Hurdy Gurdy Man

01 Hurdy Gurdy Man

02 Peregrine

03 Entertaining Of A Shy Girl

04 As I Recall It

05 Get Thy Bearings

06 Hi It's Been A Long Time

07 West Indian Lady

08 Jennifer Juniper

09 The River Song

10 Tangier

11 A Sunny Day

12 The Sun Is A Very Magic Fellow

13 Teas

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" (or "The Hurdy Gurdy Man," if you want to go by the record's cover) was originally issued only in the United States in October, 1968 - and only in stereo, although mono promo LPs were pressed for radio play. Although original pressings of that are hard to find, Sundazed reissued the mono mix on vinyl in 2013 with minor differences (the original LP runs a bit slow, and has less abrupt fades on some songs). The mono mix should not be neglected, because the focus is more on Donovan's vocals (where it should be). "Hurdy Gurdy Man," for instance, already a powerful song, comes off even stronger in the mono mix. In addition, "Get Thy Bearings" doesn't fade out, as it does in the stereo mix, and you can hear the performance end. The mono versions of "Hurdy Gurdy Man," "Jennifer Juniper" and "Get Thy Bearings" were used for the 2015 "Retrospective" CD, compiled by Donovan, so evidently the artist himself prefers the mono versions of these songs. Sadly, for contractual reasons, this is another one of Donovan's albums that was not originally issued in the UK.

As for the music - like The Beatles, Donovan was progressing. The hard-rocking title song, for instance, is, as Donovan describes it, "a departure from anything I had written before." As a whole, the album presents an eclectic group of songs that still manage to form a cohesive listening experience (something The Beatles would also achieve several months later on the "White Album"). Sadly, it's arguably the last truly great album that Donovan would make.

To begin with, let's take a closer look at the stereo mix of the "Hurdy Gurdy Man" album for which, unfortunately, we have no uniformly superior source. The album was first issued on CD in the States in 1990, and in the UK in 1994, as part of the "Four Originals" boxed set. A remastered edition came out in the UK in 2005. This remaster was reissued by The state51 Conspiracy in 2022 (and was also used in the 2013 "Breezes of Patchouli" boxed set). Unfortunately, the 2005 CD fails out of the gate, since the title song, "Hurdy Gurdy Man," sounds muffled for some reason. Unfortunately, the other CD sources are deficient as well, usually fading the song early. The version on the "Try For The Sun" compilation doesn't fade early, but that one sounds boomy and distorted.

For the rest of the songs on the album, the 2005 CD has notably better fidelity than the earlier release on the "Four Donovan Originals" box (I don't own the original US CD, so can't speak to that). In addition, "Get Thy Bearings" and "Hi It's Been A Long Time" run 5-6 seconds longer than on "Four Donovan Originals," where they're faded early.

Better fidelity or not, the 2005 remaster doesn't entirely represent the sound of the original album, since "Jennifer Juniper" has been remixed ("Four Donovan Originals" has the original mix). The easiest way to tell the difference is that Donovan's overdubbed second vocal is on the right channel on the 1994 "Four Originals" version, but mixed in the center in the 2005 remaster. The 1994 CD matches the mix heard on the 1969 "Greatest Hits" LP, the "Sunshine Superman" CD EP, "Greatest Hits And More" and "Troubadour." The remix (not surprisingly) is also found on "Breezes of Patchouli," which also contains Donovan's Italian rendition of the song (see below).

There doesn't seem to be a true stereo mix of "The River Song." On the original vinyl and "Four Donovan Originals" box, it's in mono. The 2005 version has been opened up a bit electronically, but I think they're still just working off the mono master tape. "Breezes of Patchouli" uses this version as well.

The songwriting credits for "Hurdy Gurdy Man" are confusing. The original LP has no songwriting credits. The CD claims that all the songs are written by Donovan. However, some sources give co-author credit on "The River Song" to "Gypsy" Dave Mills, who's also credited with writing "Tangier." Take your pick.

In Donovan's autobiography, he says that George Harrison recorded an instrumental version of "Peregrine" in India. At some point in 1968, George improvised lyrics over this (calling it "Song To Mary Bee"), but only a brief sample of this recording has surfaced.

A number of interesting demos for the "Hurdy Gurdy Man" album circulate. These are discussed on page 6.

Here, I'm going to examine the various released singles, alternates and outtakes from the "Hurdy Gurdy Man" period.

To begin with, we have the "Jennifer Juniper" / "Poor Cow" single, released in February, 1968. The standard 45 version of "Jennifer Juniper" is the same as the one on the mono "Hurdy Gurdy Man" album. However, Donovan recorded an Italian language version of the song which was released at the time as a single in Italy. Thankfully, this mono recording was included on the "Breezes of Patchouli" boxed set, so you don't have to hunt up a 50-odd year old Italian 45 to hear it.

The b-side, "Poor Cow," is a retitled, studio recording of "Poor Love," which was on the "Donovan In Concert" album. Even though the 45 suggests that this is the version heard in the film "Poor Cow," it's not. That one's a solo performance and has been re-written so that the lyrics refer (vaguely) to the film. The 45 version is an earlier recording, with lyrics that reference "The Lord Of The Rings." "Poor Cow" has been released on CD on the 2005 reissue of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" as well as "Troubadour," "Greatest Hits… And More" and the "Try For The Sun" and "Breezes of Patchouli" boxed sets. All of these are in mono, since no stereo mix seems to exist.

