At least I'm keeping it to three or four four or five days late and not a week....
Much like last week's tune, this week's featured song brings no recollection of when I first became aware of it or heard it. Due to its unique sound, it's possible I could have heard it on a top forty station or an AOR station--but with its release date of 1966, the one thing I can guarantee you is that I wasn't on the Donovan bandwagon at age seven....
Donovan Phillips Leitch (hereafter Donovan) was born in Scotland in 1946. He began playing guitar at the age of fourteen, and by the time he was nineteen he'd had a top five hit in his native U.K. After another year he had a #1 hit single in America, and his success would continue into the early seventies before petering out. Donovan is considered one of the progenitors of psychedelic rock, and in 2012 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For his career, he has released twenty-nine studio albums, eight live albums, sixty-two (!) compilations, and thirty-three singles. Donovan released his latest album in 2022 and is taking this year off to prepare for a sixtieth anniversary tour next year. Donovan dabbled in acting in his heyday, appearing in three films, and his two oldest children, Donovan Leitch and Ione Skye are both actors.
"Sunshine Superman" was originally released as a single before being added to a cash grab album, the not so originally named Sunshine Superman. The single would become the highest charting of his career in both the U.S. (#1--with a bullet!) and the U.K. (#2). The album would be his highest charting album in America, peaking at #11.
Fun Fact: Two of the studio musicians on "Sunshine Superman' were bassist John Paul Jones and guitarist Jimmy Page, who went on to form a somewhat successful band you may have heard of: Led Zeppelin.
You can tell the special quality of a song when you listen to it, and think, "That's from the sixties"...and yet it still sounds as fresh as if it had been released this year. It's equal parts Donovan's vocals (love the way he adds an extra syllable here and there throughout the song--like "a-thinkin'"), Page's otherworldly guitar, and the overarching sparseness of the music. Donovan was twenty when "Sunshine Superman" was released, and his musical and lyrical intuition shows an acumen well beyond his years. As a side note: Donovan wrote the song for a woman he was attracted to, who initially did not share his interest in pursuing a relationship. They had a chance meeting in the early seventies, were married shortly thereafter, and are still together to this day. True love wins in the end....
Lyric Sheet: "I'll pick up your hand and slowly/Blow your little mind/'Cause I made my mind up/You're going to be mine..."
Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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