Dylan And Donovan, What's The Story? If any?

After their rendezvous on Dylan's U.K. tour in 1965, as can be seen some of in the film Don't Look Back, did they ever associate again?

I can't recall ever seeing a subsequent photo or story or anecdote about the two of them together. Dylan didn't do anything like invite Donovan on the Rolling Thunder Revue, etc. Do they not like each other or something?

 

I watched DLB yesterday and was wondering the same thing.

 

"Donovan? Who's this Donovan?"

"Donovan, next target. Our target for tomorrow..."

 

Most likely Dylan went his way and Donovan...

 

The Peter Paul & Mary Album has a photo on the back of Mary, Dylan and Donovan sitting together, which I believe was taken at the Newport Festival. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Newport '65, right? Good point.

But Donovan was also playing on the bill there, so...

 

Donovan kind of got burnt from what you can see in the DLB doco. Donovan played a great rendition of his song...then crawled up into a ball while Bob unleashed his much more searing 'Baby Blue. I dunno for sure...I always thought Bob and his groupies in DLB kind of didn't really take Donovan all that seriously. I suppose Bob Dylan was a million miles an hour at this point, writing, performing and being Bob Dylan...and Donovan was a quaint Englishman/ Scotsman who hadn't written much heavy stuff. Anyway...the body language of Donovan isn't great as he curls up into the chair while Dylan sings It's All Over Now Baby Blue. It's hard to know what Bob Dylan thought of Donovan for real then, 25 years ago or now...it's a big who knows...

 

Bit of a side question, was Donovan close with George Harrison when they were India together?

Soon after that George was hanging out with Bob in Woodstock.

 

I don't know about George, but apparently Lennon and Donovan were close and Donovan taught John how to finger pick on guitar, resulting in songs like Dear Prudence, Look At Me, and Julia, each written round that time. And really, has Dylan ever been known to be close and loyal to anybody? He didn't even treat Baez all that well. He's always been a man with a mission and a destiny to fulfill and those that he meets, just seem to be random travelors on his highway.

 

Quote from D.A. Pennebaker, director of Don't Look Back:

From Donovan's review of "Bringing It All Back Home" for Record Mirror, 1965:

 

George wrote two lines for "Hurdy Gurdy Man" that weren't used in the recording, something about "rumors going round and the truth be found", in reference to the Mia Farrow "incident" (it was actually someone else).
Paul and Donovan worked together on Mary Hopkin's first album.

 

wore a leopard-skin pillbox hat?

 

It's important to note that the reason Dylan plays "Baby Blue" is that Donovan himself asks Bob to play it.

Donovan was just getting started at that point and he is on record as saying that Bob was very nice to him when they met. He even invited Donovan to stay in his hotel suite for a few days.

 

George spent some time with Donovan on the Isle of Skye (in the late sixties I think, could be early seventies).

 

Donovan was closest to Paul - helped him with two lines for Yellow Submarine, Paul sang on Mellow Yellow, and there's an "unofficial" tape where they are swapping songs and playing together, probably right around the time of Mary Hopkin's album being produced by Paul, with songs by Donovan included. He did teach John the traditional fingerpicking that he later used on Julia and Dear Prudence.

 

while having Visions of Johanna.

 

I just watched this last night and its a great scene no matter what is going on. But John is right. Donovan asked for "Baby Blue"... seemingly without hesititaion. I also don't remember Donovan curling up in the least. It had to be mindblowing to sit there right in front of that performance so I'm not sure how he was supposed to react - at that stage he's a fan, not competition. Anyway, to me the scene is far more about Dylan and the contrast between greatness and something slightly less than that. Fascinating to watch Dylan operate.

 

Dylan and his entourage seem to treat Donovan as a bit of a good-natured joke throughout the film. When the two Ds finally meet up, you get the sense that Dylan is happy to meet him and doesn't regard him as a threat; and that Donovan is just overcome to meet his hero.

I never felt that the jam session was in the nature of a contest, though I suppose some people have decided to see it that way; Donovan performs an OK song, Dylan a great one. End of story.,

 

Right you are Donovan did request that...I don't think the jam was a contest either and I don't think Dylan was in the least threatened. The body language of Donovan I guess just shows a pretty green kid kind of curling up into that chair, hunching his shoulders and biting his nails. There were cameras there so I suppose that could make anyone feel uncomfortable.

To his credit...Donovan performed his song flawlessly...not that it needed any tricky finger dexterity...but he pulled of his performance really well, including the nice little licks within the the chords.

 

And Dylan is quick to compliment him. I believe that he says that Donovan "sounds like Jack"--a reference to Ramblin' Jack Elliott, who was a huge influence on Bob early on.

 

And Ramblin' Jack's buddy/playing partner Derroll Addams, who's the older, homeless looking guy in the middle of the drunken glass throwing scene/confrontation in that movie, kind of mentored Donovan early on.

Ramblin' Jack was around there during Dylan's stay, too, I think, but he didn't appear in the movie.

 

Of course, Donovan was part of the "music video" (if you can call it that) for Subterranean Homesick Blues as well.

According to Donovan's autobiography (which, to be honest, comes across as more than a little self-serving), he and Dylan got along fine, but D. A. Pennebaker didn't like him, and used him as a "whipping boy" to create a subplot for his documentary.

I do know that the "conventional wisdom," back in the late '60s, was that Donovan was completely humiliated by Dylan and made a worldwide laughing-stock by the documentary, and that was the main cause of his abandoning folk music in favor of psychedelic rock, but I don't think that account really holds water. As others have noted, Dylan has never been the type to form deep attachments, so it's no surprise he had little to do thereafter with a Scottish folk-rock singer who hung out with him a bit during his stay in London.

 

Pennebaker even did this with Dylan. In "Don't Look Back", Dylan is often snarly and surly, but when you see the extra footage that Pennebaker put together a few years back, there are several instances of Dylan being nice to his fans and the press.

 

There is an exhibition about Dylan in Paris, it opened two weeks ago. I went to the opening/cocktail, and I met... Donovan.
I had to go and talk to him because I'm such a fan. He's a very nice person.
Anyway, he had nothing but nice things to say about Dylan.

In Don't Look Back, he's more a running gag than a whipping boy IMHO.

 

exactly how i see dylan donovan plays a brilliant acoustic style

..