Donovan taught John Lennon the finger-picking behind Dear Prudence
In 1968 the Scottish singer Donovan showed John Lennon a finger-picking guitar pattern, and Lennon went on to use it on Dear Prudence, Julia and Happiness Is a Warm Gun. By then Donovan had already topped the American charts with Sunshine Superman and become a voice of the flower power years.
Born in Glasgow on 10 May 1946, he caught polio as a child and was left with a limp. His family moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire, where a household love of folk music got him playing guitar at 14. He quit art school to wander like a beatnik, bought his first guitar and a fisherman's cap in St Ives, and learned crosspicking from local players before busking through a summer in Torquay.
A Pye Records demo in late 1964 produced Catch the Wind, and TV spots on Ready Steady Go! in 1965 made his name. The press cast him as a Bob Dylan copy. In the documentary Dont Look Back, Dylan reads a paper and asks who this Donovan is; when they finally met at the Savoy, Donovan reportedly played a tune much like Mr. Tambourine Man and said he assumed it was an old folk song. Donovan later insisted he sounded like Dylan for five minutes while others built careers on the style.
Teaming with producer Mickie Most brought a string of hits. Sunshine Superman reached number one in America in September 1966, followed by Mellow Yellow, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Atlantis. His session players included Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham before they formed Led Zeppelin.
After splitting from Most in 1969 his sales slid, and critics mocked his hippie image once punk arrived. He married Linda Lawrence, a long on-off partner, after a chance meeting in 1970. A 1990s revival came with Britain's rave scene, he settled in Ireland in 1994, and he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
Source: Donovan
