More Donovan
More Hippie Folk Rock
- In Concert is back on the site for only the second time in over three years, here with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this original copy – with VERY quiet vinyl for this album, too
- A shockingly well recorded live set, so real and natural, with some of Donovan’s best songs played with real feeling
- This early Epic stereo pressing is the only way to hear the midrange magic that’s missing from modern records, but rarely can that sound be found on vinyl as quiet as this
- 4 1/2 stars: “The only album that comes close to having the flow of this concert was the studio recording of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks … One of the great live albums of the 60s.”
Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here. You could certainly demonstrate your stereo with a record this good, even one that’s not nearly this good, because this one is superb.
But what you would really be demonstrating is music that the listener probably hasn’t heard, and that’s the best excuse to show off your stereo.
Midrange presence and immediacy are key to the sound. Get the volume just right and Donovan himself will be standing between your speakers and putting on the performance of a lifetime.
Donovan’s no longer a recording — he’s a living, breathing person. We call that “the breath of life,” and this record has it in spades. His voice is so rich, sweet, and free of artificiality you cannot help but find yourself lost in the music, because there’s no “sound” to distract you.
The Music
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 this Hot Stamper pressing overflowing with trippy hippie magic.
We discovered a while back just what an excellent recording this is and now we know how magical the better copies can sound. Only the very better pressings were able to convey the kind of natural, immediate sound that is the hallmark of the recording.
Hippie Folk Rock
What the best sides of this Live Album from 1968 have to offer is not hard to hear:
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1968
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with the vocals and guitars having the correct sound for this kind of recording
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional space of the concert venue
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
Vinyl Condition
With so many soft passages in this music, Mint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier and that are listed on the site are at seriously reduced prices, or we just trade them back in to the local record stores we shop at.)
Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of later pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don’t have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful originals.
If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that’s certainly your prerogative, but we can’t imagine losing what’s good about this music — the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight — just to hear it with less background noise.
Side One
- Isle of Islay
- Young Girl Blues
- There Is a Mountain
- Poor Cow
- Celeste
- The Fat Angel
- Guinevere
Side Two
- Widow With Shawl (A Portrait)
- Preachin’ Love
- The Lullaby of Spring
- Writer in the Sun
- Pebble and the Man
- Rules and Regulations
- Mellow Yellow
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.