![]() *** The Fun Facts: “Legend Of A Girl Child Linda” … Donovan first met his future wife, Linda Lawrence, in 1965 when she was recovering from a broken relationship with Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones. While the album is a bit of a time capsule now, and the lesser songs have been bleached by the sun and almost totally forgotten, there are a number of tracks found here that can not be denied, and still call for a fresh listen every now and then. So without a doubt, all of this shows that the work of Donovan on this outing was much more musically and timely important, than many would give him credit for. It’s also worth noting that Donovan’s song “Three King Fishers” was recorded by The Jefferson Airplane on the album Bless Its Point Little Head, and that for The Beatles’ video of “A Day In The Life,” there is a close up of a spinning turntable, on which the Epic Records’ version of Sunshine Superman is playing. Another odd note was that with more and more people now having stereophonic systems in their homes, the only track mixed in stereo was the song “Season Of The Witch,” a song that rocked back everyone, and is still a highly covered number, with perhaps the best cover done on the Super Session featuring Al Kooper, Stephen Stills and Mike Bloomfield. To make matters worse, Sunshine Superman was not released in the UK due to contractual disputes, with a compilation of Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow being pressed and distributed there as Sunshine Superman. While it’s true that Donovan was still lost in his gentle medieval manuscripts and themed visions, laced with baroque harpsichords and lightly layered acoustic guitars, he does deliver a bouncy quality of charm, melodies and yes, sunshine.Įven when the man attempts to present something more hip and relevant, such as “The Trip,” full of its subtle references to LSD, in 1966 Donovan was competing that year with Surrealistic Pillow by The Jefferson Airplane, The Beatles’ Revolver, Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, Parsley Sage … by Simon & Garfunkel, and a host of other first rated releases of melodic sonic intensity that would tender Donovan as an also-ran. The single, “Sunshine Superman,” that opens the album sets both the stage and sets a tempo that is nearly impossible to follow up, as the song was every bit as unexpected as “Monday Monday” by the Mama’s and The Papa’s, where listeners nearly stopped in their tracks, lost in the spellbinding music and lyrics … sounds that stood solidly in sharp contrast to anything we were hearing on AM radio in those days. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I bought Sunshine Superman, stuffing it in the bag between some school clothes so that my parents wouldn’t notice, though in answer to my exhausted look, the clerk touched the side of his nose, and gave me a gracious smile, saying, “Enjoy the new duds young lady.” He’d just made me feel very hip.Īnd hip is how Donovan must have felt on this his third outing, where he nearly singlehandedly invents the genre of psychedelic folk, one where he stepped from the traditional folk shadows, brightened up his instrumentation, fleshed out his songs, finally found his own voice, with the opening track, and set the air alive in 1966 with the opening music riffs that will forever be linked as a part of the soundtrack to those more mellow psychedelic years.
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