I mentioned it sort of obliquely here, at the time, but in the spring of 2021, I had the rare and somewhat bizarre honor of putting together a project for my office with Scottish songwriting legend Donovan. In a nutshell, he wanted to present a songwriting masterclass for the affiliates of the performing rights organization I work for, and it was my job to bring that goal to fruition while simultaneously goading the storied Gaelic bard into adhering to some of our guidelines. Suffice to say, while an exceptionally charming, pleasant and tirelessly ebullient gentlemen to deal with, Donovan was never going to do anything other than exactly what Donovan wanted to do.
Throughout the process, I ended up exchanging countless emails and having multiple, lengthy conversations over the phone with the great man. This was still all happening during the middle stages of COVID, so I was remotely sequestered with my family at the Lamb Cottage — which i spoke about here — out in Quogue, while Donovan was holding court in his castle in County Cork in the southwesterly portion of Ireland. It was a truly odd experience sitting with my laptop on the back porch of the endearingly tiny cottage we were subletting, chatting with the guy who penned classics like “Sunshine Superman,” “Mellow Yellow,” "Atlantis," “Season of the Witch,” and so many more.
While Donovan might not strike some as an artist I’d normally ever give a damn about — he being one of the preeminent proponents of Flower Power and the like — I was actually already a fan of the man’s music well prior to this unexpected assignment. I’d certainly heard some of his canonical standards via classic rock radio growing up, but it was one of my housemates during my senior year of college, Ben K., that decided to circumvent our off-campus house’s steady diet of Jane’s Addiction, Ministry, fIREHOSE and Fishbone with regular lashings from a well-loved copy of 1969’s Donovan’s Greatest Hits. Despite some cries of “what’s this silly hippie shit?”, that LP went into very heavy rotation, with tracks like “Hurdy Gurdy Man” becoming a high-decibel house favorite.
Some years after that, I remember my great friend Sean W. going through a somewhat cloying Dylan phase (sorry, I’ve absolutely NEVER been a fan) and making me watch D.H. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back,” wherein Dylan allegedly shows up rival folkie songwriter Donovan with a spontaneous performance of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” after the junior songwriter dared perform a tune in Bob's presence. I never liked Dylan prior to that, but that scene only cemented my disdain for the man. I’ll continue to take Donovan over Dylan every time.
Anyway, after much spirited back-&-forthing, we finally managed to complete the masterclass video by the summer, and I posed a series of questions to Donovan for an interview piece to accompany it, all of which he scrupulously copyedited, somewhat unsolicitedly. When he was finally finished jovially re-constructing my written piece, we launched the project. Should you care, you can see that all here, including the video.
Once the project went live, the surprise phone calls from Donovan stopped, although he did very graciously implore me to come visit his castle in Ireland, an invitation I thanked him profusely for, but never took him up on.
Cut to 2024, and after spending three lovely days outside of Edinburgh visiting my daughter at her college, we all flew over to Dublin to spend Thanksgiving in Dublin with my son. While my wife was checking into our hotel, I was loitering around the lobby when suddenly, in walked Donovan. Not imagining I’d ever again have the opportunity, I sheepishly introduced myself, referencing the masterclass video and our many exchanges during that spring, three years earlier. He stared at me blankly for a hot second, then his eyes lit up with recognition, and then next thing I knew, he had me sitting across from him while he regaled me with one of his signature, detail-heavy anecdotes about the origins of music publishing, royalties and how the folk-tradition informs all facets of contemporary music. While he still lives down in Cork, he was fleetingly in Dublin to discuss a new project he was working on.
Even at age 78, the man remains tirelessly committed to his art and evangelizing his music.
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