Having mentioned the film "Poor Cow," I might as well add the other Donovan performance from that film (I'll stretch my definition of "released" in this case, since the film has come out on both DVD and blu-ray). This is the otherwise unreleased song "Be Not Too Hard," which plays over the opening credits. Donovan wrote this number to accompany a poem by Christopher Logue, and had also performed it on the BBC television program "Donovan Meets Logue," aired on July 2nd, 1967.

The next b-side is "Teen Angel," which was the flip side of "Hurdy Gurdy Man," issued in May, 1968. Like "Poor Cow," this number has only appeared in mono. It also appears as a bonus track on the 2005 reissue of "Hurdy Gurdy Man," as well as the "Troubadour," "Great Hits… And More" and "Breezes of Patchouli" compilations.  

The next single was "Lalena," backed with "Aye My Love," issued in September, 1968. "Lalena" was included on the 1969 "Donovan's Greatest Hits" album, which is probably why we have a stereo mix of it. The mono 45 mix is on "Troubadour," while the other sources mentioned above all use the stereo mix. The b-side, "Aye My Love" presents a problem. This brief, but pleasant number is on the 2005 "Hurdy Gurdy Man" CD as well as the "Greatest Hits… And More" and "Breezes of Patchouli" compilations, but all of them use a version of the song that cuts off 52 seconds in, then repeats the material from 10-52 seconds, and finally fades out while looping the intro. I have no idea when this was created, or why, but the second verse and cold ending heard on the original single are gone, making the vinyl the only source for the complete performance.

"What a Beautiful Creature You Are" is an outtake from "Hurdy Gurdy Man," included on the 2005 "Hurdy Gurdy Man" CD as well as the "Breezes of Patchouli" box. It's a light-hearted duet with Lulu, recorded in May, 1968, and represents the kind of "let's have fun in the studio and record it!" mindset that will show itself again on Donovan's next album, "Barabajagal."

This bring us to Donovan's re-recordings of "Colours" and "Catch The Wind," which were included on the 1969 "Donovan's Greatest Hits" album. Quite different from the originals, Donovan needed to re-record these two songs since Hickory still had the rights to the original 1965 recordings. Only available in stereo, "Colours" has a slightly longer beginning on "Breezes of Patchouli" than any other source. The 1999 resequenced CD of "Donovan's Greatest Hits" (the one with bonus tracks) replaces these two performances with the original 1965 recordings. The earlier CD (Epic EK 26439) contains the correct performances and accurately reflects the content of the original album.

Moon In Capricorn

(selections from an unreleased album)

01 Moon In Capricorn

02 The Ferryman's Daughter

03 She Moved Through The Fair

04 Freeborn Man Of The Traveling People

1-2 Written by Donovan

3 - Traditional

4 - Written by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger

Before "Barabajagal" was released, Donovan was reportedly working on an unreleased album to be called "Moon In Capricorn." Although it's been written that some of this material later appeared on the "HMS Donovan" album (which I believe) we don't know exactly what songs those were or if the unreleased album even reached the point of having a track listing assembled. In the "Try For The Sun" boxed set, however, are four songs that are attributed to "Moon In Capricorn."

In early 1969, Donovan was recorded for the BBC at home, previewing some of his new material, and played the song "Moon In Capricorn" as well as an early version of "Barabajagal." This indicates, at least, that he was working on that song before "Barabajagal" was completed. "Try For The Sun" dates "Moon In Capricorn" as 1968 (which may well be correct) but, confusingly enough, the same performance heard on "Try For The Sun" also appears on Donovan's "Buried Treasures - The Morgan Studio Sessions 1970" CD (which I'll review down the line). However, I'm going to assume that CD is simply taken from a 1970 compilation tape of previous recordings and stick with late '68 / early '69 as the correct date for this and the other performances listed above.

As for the other three songs, later recordings of "The Ferryman's Daughter" appear on Donovan's "Live In Japan - Spring Tour 1973" album, as well as 1990's "Gaelia" (finally released in 2022). The early performance on "Try For The Sun" is better than either of them. "She Moved Through The Fair" is a lovely, traditional Irish folk song. "Free Born Man Of The Traveling People" was written by Ewan MacColl, whose song "Dirty Old Town" was performed by Donovan on his 1964 demo tape. All four of these solo acoustic tunes are quite nice, and make me wish that Donovan had gone in this direction with his career instead of the one he'd take with his next album, "Barabajagal."

Singing His Songs

01 Jennifer Juniper (versione italiana)

02 Poor Cow (b-side of "Jennifer Juniper", 2-68)

03 Poor Cow ("Poor Cow" soundtrack)

04 Be Not Too Hard ("Poor Cow" soundtrack)

05 Teen Angel (b-side of "Hurdy Gurdy Man", 5-68)

06 Lalena (single, 9-68) (stereo)

07 Lalena (single, 9-68) (mono)

08 Aye My Love (b-side of "Lalena", 9-68)

09 Aye My Love (CD edit)

10 What A Beautiful Creature You Are (with Lulu) (outtake)

11 Colours (re-recording)

12 Catch The Wind (re-recording)

All tracks written by Donovan except #4, which is music by Donovan, words by Christopher Logue.

All My Loving

This 52 minute documentary, by Tony Palmer, was originally aired on the BBC’s “Omnibus” series on November 3rd, 1968. Issued on DVD in 2007 by Voiceprint (unfortunately cropped to widescreen). Donovan is filmed in an outdoor setting, performing “The Lullaby Of Spring,” accompanied by flautist Harold McNair. Unfortunately, only portions of the performance are shown. A brief interview with Donovan was also included.