01 Roller Derby Queen

02 Boy For Every Girl (re-recording) *

03 Where Is The Gypsy In You

04 Where Are You Now?

05 Local Boy Chops Wood (re-recording) *

06 Bye Bye Girl *

07 I Love You Baby *

08 Hotel Lonely

09 A Woman’s Work

10 When All The World Is Young

11 Lady Of The Stars (re-recording) *

12 Two Days Late

* These songs appear on the "Lady Of The Stars" LP.

Lady Of The Stars - Demos

This group of demos circulates as a bootleg under the title "Roller Derby Queen" and clearly pre-dates 1983’s "Lady Of The Stars" album, where five of them are featured in more finished form. This group of songs might suggest what the album was envisioned to be before someone decided to combine the new material with re-recordings of songs from earlier in Donovan’s career. The tracks are listed here in the order they’re found on the bootleg.

"Roller Derby Queen" is a lame slice of wanna-be-commercial rock and roll, not to be confused with a Jim Croce song bearing the same name. "Boy For Every Girl" is a re-recording of the song that originally appeared on "Essence To Essence." Donovan sings this demo in the same high voice he’d used on the original. When it was released on "Lady Of The Stars," however, he replaced this vocal with one in a lower key, while keeping the backing track basically intact. "Where Is The Gypsy In You" is about as good as the title would imply (which means not good at all), while "Where Are You Now?" is a ponderous ballad about lost love. It's not bad, but somewhat rote. "Local Boy Chops Wood" and "Lady Of The Stars" are simply remakes of the songs on "Donovan." Except for some final touches (the addition of background vocals, for instance), these rough mixes are substantially the same as the versions released on the "Lady Of The Stars" LP, as are "Bye Bye Girl" and "I Love You Baby." Listed on the bootleg as "On The Dark Side Of The Moon," an earlier recording of the song was titled "Hotel Lonely" on "The Sensual Donovan" CD, and introduced under that title when Donovan played it in Germany in 1971. It’s a good number, but the arrangement here does it no favors. A live performance of "A Woman’s Work" can be found on the unofficial "Bottom Line 1976" CD, and the song would ultimately be re-recorded for 2010’s "Ritual Groove" CD. "When All The World Is Young" would also be re-recorded for the unreleased "Celtia" album in 1990 (with the same performance on 1993’s unreleased "One Night In Time" album). Donovan can be heard working out "Two Days Late" with Open Road in the "There Is An Ocean" film from 1970, and portions of him performing it live can be heard on his "Pop 2" broadcast from November of that same year. It’s a better song than any of the originals that did end up on the "Lady Of The Stars" album.

Lady Of The Stars

Half of 1983’s "Lady Of The Stars" is made up of pointless, inferior re-recordings of songs from "Sunshine Superman," "Essence To Essence" and "Donovan." The reason for this, one presumes, is that the original recordings were made for different labels and the record company (or Donovan himself) wanted to include some familiar titles to attract listeners (if this was the case it didn’t help since the album didn’t chart). Graham Nash, Bonnie Bramlett, Dave Mason and John Sebastian all supply backing vocals, but it doesn’t help - the album is bland, middle-of-the-road fare, eminently forgettable. It was produced, or, rather, over-produced, by Jerry Wexler and Dee Robb. If "Pied Piper" didn’t exist, this might well be Donovan’s worst album.

There are three songs that aren’t remakes and weren’t on the "Roller Derby Queen" bootleg as demos. Those are "Every Reason," "Living For The Love Light" and "Till I See You Again." The first is a generic rocker. "Living For The Love Light" was recorded a decade earlier for the "Live In Japan" album (where it comes off better), and "Till I See You Again" wraps up the album with another bland composition that they’re trying to make sound commercial.

"Lady Of The Stars" was re-released under a variety of titles on budget labels, including "Forever Gold," "Sunrise Superman," "Till I See You Again" and many more. There’s no reason to buy any of them, since the original Allegiance LP (from 1984) and CD (from 1987) are both inexpensive and readily available.

