Donovan. He was one of the first people – like Madonna and Cher – to go by one name, but his real name is Donovan Leitch. He was born in Glasgow in 1946. He is staying in what was once the bohemian area of London – in the Ruby Hotel, Notting Hill Gate. 

He says he is coming down with Kelly. “Who’s Kelly?”, I wonder. Kelly is his guitar. He says “I know it’s only a piece of wood but Kelly is the name of my grandmother. I was born Scottish but in Glasgow, especially in the tenements, we all have Irish roots.” Does Kelly go everywhere with him? “I have quite a few guitars, but Kelly is special. I had her made by an incredible guitar maker in America. I commissioned this one to celebrate my incredible relationship with Ireland. I had two Irish grandmothers,” even though he’s Scottish. He is very at home with the Kelly green and red guitar and his history of Celtic music which belongs to both Ireland and Scotland. He took images from The Book of Kells, which was written in the eighth century in Ireland – it’s an ancient manuscript and there’s something that I thought was a reindeer but was actually a stag /elk which is imprinted on it as well. And this was Gael which is about the Irish, Scots and Welsh. The Celts came later. 

Ferrington made these guitars for every famous singer-songwriter in the world. He brandishes Kelly and holds her with love and shows her to me. He says that she says “New guitars will never play the songs I wrote as well as me. I know I’m talking about a piece of wood. We Scottish-Irish are a potent mix, you know.” He’s wearing a purple silk shirt and he’s very personable. Wants to be my friend and then wonders if we’re being too esoteric: “Come on, ask me questions.” But he doesn’t really let me.

“Glasgow made the ships that were stuffed full of the Irish and so did the guys in Liverpool. -[ bond with beatles]They heard nothing but Scottish and Irish songs in the late-40s and early-50s. This music lifted your spirits.” He’s talking, now, in lilting Irish-Scottish tones. It’s a weird voice. He’s talking about a revolution that happened in Glasgow and Liverpool and he’s talking about when the First World War ended -a lot of families  disappeared because the men came back but didn’t last long; “The women of Glasgow married again because there was no money, they had to have a guy who actually went to work. So, twice-married women were always having another family going, and Ma Kelly was my father’s mother.’ Family weirdness is rife among all of them.

He takes Kelly with love into a room with hoovers and some people drinking coffee and, while he’s talking intimacy about Kelly, the hoover is blaring. My tape recorder gives up, so I tell him I’m going to go digital and record it on my phone – even though I’m an analogue person. He doesn’t really understand. I am somewhat stressed because, in the tube strike, you can’t get anywhere – not even in a taxi. So, the more he wants to just talk about himself and not answer questions, the more stressful it is. His body of work is massive. He was the soundtrack of the 60s and yes, the Flower Power icon – and certainly they did swing. He’s having a 60-year anniversary concert in Richmond on October 12th, and his famous Hurdy Gurdy album is being rereleased. I say “famous” because one of the most famous things it did was inspire the formation of Led Zeppeln Page sand Jon Bonham  play on it.

He likes the word “encourage”, but more of that later. 

“Did you know, when The Beatles first went to Indonesia they said ‘you can’t leave the country until you’ve said hello to 300 people in wheelchairs.’? What were they going to do? John spoke his mind and Paul was a diplomat and The Beatles, at this point, were used to playing big stadiums. Because I was on my own, I controlled the gig, but you can’t when people are in a stadium. George had a penny thrown at him and was almost blinded. Did you know he had a mansion in England and his wife, Olivia, saved his life? Someone broke into his mansion and the wife distracted him. But this is really heavy, don’t you think? 

Anyway, whenever I saw The Beatles, I was on my own leg of a tour and there was always something going on. I was mostly friends with George. (And Paul). Bands are locked into a process much more than solo artists like me, or Joni Mitchell, or Leonard Cohen. There’s only one of us and one of us makes all the decisions, but four may all say different things. But it’s not a Donovan or a Beatle that tells people to buy the record, it’s the audience that decides. 

‘Millions of people had arrived in the 60s and they wanted singles that weren’t necessarily about people falling in love, but they could fall in love with a song. It was never my intention to become a superstar, but millions of kids bought my music – just one, because that’s all that they could afford. We weren’t about the album in those days. We were about ‘the world is a mess, but the songs are not’. They’re not ‘let’s get high and dance our arses off’, or ‘you love me and I love you’, or ‘you don’t love me and I love you’. People actually got it, what the songs were about. It was 1965. It was Catch the Wind and I was attacked. ‘

I was probably closest to George because we were closest in age. The other Beatles were all four years older. John Lennon was there when I came to meet Dylan in the hotel room. I had been to Newcastle for a folk festival to see Buffy Sainte-Marie. Joan Baez wanted to meet me. She wanted me to do the folk festival in Newport in the same way as Bobby had done. After his long career, he said that he was really more of a poet than a musician. He was.

