Plenty of you ingrates consider Donovan a wash-out hippie because you all take Bob Dylan too seriously. Dylan was a prick, and yeah, Donovan is a traveler on the flake train....but.....there comes a moment where you need to think a bit outside of the Dylan-esque idea of what is relevant.
Donovan is a fucking beacon. This record smashes. John Carr's drumming is very reminiscent of another famous drummer named John who, at one time, was almost the battery for Donovan in another band...(read: John Bonham). Mike Thomson's bass playing is psychotic and rambling in the best possible ways, which brings us to the man himself.
This is by far Donovan's most lucid dream and most complete expression. After leaving the U.S. to return to England and assemble the Open Road band, Donovan found the freedom of working in a post-Mickie Most world. This, and his next record (HMS Donovan) show an artist who still eats granola, but no longer believes it is all he has to talk about.
Donovan haters....go die.
Open Road
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1 comment:
i was super duper into this album when i found it on vinyl back in the mid 90's. i was living san francisco and heard donovan was doing an instore at the tower records downtown - i went and he signed my copy of salinger's "nine stories" that i hapenned to have with me and i asked him about this record. he didn't know what had happened to the other guys.
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