to come up with sparkle to match. A Day In The Life was composed by them both, and the nods and winks that passed between the two as they put lyric onto paper belies the common misconception that they were worlds apart by this time. George Martin was urged to concoct brass, woodwind and orchestral parts, future Gary Glitter mastermind Mike Leander was commissioned to supply a string arrangement for She’s Leaving Home and the engineers were encouraged to stretch Abbey Road’s rather modest technology to its limits.
What they all came up with is arguably the reason for this book’s existence, for it energised the album form, providing a high watermark for anyone with the chance to record 40 minutes of music and decorate twelve square inches of card. It may not be the best album ever made – it’s not even the best Beatles album ever made – and in retrospect there’s a lot that’s gimmicky about it. It wasn’t the first ‘grown-up’ rock album, the first to use an orchestra, the first themed album or the first psychedelic album, but it was by The Beatles, and consequently it became the first of these to be noticed by the wider public and to mark the moment where pop music simultaneously reflected and defined the times.
Donovan
Sunshine Superman
Donovan, at his peak, shakes off the junior plastic Dylan tag. Nobody shouts Judas.
Record label: Pye
Produced: Mickie Most
Recorded: Hollywood and London; 1965 (title track) and summer 1966
Released: June 1967 (UK) September 1966 (US)
Chart peaks: (UK) 25 (US) 11
Personnel: Donovan (v, g); Eric Ford (g); Jimmy Page (g); Bobby Rae (b); Spike Healey (b); Shaun Phillips (sitar); Bobby Orr (d); Fast Eddie Hoh (d); Tony Carr (pc); John Cameron (k, ar); Harold McNair (flute); Danny Thompson (db)
Track listing: Sunshine Superman (S); Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; The Observation; Guinevere; Celeste; Writer In The Sun; Season Of The Witch; Hampstead Incident; Sand Of Foam; Young Girl Blues; Three Kingfishers; Bert’s Blues
Running time: 49.00 (UK) 41.22 (US)
Current CD: EMI 8735662 tracklisting runs: Sunshine Superman; Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; Three Kingfishers; Ferris Wheel; Bert’s Blues; Season Of The Witch; The Trip; Guinevere; The Fat Angel; Celeste; Breezes Of Patchulie; Museum (First Version); Superlungs (First Version); The Land That Doesn’t Have To Be; Sunshine Superman; Goo Trip (Demo – Mono); House Of Jansch (Demo – Version)
Further listening: Mellow Yellow (1967); A Gift From A Flower To A Garden (1967); Barabajagal (1969)
Further reading: www.sabotage.demon.co.uk/ donovan (fan site); www.donovan.ie
Download: iTunes; HMV Digital
Dismissed first as a Dylan imitator and then as a cosmic buffoon, Donovan Philip Leitch was nevertheless a bit of a trailblazer: the first pop star to be busted for drugs (jumping naked onto a policeman’s back while high on LSD) and one of the first British solo stars to top the US charts – with the title track of this album.
Born in Glasgow, raised in Hatfield, at 18 he was already a seasoned itinerant musician when discovered playing in a St Albans folk club by songwriter Geoff Stevens. A deal was quickly struck with Southern Music and Stevens suggested covering Gale Garnett’s American hit We’ll Sing In The Sunshine. But the teenaged troubadour wanted to record a poem he’d just set to music, Catch The Wind. Stevens alerted Bob Bickford, a scout for Ready Steady Go!, and the unsigned singer was booked for the show in February 1965. ‘Two nights on from sleeping on somebody’s floor I was on national television!’ Donovan wore a denim Breton fisherman’s cap, sat on a stool and made up a song in a Woody Guthrie style, Talking Pop Star Blues, which poked fun at the current acts in the charts. The show was flooded with positive mail and Donovan was quickly booked for the following week.
Catch The Wind was swiftly leased to Pye and by the end of March the song was at Number 4 and the teen magazines were full of advertisements for ‘The Donovan Cap’. An American scout caught Ready Steady Go! and booked him for a slot on Shindig, still only weeks after that support slot in St Albans. Catch The Wind made 23 in the US. A few singles later, he signed up with hit-maker Mickie Most and at the end of 1965 they cut Sunshine Superman and aired it on the short-lived UK TV show A Whole Scene Going. However, legal problems held its release over until September 1966, when its mildly trippy, upbeat blues sound chimed perfectly with the emergent hippy movement and the single sailed to Number 1 in the US and Number 2 in Britain.
This marvellous album was, in fact, released late in the UK and compiled from two American releases, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. Pye omitted three of the American version’s most psychedelic tracks – The Trip (later released on the flip of the Sunshine Superman single), The Fat Angel (a tribute to Cass Elliot which namechecks Jefferson Airplane and was later covered by The Band) and Ferris Wheel.
Whichever edition you hear, however, the album offers a daring musical blend of jazz, folk, rock, raga and Arabic influences, while lyrically exploring a combination of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology, wry social satire and beat poetry.
The Monkees
Headquarters
TV’s phoney-rockers prove they can make their own music.
Record label: RCA/Colgems
Produced: Douglas Farthing Hatlelid aka Chip Douglas
Recorded: RCA Victor Studios, Hollywood; February–April 1967
Released: May 22, 1967
Chart peaks: 1 (UK) 2 (US)
Personnel: Mike Nesmith (g, ps, o, v); Davy Jones (pc, v); Micky Dolenz (d, g, v); Peter Tork (k, 12-string guitar, b, banjo, v); Vince DaRosa (French horn); Fred Seykora (c); Chip Douglas (b)
Track listing: You Told Me; I’ll Spend My Life With You; Forget That Girl; Band 6; You Just May Be The One; Shades Of Gray; I Can’t Get Her Off My Mind; For Pete’s Sake; Mr Webster; Sunny Girlfriend; Zilch; No Time; Early Morning Blues And Greens; Randy Scouse Git (S/UK – released as Alternate Title)
Running time: 28.56
Current CD: Rhino boxed set collection draws together 84 tracks of outtakes, alternate versions and mono versions of the album tracks.
Further listening: The Monkees (1966); More Of The Monkees (1967); Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones (1967)
Further reading: www.monkees.net/
Download: iTunes
The success of The Monkees, whose origins dated back to a September 1965 Variety ad for four ‘spirited’ boys, had surpassed their corporate creators’ dreams. While their public image was of a self-contained group, record mogul Don Kirshner, who chose their songs and oversaw their records, made no effort to hide his role in their fame. In January 1967, when their second album, More Of The Monkees, hit the stores, the group was on tour. As Peter Tork later recalled: ‘In Cleveland, we went across the street and bought the first copy of our record that we’d seen. The back liner notes were Don Kirshner congratulating all his boys for the wonderful work they’d done, and, oh, yes, this record is by The Monkees.’
Thus began a rebellion by the prefab four which climaxed in a legendary run-in with Kirshner at a Beverly Hills hotel, where Michael Nesmith reportedly put his fist through a wall. Nesmith proceeded to spill to TV Guide, ‘The music on our records has nothing to do with us. It’s totally dishonest, tell the