivated by a general distaste of dogma in the church, and the power associated with reIigious bodies. Donovan considers that this power should be handed to the youth of the world. The churches as he sees them, are very powerful structures, but are completely lost as far as the Aquarian Age is concerned. 'Because they are of the Piscean Age, and they should stop they should give it up. Give it to use. Yes, that's right. It's the end of that age and the beginning of Aquarius which means that the Pope should embrace the Dalai Lama of Tibet and the Dalai Lama should embrace him... the churches should bind together now, because there is no church any more.'

The future of the world he has a gloomy prognosis for - the music outlook he is a great deal happier about. The future will be theatre with music. The truly innovative one was Bowie, so Donovan considers him the most legitimate thing in the last five years. 'Elton is a master of disguise and he can create the Beatles sound for you and continue the tradition of Sergeant Pepper. And Alice has created also a theatrical event which is important and Bolan has created a street madness which is very clever but it seems to have been just European. It didn't become American'.

'It's difficult because we don't know one artist. Well, Elton has influenced everybody, but we don't really know one artist who has a completely original sound that is influencing everybody at the same time'. When it's suggested that some of the future lies in the hands of the singer- songwriters, he says he hopes the music continues as well.

His concerts do not follow any set format. The show begins. He gets his guitar out, and he starts singing. He's played with bands and musicians over the years - on record, and occasionally on tour, but 'basically over the years I've been with a guitar, and I find, certainly in concert - that with a guitar there is much stronger communication than with a band. I've always been a solo artist, so in recent years I've been playing with a guitar and found it very nice'.

'I think my attitude has been accepted by the older people more than any of the other artists. I've never really been considered so revolutionary that I'm against the old, I'm not really, and - actually - my songs appeal to many older people and I can only think I'm allowed to move a little freer than the hard rock band because my attitude is a little different. I'm not out to create mayhem and chaos, which is what older people think you're going to create, when you've got an electric band. All I can say is that my attitude is not really that anti-social. I'm really a very social person. I love to help human relationships'.

'But it was important that I was singing protest. I was putting down because everybody my age at that time was feeling frustrated with society and with everything Just at the time I became the voice. It was just one of those things'.

The Question of other musicians' inter-pretations of his material - in this instance, the Allman Brothers' 'Mountain Jam' crops up. Donovan loves it. 'I haven't been covered like Dylan and the Stones, so it was fun for me when other people did. It's nice to create something that other people can jam on.'

(His recent outings onto vinyl - 'Cosmic Wheels' and 'Essence to Essence' - had received a critical pasting. Did he think it was justified?)

'Cosmic Wheels made a charts success and was accepted very strongly. It was a feeling towards astrology and Essence to Essence was not accepted largely because people didn't know what to do with it. Both were actually before their time... yeah... I'm working now. The attitude of today I think is reflected in this new album I'm making, which puts it back. It hasn't got a name yet, but the songs are all cut. I have to finish it in early 1976 and, for me it's the strongest Donovan feeling in many years in the sense that I think it will be accepted. But it will be accepted as the reflection of an attitude. Most of the material reflects an attitude I'm finding in my friends and associates, and the people I meet. And the attitude is that we've come to a point where we are free from the 60s in a way. We're free. We can understand the 60s and we can go on It's a beginning concept'.

Patrick O'Dea