01 Lady Of The Stars

    (re-recording - original on "Donovan")

02 I Love You Baby

03 Bye Bye Girl

04 Every Reason

05 Season Of The Witch

    (re-recording - original on "Sunshine Superman")

06 Boy For Every Girl

    (re-recording - original on "Essence To Essence")

07 Local Boy Chops Wood

    (re-recording - original on "Donovan")

08 Sunshine Superman

    (re-recording - original on "Sunshine Superman")

09 Living For The Love Light

10 Till I See You Again

All songs written by Donovan.

GasTank

"GasTank" was a program hosted by Rick Wakeman which aired on the UK's Channel 4. Donovan appears in the third episode, aired on January 29th, 1983, where he performs "Mellow Yellow" and "Lalena," accompanied by Wakeman on keyboards. A DVD of the entire series, as well as a triple CD of the soundtrack, was released by RRAW (Rick Wakeman's label) in 2016.

Wind In The Willows

Donovan appears on Eddie Hardin and Zak Starkey’s 1985 musical adaptation of "Wind In The Willows," singing the title track (written by Hardin). It’s a lovely song, and Donovan sings it well. A live presentation of the "Wind In The Willows" album was recorded for German television in June, 1991 – I’ll cover this later, but on that one Donovan sings a different song, "The Life We Left Behind." The original LP was re-released on CD by Purple Records in 2002.

Colores

In 1986, Donovan turned in another guest appearance - this time with the popular Spanish group Mocedades, for their cover of his song "Colours." This was issued on their LP "Colores" as well as a single in Spain. It’s pleasant enough.

Unsleeping City (Ciudad Sin Sueño)

Also in 1986, Donovan appeared on a Spanish tribute album to Federico Garcia Lorca, "Poetas En Neuva York," adapting an English translation of Lorca’s poem to his own music. This was also issued in Spain on a one-sided promotional 45 in 1987.

01 Josie

02 Catch The Wind

03 Isle Of Islay

04 Sunshine Superman

05 Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)

06 Universal Soldier (Buffy Sainte-Marie)

07 Lalena

08 Jennifer Juniper

09 Hurdy Gurdy Man

10 Happiness Runs

11 The Little Tin Soldier (Shawn Phillips)

12 Mellow Yellow

13 Atlantis

14 There Is A Mountain

All songs written by Donovan unless otherwise indicated.

Greatest Hits Live - Vancouver 1986

An enjoyable, well-recorded and well-performed solo concert. The setlist is entirely predictable, with no surprises - but it’s hard to fault it for that since the album is, after all, titled "Greatest Hits Live." The CD also features three bonus live performances which claim to be from Carnegie Hall, 1986. These were all previously released on "Donovan Rising" and "Donovan Rising Again," so are not listed here. A final bonus track - a studio recording of "Only To Be Expected" was included as a bonus track on Burning Airlines' "Neutronica" CD, and is also not listed.

I do wonder why Varese Sarabande, a well established label specializing in soundtracks, saw fit in 2001 to release what was then a 15 year old Donovan soundboard, with a package design that makes it resemble a bootleg. Unlike "Donovan Rising" and "Rising Again," "Vancouver 1986" has not been re-released, but it’s still easy to find.

01 Hurdy Gurdy Man (re-recording)

02 Jennifer Juniper (re-recording)

03 Universal Soldier (re-recording)

More Re-Recordings

Re-recordings of "Hurdy Gurdy Man," "Jennifer Juniper" and "Universal Soldier" can be found on a compilation CD issued by "Road Classics," creatively titled "Sunshine Superman" (not to be confused, obviously, with Donovan’s classic 1966 album). As far as I can tell, these are unavailable elsewhere. The first two are bland, MOR insults to the originals and "Universal Soldier" only survives unscathed because the arrangement is so simple they probably couldn’t figure out a way to make it awful. This CD also features some of the other "Lady Of The Stars" re-recordings, as well as other songs from that album and a seemingly random selection of additional numbers from Donovan’s career. How these three otherwise unreleased recordings ended up on a budget CD from 2001 is anyone’s guess.

