Tim Hughes talks to 60s singer-songwriter and friend to The Beatles, Donovan, and finds the man styled as the British Dylan still living the hippy dream almost 50 years after the summer of love

The ultimate 60s flower child, Donovan was present at some of the defining moments of the hippy era.

Earning an Ivor Novello award for his first hit, Catch the Wind, which hit the charts when he was just 18, he went on to release what was probably the first real psychedelic album in 1966’s Sunshine Superman – providing inspiration for Sgt Pepper.

Big friends of The Beatles, he contributed lyrics to their songs and joined them on their trip to India to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi. While they were there, he taught Paul and John to finger-pick. George went on to describe him as a big influence on their White Album.

Donovan was interviewed in the first edition of Rolling Stone magazine, was the first solo artist to sell out Madison Square Garden, and is hailed as a pioneer in record production, influencing the likes of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, who presented him with a Mojo Maverick Award. Another friend was late-Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Donovan ended up marrying Jones’s ex-girlfriend Linda Lawrence and becoming stepfather to Brian’s son Julian.

He was also the first big British rock star to be arrested for possession of cannabis.

His music, with 11 hit singles, such as Sunshine Superman, The Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow, stand testament to a time when trousers were flared, minds were expanded and simply everyone had flowers in their hair.

A man who truly deserves the overused epithet of ‘legend’ and who was hailed as the British Dylan, Donovan this year marks 50 years in the music industry – and is celebrating with a tour which, on Tuesday sees him returning to Oxford Town Hall. Don’t expect any razzmatazz though. Sticking to his hippy roots, the show will see the still-prolific singer-songwriter taking it back to how it began.

“It’s just me, cross-legged on a sheepskin with an acoustic guitar,” says the man, born Donovan Leitch in Glasgow.

“That sounds like a cliché, but we celebrities are supposed to be arrogant spoiled brats. Not me though. I have had a long relationship with people who have taken me into their lives. I am like the soundtrack to their lives.”

The tour was preceded by the release of a double CD anthology, Donovan Retrospective, featuring a new single, One English Summer, which sees him dabbling in reggae.

“It’s good to get back into the saddle and I’m having great fun," he says. “The tour is a delight. It started in Glasgow, where my life also began. And the point is to visit some of the smaller places where I used to play.

“I’ve been doing festivals too this year, including Glastonbury and festivals in Ireland, America and Germany. It’s great getting out there with my music.

"I have to be inspired and enthused or I get lazy,” he confesses.

While others of his generation have long since drifted away from their flower-power influences and hippy beliefs, Donovan proudly clings on.

He may have complained in his song Season of the Witch, that “Beatniks are out to make it rich” but he, almost alone, still extols the virtues of meditation and of generally just being nice to each other.

“There’s nothing I’d like to do more than what I’m doing,” he says, with satisfaction.

“I am inspired to do what I love.

"I’m still doing 200 dates a year. That will wear you down, but the lazy part of me protects me. I’m also a dedicated vegetarian.

“I am now 69 and people say ‘how does he sit cross-legged?’ Well, I’ve been looking after myself. I’ve still got my own hair, and I’m singing better than ever!”

But what about drugs? How does the man who once assured us, in psychedelic classic Mellow Yellow, that “electrical banana is gonna be a sudden craze” or, reportedly gifted the line “sky of blue and sea of green” to The Beatles for their acid-dipped Yellow Submarine, now think about mind-altering substances?

He sighs, deeply. “I’m not talking about a bit of herb...” he says. “I was the first to sing of the subculture and of the beatnik scene which was to take over the 60s, and the first to openly discuss it on my early albums. But with the use of drugs, you’ve got to be careful.

“I looked after my body and he looked after me. It’s hard drugs and hard touring that are the problem.

"Just being in a band makes it harder.

"You’ve got to watch it. Even in the 60s I knew what was going on. I knew synthetic drugs were bad for you, and they are still bad for you.”

The solution, he says, is meditation. “The Beatles and I brought it back from India and it was the most incredible thing we established in our generation.

“George Harrison said we were more famous and richer, but not more healthy. We were looking for love, health and peace inside. And I continued to promote it with Paul and Ringo.”

And does he still hang out with them? “When you’ve known each other for so long you don’t have to see each other that often,” he says. “But Dylan brought us together again and I see Ringo and Paul now and again, and do big and small things with them.”

He pauses for thought and adds: “There was a time from 65 to 67 when it was great to hang out with mates. But ‘super-fame’ spoiled all that.

Oxford Mail:

"I miss the time of hanging out with my peers, and there was no big rush, before this business of music got huge. It’s nice to do smaller things; to try and recreate that. That's why I like small gigs.

“We lived in the moment and never thought further than next Tuesday,” he laughs.“It was a time of change in consciousness. There is still extremism and violence, but the 60s offered an opportunity for dialogue. That’s what we achieved. We weren’t looking for answers, we were asking people to ask themselves.

“Before nobody was talking, and now everybody is talking.”

Where and when
Donovan plays Oxford Town Hall next Tuesday. Tickets from ents24.com
The double CD Donovan Retrospective album is out now