Donovan has indicated that The Hurdy Gurdy Man describes the Maharishi. So why is The Hurdy Gurdy Man the subtitle of this book? His autobiography is similarly cavalier about a number of things, not least of them spelling. Jennifer Juniper, written to woo the sister-in-law of George Harrison, qualifies as one of the most successful musical seductions on record, but Donovan changes the spelling of his own song's title. Bob Dylan becomes "Bobbie." But he also becomes "the Hebrew shaman with the Celtic name." And Donovan, in gloves-off mode, contends that while Dylan is the better lyricist, "musically I am more creative and influential."
The Autobiography of Donovan stops all too short at the end of the 1960s.
But its defining event also occurs then. The book has been built around the author's search for his muse: Linda Lawrence, who met Donovan in 1965, was gun-shy about rock stars (after bearing a child and being abandoned by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones) and inspired many surprisingly fizzy songs of amorous pursuit. (Sunshine Su-perman is the fizziest of them.) His happily-ever-after finale notes their wedding and progeny but continues to keep the last three and a half decades under wraps.
However time has treated Donovan personally, it has been kind to his music. And the music now gets the jump-start it needs to be enjoyed and admired anew. This book, with legitimate frustration but without hubris, reinstates that music's seminal influence and the underlying seriousness that has always been easy to miss.
"The constant gibes in the British press about my love of beauty has long left a false impression of my work," he maintains. "I was mocked as a simpleton when I sang of birds and bees and flowers like a child." He was also mocked for being wild about saffron, but it turns out that he loves saffron monks' robes and saffron cake with raisins. In any case, this book is where the mockery ends. And the last laugh begins.
RSS