Donovan – HMS Donovan (1971) 24-bit/96kHz Vinyl Rip

Anyone who likes the Donovan of “Sunshine Superman” or “Mellow Yellow” will probably want to ignore this album — but anyone who liked the Donovan of “Colours,” “Turquoise,” or “Poor Cow,” or Gift From a Flower to a Garden, will have to track it down, because they’ll find it essential. One has to give Donovan a lot of credit for attempting a release like HMS Donovan in 1971, although it never came close to charting at the time of its release. The drugged-out hippie era that had spawned trippy folk-based albums such as Gift From a Flower to a Garden was long past, and acoustic folk recordings were considered passé, yet here was Donovan setting words by Lewis Carroll, Thora Stowell, Ffrida Wolfe, Agnes Grozier Herbertson, Lucy Diamond, Edward Lear, Eugene Field, William Butler Yeats, Natalie Joan, and Thomas Hood, among others, to what were often hauntingly beautiful melodies, mostly strummed on a guitar. What’s more, it just about all works perfectly, once one gets past the tape-effect tricks and other silliness of the opening track, “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” Spawned at a time when the singer/songwriter was about to become a father, the album has a decidedly playful tone, even more so than its obvious predecessor, For Little Ones. Lovely as that record was, there are also long stretches of HMS Donovan that have far prettier melodies, arrangements, and accompaniment, played at more attractive tempos. The playing here, which is mostly just Donovan’s solo guitar with maybe a string bass and organ, and an unnamed female singer or two backing him on a few tracks, is crisper and more focused (along with the recording), and the tunes are seldom short of gorgeous, whether written by Donovan or simply his arrangements of traditional folk melodies. HMS Donovan marked the singer’s last venture of this kind, into his mid-/late-’60s folk style, or into folk-style children’s songs, and it was the last of his albums to be characterized by whimsy. “Lord of the Dance” (written by Sydney Carter and utilizing a melody that Americans may know better as “Simple Gifts”), “Queen Mab,” and “Celia of the Seals” are worth the price of admission by themselves. Bruce Eder, Allmusic.

Track listing:

01. The Walrus and the Carpenter
02. Jabberwocky
03. The Seller of Stars
04. Lost Time
05. The Little White Road
06. The Star

07. Coulter’s Candy
08. The Road
09. Things To Wear
10. The Owl and the Pussycat
11. Homesickness
12. Fishes in Love
13. Mr. Wind
14. Wynken, Blynken and Nod

15. Celia of the Seals
16. The Pee Song
17. The Voyage of the Moon
18. The Unicorn
19. Lord of the Dance
20. Little Ben
21. Can Ye Dance

22. In An Old-Fashioned Picture Book
23. The Song of Wandering Aengus
24. A Funny Man
25. Lord of The Reedy River
26. Henry Martin
27. Queen Mab
28. La Moora

Personnel:

Donovan: vocals, guitar
Mary: fiddle
Mike Thomson: bass, organ
Danny Thompson: concert bass, fiddle on “Celia”
John Carr: drums
Cynthia sings on “Star”, “Wynken” and “Pee Song”.
Mr. Wind and Walrus voice – Donovan slowed down
Produced by Donovan
“Homesickness” produced by Mickie Most and Donovan
Engineered by Mike Bobak at Morgan Studios, London.
Artwork by John ‘Patrick’ Byrne.