Saturday, July 11, 2009
Monday, October 13, 2008
Donovan News
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) - Standing in the rain wasn't going to dampen Donovan's spirits.
He had come to a field in this Catskills arts colony to be photographed, looking every bit the '60s troubadour of "Mellow Yellow" fame with a calf-length, black velveteen coat and long graying curls. The flower-power effect was only heightened when a Woodstock Film Festival staffer - Donovan was here to perform and to flog a biographical DVD - handed him a bright pink umbrella.
Donovan was inspired.
"I'm singing in the rain," he started softly. Then with feeling, "Just singing in the rain!" Donovan was dancing, waving the ridiculous umbrella and, yes, laughing at the clouds - still a Sunshine Superman at age 62.
The bright psychedelic spotlight faded awhile ago, but these are busy days for Donovan. In Woodstock to promote the DVD "Sunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan," he also talked enthusiastically about his upcoming double album "Ritual Groove" and a planned tour of North America and Europe. And while folks at the film festival seemed more interested in asking him about the '60s - mostly about his pals in the Beatles - that was OK too.
At a festival question-and-answer session, Donovan told how George Harrison suffered stiff knees while learning the sitar. He even sang an unrecorded verse of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" written by his old Beatle chum. He talked about leaving a private audience with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as the Grateful Dead were walking in and how he first heard the sitar music of Ravi Shankar during a wild night out.
"I got very, very involved in a paisley patterned carpet, I remember," Donovan said to laughter. "It took me a long while to come out of that carpet."
The DVD by director Hannes Rossacher covers a lot of the same ground. It tells the story of a scruffy teenager from Scotland with a guitar and a cap who, inevitably, was compared to Bob Dylan, when he hit it big in London in 1965. The folkie gear was soon enough ditched for Carnaby Street-wear as Donovan produced a string of catchy '60s pop gems like "Mellow Yellow" and "Sunshine Superman."
The DVD also solves the minor mystery of who Saffron was and why Donovan was so mad about her. Actually, it's not strictly a who, but a what: the young artist really liked saffron bread. The film does not explicate "electrical banana."
In retrospect, Donovan seems like a Swinging London Zelig. He can be seen playing guitar in Bob Dylan's hotel room in "Don't Look Back," the documentary of Dylan's 1965 tour of Great Britain. He went with the Beatles to India to see the Maharishi. Donovan taught John Lennon a finger-picking technique used in "Dear Prudence." Some of the studio musicians on "Hurdy Gurdy Man" went on to form Led Zeppelin. While accounts vary, Donovan says Jimmy Page played guitar on the track.
Donovan says that in the London music scene of the '60s, everyone influenced everyone, and he takes credit for some of the influencing. He notes that the psychedelic stylings on the Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" came after "Sunshine Superman." And there was at least a hint of competition along with the groovy vibes, as Donovan makes clear in talking about "Superman" during an interview.
"My producer Mickie Most said 'Don't play it to Paul McCartney,"' he said. "Of course, I did."
Donovan's star waned after the '60s, though he still recorded and performed. Notable was the late '90s album "Sutras" produced by fellow meditation enthusiast Rick Rubin, who is famous for his reclamation work on old pros like Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond.
Donovan also is one of those artists whose melodies routinely pop up in films and TV. He says he gets a call at least every three weeks from people asking permission to use one of his songs. They're typically used by filmmakers as a shorthand to evoke the 60s, but not always.
Martin Scorsese memorably used the happy sing-along "Atlantis" in "Goodfellas" as a hoodlum is kicked to death. More recently, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" heightened the creepiness of a murder in 2007's "Zodiac." And his old chestnut "Catch the Wind" was used in a recent General Electric commercial promoting wind energy.
Donovan loves having his songs matched with images.
In that same vein, Donovan hopes that young filmmakers will use songs on his new album in their own creations. Meanwhile, he lives in Ireland's County Cork and is continuing the process of "tidying up" his legacy after more than 40 years in the business. The process kicked off with an autobiography a few years ago, extends through the new DVD and includes organizing and digitizing his old song tapes, some of which were long lost.
"It's kind of retrospective time, gathering the complete works," he said, "not that I'm packing to go anywhere."
On the Net:
http://www.donovan.ie/
Janet Jackson News
Janet Jackson has scrapped the show that was planned as her comeback after illness. The pop superstar's promoters announced that Saturday night's concert in Connecticut would go ahead after a string of cancellations, dating back to the end of September, but now the show is off.
In a statement, her representative says, "Janet Jackson's anticipated return to her Rock Witchu tour in Uncasville has been postponed due to doctor's orders."
The singer now plans to resume the tour on Monday in Verona, New York.
Jackson pulled her first show in Montreal, Canada on September 29 after checking into a city hospital with a mystery illness. She has since scrapped a series of U.S. dates on the Rock Witchu tour.
No official explanation for the latest cancellation has been given.
Travis Barker News
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Travis Barker may have been released from Georgia's Joseph M. Still Burn Center last month, but his ongoing treatment is far from over.
E! News has confirmed that the plane crash survivor has been receiving care, including surgery, at a Los Angeles-area hospital.
A source says the former Blink-182 drummer remains in the facility and his condition has been "up and down" since he returned to Southern California.
The 32-year-old rocker was released Sept. 29 from the Augusta, Ga., hospital where he and Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein were taken in the immediate aftermath of the takeoff crash of a Learjet that left the other four people on board dead.
Barker suffered second- and third-degree burns in the Sept. 19 accident but, along with Goldstein, is expected to make a full recovery.
—Additional reporting by Ken Baker
··· Watercooler 101: Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com
Britney Spears News
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Britney Spears plans to set the record straight about her personal and professional woes in a documentary to be aired shortly before the release of her new album "Circus" in December.
In the 90-minute film, "Britney: For the Record," Spears talks about her high-profile meltdown, which included stints in rehab and psychiatric hospital units, an ugly divorce, losing custody of her two sons and shaving her head.
"I sit there and I'll look back and I'm like: I'm a smart person. What the hell was I thinking?" the 26-year-old singer says in the documentary shot by filmmaker Phil Griffin over three-months.
In the past six months or so, Spears' father Jamie has taken over management of her affairs and helped get his daughter's life back on track. She has made guest appearances on U.S. TV series "How I Met Your Mother" and is due to release her sixth studio album on her December 2 birthday.
The album -- from Jive Records which is ultimately owned by Sony Music Entertainment Inc, a unit of Sony Corp -- marks the follow-up to 2007's "Blackout," which was also billed as a comeback, but failed to return Spears to the commercial heyday she enjoyed at the turn of the century.
The documentary, described as showing "the reality of trying to live a normal life after all that has been exposed through the media," is set to air on MTV on November 30.
"So much has gone on over the last couple of years and there's a lot that people don't know about me that I want them to know," Spears said in a statement.
"I wanted to make this film because I started to feel like I wasn't being seen in the light that I wanted to be seen in. This is an opportunity to set the record straight and talk about what I've been through and where I'm headed," she said.
news.yahoo.com
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