“I am supposed to be a copy of him. We both loved Woody Guthrie. He changed his voice to sound like him.” Here, Donovan does a great imitation of Dylan: “And he had to sing his songs like this” (he sings songs in squeaky imitation mode), “because he was imitating Woody. He did everything in that voice.

Anyway, they wanted to meet me, so I went to his hotel in London; John was there.” He is talking about songs then and now: “The song has to be more. The masses are stupid paranoid, and they haven’t even smoked cannabis. I don’t anymore but I used to. It’s been used for thousands of years by natural healers to repair psychological parts. You can go to a doctor now and have him prescribe it. I remember my wife Linda saying ‘it took them 55 years, and now it’s become clear – microdosing is useful.’ I was busted, by the way, perhaps because I was the first person to put ‘hashish’ in a song. They thought I was promoting drugs. I’ve never done heroin or cocaine. The 80s were all about cocaine – it wasn’t just a few in the business, it was the government, it was all the way down, it was the military, it was everywhere. It was a crazy world. When I began, it was music that was the healer and the healing art of music is invisible. The only art that is invisible is music . He talks about his wife linda lots mostly in passing She is soon to releaser her own autobiography detailing her finer relationship with the Stones `Jones’

Music releases something else – even headbanging music.” Did he really invent metal-folk? On Hurdy Gurdy Man, he called it metal-folk fusion and it was arranged by John Paul Jones and had on it Jimmy Page and John Bonham. “The conclusion is, we don’t have to stay in one genre”. Donovan put it all together and then Mickie Most took over, he was the Phil Spector of Great Britain-producer.

“His art was he never asked any questions, he never told me anything of what I had to do, so I could tell him of how I heard my acoustic guitar buzzing. Weeks after the Hurdy Gurdy track, Led Zeppelin was formed, Black Sabbath was formed, and, shortly after, Deep Purple. I remember GEORGE saying ‘Donovan is a catalyst’. LINDA said, ‘Until now, you couldn’t say you were a catalyst as catalysts work best when two elements are brought together like in chemistry and you don’t know what’s going on at the time. “I could never say things like ‘I invented British Heavy Metal’ because, the next year, I did something else with Jeff Beck: Jazz Rock. The catalyst didn’t change, but the elements did. I think it was Paige who said to me that people who knew each other in the early days don’t have to keep on seeing each other, you can do what you want and it’s a record. It’s Hurdy Gurdy Man, you can’t take it away from the people themselves. So, in a way, I was more friends with George Harrison. We all came from something extraordinary and, although I am friendly with Paul McCartney, we don’t have to see each other continually. George used to say ‘it’s always nice to see you because you don’t ask any questions’. People meeting The Beatles can’t help themselves asking questions because they’re overwhelmed in the presence of these guys. But the guys themselves don’t feel overwhelming. They already felt they were famous before they were, we all did. We didn’t care about fame. Looking back now, I know it was only four years -but huge but it was also because Paul had a father who taught him piano and John is from the street – he didn’t even know how to read music – but it was him who formed The Quarrymen, the first skiffle band and was asked by Paul, ‘can I join?’ Paul brought along George – ‘can he join?’, but the band leader knew what he was doing. He said “I don’t know, maybe he should finish school first.” They did not write songs together. John remained in awe of Paul. 

When I made Sunshine Superman, they were finishing Rubber Soul next door in Abbey Road. When they heard it, in 1965, it blew them away because they thought ‘We don’t have to do a four to the bar. Nobody has to try to be the British Everly Brothers. In fact, in 1966 Mickie Most said, ‘We’re going to America with this record, please don’t give it to McCartney’, but The Beatles weren’t allowed to break the rules because they were a band and Cliff Richards was the British Elvis. We’re going to break all the rules, but one thing didn’t change and that was Micky Most. As long as Don’s guitar is acoustic and his voice is dry and not too full of respect (many people were jealous of the single artist because he didn’t have to ask the permission of the bass player or drummer or both), I never had to ask anybody”, he says – and you can see he’s still excited about that. 

Apparently Paul McCartney went to see Oasis and loved them: “I think they’re fantastic, and when my daughters fell in love with the Happy Mondays, we went up to Manchester because Linda wanted to make sure what was going on. It was ecstasy days. One of my daughters had a kid with that Monday – Sean Ryder. I think they’re incredible. I remember sitting in a bar with Sean and a guy who had just come out of prison and another guy came up – it was Liam – and he said “I’m going to do exactly what you do.” Two weeks later, I saw him on TV with his brother, called Oasis.

