Donovan
Donovan (Donovan Phillips Leitch, born 10 May 1946, in Glasgow), is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music.
Donovan grew up in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland. He contracted polio as a child when he was vaccinated, and the disease and subsequent treatment left him with a limp.
Donovan was one of the most popular British recording artists of his day, producing a series of hit albums and singles between 1965 and 1970. He became a friend of leading pop musicians including Joan Baez, Brian Jones, Bruce Springsteen, and The Beatles, and was one of the few artists to collaborate on songs with the Beatles. He influenced both John Lennon and Paul McCartney when he taught them his finger-picking guitar style in 1968.Donovan’s commercial fortunes waned after he parted ways with Mickie Most in 1969, and he left the music industry for a time.
In 1956, his family moved to Little Berkhamsted near Hertford, England. Influenced by his family’s love for Scottish and English folk music, he began playing guitar at 14. He enrolled in art school but dropped out soon afterwards, determined to live out his beatnik aspirations by going out on the road. In 1963 he took a trip to St Ives with Gypsy Dave and other friends from Hertfordshire.
Returning to Hatfield, he spent several months playing in local clubs, absorbing the music of the British folk scene around his home in St Albans, learning the cross-picking guitar technique from local players like Mac MacLeod and Mick Softley, and writing his first songs.
In 1964 he travelled to Manchester with Gypsy Dave, then spent the summer in Torquay, Devon. It was here that he stayed with his old friend and guitar mentor from St Albans, Mac MacLeod, and it was during this period that he began busking and more serious study of the guitar and learning traditional folk and blues songs.
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