Mellow Yellow [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Donovan
Producer: Mickie Most
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: Digitally remastered English version contains nine bonus tracks ("Preachin' Love", "Good Time", "There Is A Mountain", "Superlungs" (Second Version), "Epistle To Dippy" (Alternative Arrangement), "Sidewalk (The Observation)" (Demo), "Writer In The Sun" (Demo), "Hampstead Incident" (Demo), and "Museum" (Demo)). Audio Mixer: Peter Mew. Audio Remasterer: Peter Mew. Liner Note Author: Lorne Murdoch. Photographers: Jack Pia; David Redfern; Barry Plummer. Originally released in 1967, MELLOW YELLOW is a US-only mishmash of singles, outtakes, and old album tracks featuring Donovan at his hippie-era peak. It blends fanciful psychedelia, like the title track--one of his finest singles--with earthier material like "House of Jansch" (a tribute to the Pentangle's Bert Jansch, a longtime friend), the witty Swinging London tribute "Sunny South Kensington," and the downright bleak "Writer in the Sun." This is one of Donovan's most consistently entertaining albums, with very few weak songs and some excellent psych-pop arrangements by a pre-Led Zeppelin John Paul Jones. The second album of Donovan's psychedelic/rock phase (as distinct from his earlier folk phase), Mellow Yellow was always a mystery to British audiences (who never saw the LP, thanks to the nearly year-long lay-off that Donovan's legal woes imposed upon him in his own country), and a kind of vexation to American listeners, available as it was for many years in a wretched "rechanneled stereo" version from Columbia Special Products that offered scratchy sound and not much else. The CD version was a partial improvement, but was done so early that it wasn't even representative of state-of-the-art digital sound at the time it was issued, Columbia Records often being a day late and several dollars short in the audio sweepstakes of the mid- to late '80s. Now this CD, from British EMI, is state-of-the-art down to the last note, taken from the original master tape (in real stereo) and transferred in 24-bit digital, so that even the solo acoustic guitar on "Young Girl Blues" is kind of imposing, to the point where you can almost hear the action on the strings -- with Donovan's voice richer and more resonant than ever in this new transfer, and the arrangements by John Cameron and John Paul Jones now fully exposed and heard in all the timbres that were present in the studio; this is a sonic delight as well a spellbinding mix of psychedelia, blues, folk, Eastern music, and pop like nothing else that Columbia or any other major label -- except EMI and Capitol with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album -- was releasing in 1967. It's been augmented with ten bonus tracks, three previously released ("Epistle to Dippy," "Preachin' Love," "There Is a Mountain"), but making their debut with truly killer sound so that you can even hear the action on the strings of the acoustic guitar deep in the mix of "There Is a Mountain," and six previously unissued demos, solo acoustic, and some works-in-progress, including early incarnations of evolving songs such as "Good Time" and another attempt at "Superlungs," where Donovan gets into some surprising pop and garage rock grooves, respectively, and there's an alternate arrangement of "Epistle to Dippy" (with violin in lieu of guitar). Any of the bonus features would be worth the price of the CD, and the combination of all of them makes this a must-own piece, and not just for Donovan fans, but anyone who wants a glimpse of the kind of creativity that was bubbling up and over in 1967 and has already run through Sgt. Pepper and the like. It's intense enough that you may find yourself -- no joke -- getting a little bit high at 40 minutes in, with 25 still to go. ~ Bruce Eder

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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