Barabajagal [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Donovan
Artist: Jeff Beck
Producer: Mickie Most
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: U.K. digitally remastered edition features 13 bonus tracks. Personnel: Harold McNair (flute); Alan Hawkshaw (piano); Tony Carr (drums). Audio Mixer: Peter Mew. Audio Remasterer: Peter Mew. Liner Note Author: Lorne Murdoch. Recording information: American Recording Company, Los Angeles, CA (05/??/1968-02/14/1969); Morgan Studios (05/??/1968-02/14/1969); Olympic Studios, London, England (05/??/1968-02/14/1969). Photographers: Sid Maurer; Barry Plummer. Donovan's last truly great album of the 1960s, 1968's BARABAJAGAL shows interesting artistic growth at least as marked as his transformation from folk troubadour to daffy hippie-pop guru. The title track and "Trudi" feature the Rod Stewart-era Jeff Beck Group as Donovan's backing band; consequently both these songs have a surprising amount of sonic heft to them. Of course, Donovan is pretty much incapable of getting heavy, but the hard-candy pop suits him well. A version of Terry Reid's marijuana/fellatio multiple-entendre "Superlungs My Supergirl" is similarly rockin', but for most of the rest of the album, Donovan reverts to his usual folkish psych-pop. The hit "Atlantis," the Cat Stevens-like "I Love My Shirt" and the unexpectedly tender "To Susan On the West Coast Waiting" are also highlights. Donovan was in a tremendously creative phase during the latter part of 1968, owing to both a tour of the United States (which yielded a live album) and the chemical and social stimulation of his surroundings. Amid all of that activity and his subsequent recordings, his European performances, and the slightly late catch-up of his British career to his American success, Donovan's work blossomed in several different directions on the resulting album, Barabajagal. He still sounded like a folkie, but on the title track as well as "Superlungs My Supergirl," he was backed by the Jeff Beck Group and an outfit that included Big Jim Sullivan and John Paul Jones, respectively. With Barabajagal, Donovan intermingled soft, lyrical, spaced-out folk, hard psychedelia, children's songs, anthems to free love (along with a lusty appreciation of the fairer sex that runs throughout the album), and even antiwar sentiments ("To Susan on the West Coast Waiting"). The result was the most challenging album then issued by Donovan, but also one of his most successful, with album sales driven by the presence of the U.S. hit "Atlantis." [This expanded disc not only upgrades the sound by eliminating any hiss and bringing the whole sound palette into the listener's lap, but throws on more than a dozen bonus tracks from chronologically connected sessions. Standouts include "Stromberg Twins," which sounds like a cross between the Beach Boys and the Bonzo Dog Band (though it actually has Jeff Beck and Nicky Hopkins on it), the rocking outtakes "Snakeskin," "Lauretta's Cousin Laurinda," and "A Poor Man's Sunshine" (the latter reportedly featuring Stephen Stills and Nils Lofgren), and various folk- and Celtic-themed demos, many of which would surface in finished form anywhere from two to 30 years later.] ~ Bruce Eder

Mojo (Publisher) (p.120) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[T]he mixture of cosmic sentiment, music exotica and pop nous that first reared its head around 1966 often works wonders..."

He began as a Guthrie/Dylan-style folkie, but soon Donovan Leitch adopted a more psychedelic flower-power stance. His knack for sunny, wistful pop songs produced a batch of giant 1960s hits. His fragile manchild voice and image made him a hippie pinup boy, but there was a deep wellspring of emotion behind songs like "Catch the Wind" and "Colours." By the '70s, Donovan had largely dropped off the radar, but he made a resounding comeback in the '90s with the spare, affecting, Rick Rubin-produced SUTRAS.

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