Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Donovan
We discovered a while back just what an excellent recording this is and now we know how magical the best copies can be. Only the very best copies delivered the kind of natural, immediate sound we were looking for.
There are a lot of Donovan records out there, but not a lot of them that sound like this! On top of that you get a great set of songs, including Mellow Yellow, Isle Of Islay, Celeste, and First There Is A Mountain (the song that became the main riff of the Allman Brothers’ famous Mountain Jam).|
Get in touch with your inner flower child and spin a copy of this album full of trippy hippie magic.
AMG Review
Flow in a Donovan concert is important, and here, presented as it occurred, listeners can drift right into the tidepool of magic. The band is a quintet with Harold McNair on flute and saxophones, Loren Newkirk on piano, Andy Tronosco on upright bass, Tony Carr on drums, and John Carr on bongos. Donovan plays acoustic guitar throughout.
The hippy mysticism and flower power poet is everywhere here. This isn’t rock star excess at all, but an organic, drenched-in-sunshine concert full of gentleness with a premium on good vibes…
In fact the only album that comes close to having the flow of this concert was the studio recording of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. While it’s true this is only available as an import, it should be sought out by any fan, or, for that matter, any cynic who hasn’t heard this particularly beautiful and airy genius of Donovan Leitch.
With this presentation, Donovan In Concert becomes one of the great live albums of the ’60s.