Summer Day Reflection Songs

Donovan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 15, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Castle Us
• ASIN: B0007SL3BK
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,037 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Catch The Wind (with strings)

2. Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do

3. Josie

4. Catch The Wind (no strings)

5. Remember The Alamo

6. Cuttin' Out

7. Car Ca

8. Keep On Truckin'

9. Gold Watch Blues

10. To Sing For You

See all 16 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Universal Soldier

2. Ballad Of A Crystal Man

3. The War Drags On

4. Do You Hear Me Now

5. Colours (No Harmonica)

6. To Try For The Sun

7. Sunny Goodge Street

8. Oh Deed I Do

9. Circus Of Sour

10. Summer Day Reflection Song

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Donovan's Catch The Wind/Colours period in full, November 2, 2005

By 

Laurence Upton (Wilts, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summer Day Reflection Songs (Audio CD)

Dovetailing quite neatly with the Pye/Epic material recently repackaged by EMI, this double-CD collects everything released by Donovan prior to Sunshine Superman. In the UK these were on Pye and in America on Hickory.

The first CD contains Donovan's first LP, What's Bin Hid And What's Been Did (tracks 3-14), comprising six of his own songs and five covers. Although compared by the press at the time to Bob Dylan, it is clear that the comparison is no more valid than for dozens of other folkies of the time, and that lyrically Donovan had a far more romantic, sensuous and less political outlook, though both share common roots, such as Woody Guthrie (Car Car), Blind Willie Johnson (You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond) and Mississippi John Hurt (Candy Man).

Donna Donna had been recorded by Joan Baez but is a Yiddish song originally called Dana Dana Dana (written by Aaron Zeitlin for a play called Esterke). Remember The Alamo dates back to Tex Ritter in 1955, but was probably learned from a later version, and Goldwatch Blues was written by a contemporary on the circuit, Mick Softley. Donovan's own songs include Catch The Wind, a perfect song, and To Sing For You, which he famously sang for Bob Dylan in the film Don't Look Back. The bonus tracks on CD1 are the single versions of Catch The Wind and Colours; the B-side of Catch The Wind; and a rare track that originally surfaced only on a French EP.

The second disc features the album Fairy Tale (tracks 5-16), was released only five months after the first and shows the speed with which musicians could develop in the mid-sixties. Donovan's eight originals include the magnificent Sunny Goodge Street and other great songs such as To Try For The Sun and the Ballad Of Geraldine (sung in the first person). Shawn Phillips, who was to add sitar and collaborate on many of Donovan's later recordings, plays guitar on some of the tracks, and contributes his song The Little Tin Soldier. Donovan pays homage to fellow Glaswegian Bert Jansch with Oh Deed I Do, the other cover being Paul Bernath's distinctive Circus Of Sour. The disc opens with Donovan's anti-war EP The Universal Soldier. The Buffy Sainte-Marie title track was a top twenty hit in its own right in the UK and the EP included a shorter version of The Ballad Of A Crystal Man as well as more Bert Jansch and Mick Softley songs. Disc 2 is rounded off with a single recorded after the album, Turquoise, with its strangely titled flip Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness). This seems to be an update of Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe's Can I Do It For You?, given a bit of an acoustic Bo Diddley beat, and it closes the disc in fine style.

Although some of Fairy Tale has appeared in true stereo on previous compilations, both discs are presented in mono.