Guitar Tricks Insider September / October Issue | Page 26

SOUND ADVICE
“THE DONOVAN SOUND
IS A THICK GATHERING
OF INSTRUMENTS, BUT
I’D FIND THE TEMPO AND
THE MELODIES WOULD
BE COMING OUT OF
THE GUITAR.”
“Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got
a-nothin’ on me.” Is that the newest catch-
phrase to be spouted by a supervillain in the
latest mega million Hollywood blockbuster
superhero movie? Not exactly (even though
that’s a good guess). Actually, it’s one of the
more infamous lines from “Sunshine Super-
man,” the #1 1966 hit single by the noted
’60s folk poet, Donovan. The single-named
artist born Donovan Leitch in Glasgow, Scot-
land in 1946 is perhaps best known for his
hooky, imagery-laden, prime-hippie-era lyr-
ics, but he’s also an acoustic guitar player of
exceptional caliber.
“The Donovan sound is a thick gathering of
instruments, and my producer, Mickie Most,
realized very early on if you put acoustic
instruments around my guitar and vocals, it
will augment and support everything I do,”
Donovan explains. “I used to be a drum-
mer, but I’d find the tempo and the melodies
would be coming out of the guitar.”
And while it’s quite true Donovan also re-
corded with some of the heaviest electric gui-
tarists of the burgeoning rock era, including
Jimmy Page (the aforementioned “Sunshine
Superman,” “Season of the Witch”) and Jeff
Beck (“Barabajagal,” “Trudi”), the acoustic
stylings on many of his best-known songs
(“Mellow Yellow,” “Jennifer Juniper,” “There Is
26
GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
a Mountain”) were mainly born from the trouba-
dour’s quite simpatico collaborations with previ-
ously noted producer, Mickie Most (The Animals,
The Nashville Teens’ “Tobacco Road,” Jeff Beck
Group). And early on in their working relation-
ship, both artist and producer strongly agreed
Donovan songs came across the best via their
mono mixes.
“Mickie knew that, now and again, you could
put power chords and electric bass with them,”
Donovan acknowledges. “But if everything was
acoustic, it would jar it all together. So, the
guitar went in the middle, and the instruments
went on the side. You can do that really well in
a mono mix, and spread things out.”
Donovan remains a champion of mono to this
day. “Mono is the greatest,” he agrees. “It’s
very interesting. I didn’t even realize for a long
while my first single, [1965’s] ‘Catch the Wind,’
not only had strings on it, but it also had double
bass, guitar, vocal, and a wee bit of banjo. I was
too young for Elvis the first time around, but
when I finally got into his first album, I found it
was done with double bass and acoustic guitar,
and there were distant drums you could hear
being played two rooms away.”
Eventually, Donovan figured out his signature
sound was built upon the meticulous in-studio
template laid down by a certain other significant
’50s artist. “I realized later in my career that it
must have been Buddy Holly recordings I was
going for,” he admits. “By the time I reached
the recording studio, to all appearances, it
looked like I was a folk singer just doing guitar
and vocal — which was basically true — but I
was also absorbing all of that as well.”
The tape echo and slap back Holly and his pro-
ducer Norman Petty were utilizing on their re-
cordings “must have been influences for me,”
Donovan continues, “but at the same time,
when I got into the studio, I didn’t say, ‘Oh,
make it sound like Buddy.’ I learned about com-
pression and limiting in the studio. Before I met
Mickie, my engineers were limiting my guitar
not to get a particular sound, but just in case if
the level got too high, it bounced on the tape. I
liked that sound, and I wanted it more of it. So
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER