Donovan

A new album, Beat Café, was released on Appleseed Records in 2004. It marked a return to the jazzy sound of some of his 1960s recordings and featured bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Jim Keltner, with production by John Chelew (Blind Boys Of Alabama). At a subsequent series of Beat Café performances in New York, Richard Barone (The Bongos) joined Donovan on stage to sing and read passages from Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Read Less

The one who really taught us to play and learn all the traditional songs was Martin Carthy—who incidentally was contacted by Dylan when Bob first came to the UK. Bob was influenced, as all American folk artists are, by the Celtic music of Ireland, Scotland and England. But in 1962 we folk Brits were also being influenced by some folk Blues and the American folk-exponents of our Celtic Heritage Dylan appeared after Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joanie Baez had conquered our hearts, and he sounded like a cowboy at first but I knew where he got his stuff—it was Woodie at first, then it was Jack Kerouac and the stream-of-consciousness poetry which moved him along. But when I heard Blowing In The Wind it was the clarion call to the new generation – and we artists were encouraged to be as brave in writing our thoughts in music We were not captured by his influence, we were encouraged to mimic him—and remember every British band from the Stones to the Beatles were copying note for note, lick for lick, all the American pop and blues artists—this is the way young artists learn. There's no shame in mimicking a hero or two—it flexes the creative muscles and tones the quality of our composition and technique. It was not only Dylan who influenced us—for me he was a spearhead into protest, and we all had a go at his style. I sounded like him for five minutes—others made a career of his sound. Read Less