Four Guest Appearances

01 One Night In Time

02 Maybe I Think Too Much

03 Philosophy Of Life

04 Sweet Ecstasy

05 I Am A Robot

06 Lady Euphoria

07 Call Me

08 For Your Love

09 You Do Belong (see "Eco~Song")

10 Only For You (aka You Got Me Reeling)

11 American Girl

12 Why Do Lovers Lie (with Nigel Kennedy)

13 All About Eve (with Nigel Kennedy)

14 Mandrake's Theme (with Nigel Kennedy)

    (instrumental)

15 I May Never Love Again

Undated 1980's Sessions

These tracks appear on the bootleg "Sweet Ecstasy." Once again I’ve listed the songs in the running order on the bootleg. I've omitted the first and last tracks, though, since the alternate mix of "Shipwreck" on the bootleg was officially released on the CD of "Neutronica" and "Unsleeping City" on "Poetas En Neuva York," both discussed earlier. Again, given the lack of available information, the best I can do in dating the remaining songs is to assume they’re a collection of demos spanning the 1980’s. Very few of them would be heard again - very few of them deserve to be.

"One Night In Time" would be re-recorded and used as the title track for an unreleased 1990 album (covered on the next page). That's not to suggest it’s a particularly good song – anytime you hear Donovan and electronic drums together you know it’s a bad idea. "Maybe I Think Too Much" sounds like warmed-over disco, which isn’t a good thing, either. Donovan attempts to rock out on "Philosophy of Life," but can’t get there. "Sweet Ecstasy" is trite, with a pretentious spoken word section by an unknown female. "I Am A Robot" is equally tiresome. "Lady Euphoria," which had been demo’d in 1981 for "Love Is Only Feeling," is fully realized here. It’s a good song, but I prefer the earlier, acoustic demo. "Call Me" is another slice of trite '80’s nothingness, as is "For Your Love" (which the bootleg mistitles "Forever Your Love," the name of a different unreleased Donovan song). "You Do Belong," which is kind of catchy, is one of the few songs here to surface again - this, too, would be re-recorded for the unreleased "One Night In Time" album (with the re-recording ultimately being released on the 2019 CD "Eco~Song"). This performance of "Only For You" (also known as "You Got Me Reeling") was remixed and included on "One Night In Time" / "What's A Girl" (see next page) It's another bland attempt at radio fodder. "American Girl" is just dreadful. If there’s ever a "Worst Of Donovan" compilation, this song would surely have to be on it. Ironically, the same performance was issued (digitally) in 2025 on the "What's A Girl" album (see next page).

All in all, the "Sweet Ecstasy" performances come off like another unsuccessful attempt to cash in on current musical styles (I’d be tempted to call this collection "Neutronica 2," but one of those is enough). Slick electronica dance music doesn’t suit Donovan at all.

Tracks 12-14 are performed with violinist Nigel Kennedy, and no doubt date from the late 1980's / early 1990's. These come from the "Bold Young Bugger" bootleg I spoke about on the previous page, though they are clearly not from the same source as most of those performances. At least we can leave the decade on a high note, as all three are very good, indeed. Donovan is singing well, and Kennedy's accompaniment works well alongside Donovan's acoustic guitar. Donovan performed "All About Eve" live in May, 1988, introducing it as being from a "new album" (Sadly, Donovan often announced tracks from a "new album" that would never appear). "I May Never Love Again" comes from the "Singing Songs Of Love" bootleg, where (no surprise), it's undated. It's not on "One Night In Time" and sounds more like this era than the early '90's "Gaelia" sessions, which is why I'm putting it here.