I was there a lot at the beginning with those Manchester man-bands. My younger daughter had a kid with Sean called Coco. She’s now a sculptor and painter. She and Sean lived together for the briefest of times. My other daughter, Astrella was with Paul Ryder and had no child”. He refers to these as ‘his daughters’ and a son which Linda had with Brian Jones, he adopted and, although he has the name Leitch, he refers to him as ‘Linda and Brian’s son who is a roadie for me’ – or at least was a roadie at that time. Although he’s very effusive about his daughters, he doesn’t want to talk about his other daughter and son, who are si actors – Ione Skye and Donovan Leitch Jr – perhaps because they are from his other relationship with American model, Enid Karl.

Sean said, “I’ve just stolen your song, Sunshine’s melody,” and I said ‘I don’t care’. Linda insisted we went up to Manchester, not because of that, but because our daughters were madly in love. We had to go to get to know them.” He did steal the melody of one of his songs, he’s now imitating Liam and his accent and Liam coming up to Sean. 

Dave Gilmore bought his cottage in the hopes that some songwriting vibes would rub off: “Yes, Gilmore bought my cottage for that reason but he also told me that the future way ahead was my track Three King Fishers from my ‘Sunshine Superman’ album in 1966. Robert Plant bought, in 1965, my Aston Martin for the same reason. Yes, I’ve lived in LA with Linda for various times, but I don’t believe in pinch-me moments, I attract all that happens from previous lives, it’s not just a lucky break.” Although he doesn’t see much of Paul McCartney anymore, he still counts him as a friend and he sung on Mellow Yellow in 1966. And Donovan,  inspired George tracks Dear Prudence and Happiness is a Warm Gun with his acoustic guitar plucking.

We went up there and we were kidnapped, Julian was looking after me, he was the roadie and he said, “There’s a band called the Happy Mondays and they want to take you to the Hacienda.” I didn’t even know what it was, but Sean said, “You can’t go to the Hacienda without getting into it” – he meant taking ecstasy. So Linda took a huge dose and I took a little bit and later they couldn’t believe it. Linda danced everyone under the table (of course she did). She thought that the Mondays and Oasis were the Rolling Stones of the 80s, so they can’t be too dangerous. And I thought, “They are Irish anyway, the Gallagher and Sean Ryder. I think they are fucking great, they captured me.” Back in 1965, Linda and I had done everything and we knew that ecstasy was a blend of LSD and speed. Who was that Happy Mondays guy who did all the dancing? They were the ones that came for us. Linda said ‘They won’t be too dangerous because I’ve already been through the Rolling Stones with Brian and all that. ‘

I think Oasis are great because they’re Irish.” 

He goes for another long loo break – perhaps because he doesn’t like my questions, perhaps because he wants to talk about himself more. He comes back with “Photographers are the key to what happens in pop music. Tom Collins was an extraordinary photographer in Ireland and he was there in 1972 in a mansion. “Jagger was there,” he says. Jagger was there a lot and stayed in mansions because he could. “If you’re going to have a party, invite everybody.Said Collins So he brought Christy Moore and then we went to a church-like place and this kid walks on stage and she’s incredible. She’s called Sinead O’Connor. She said to the press ‘I hate Irish folk music’ and years later, we were in a restaurant close to Dublin, Super Money was there and I was sitting next to her.it was a fundraiser 

She says, “Yeah, I hate folk music and then she sings a 17-verse Irish ballad.” I came across my biography the other day, The Hurdy Gurdy Man, and I had inscribed it to Sinead, but the book never made it to her. That was sad.

Donovan now lives in Ireland full-time and full-on. He has lived in other places, of course. He’s not friends with U2 because they were not invented when he was first there doing the party scene in the early 70s. He’s still in Ireland – far away from everything and right in the heart of it. Did he go there first because of his Irish roots? “Partly,” he says, “but in those days, we all had to take a year out. I grew up listening to poetry, so, in a way, I moved to Ireland to be in touch with all this stuff. But we had to take a year out and register as living somewhere and it was Linda’s idea to actually move to Ireland. We were being charged 90% tax, which is why George wrote The Tax Song. You didn’t have to pay any tax but for The Beatles, even working on 10%, it was still a lot. They weren’t going to be in England anyway because they were touring. I was welcomed in Ireland. We didn’t want the money to go to the government because what were they spending all our taxes on? Not anything we wanted. Certainly not education that brings up kids to understand the planet is being destroyed. I sat down with George, John, Paul. Ringo was happy to play bloody drums. Now it’s different.

I was never a Bob clone, I was introduced to him by Joan Baez: “Come down to London to The Savoy,” so I did. She picked up the phone to Pete Seeger and said “You’ve got to meet him”. So that’s where I went to The Savoy hotel suite. It’s all in a film called Don’t Look Back. The drugs in America were very different. So Bobby and his pal were very hyped. We were doing big old English joints and they were doing speed. It went everywhere in the press. Alan from The Animals was looking through his newspaper for the film. ‘Who is this guy like me who is a folk singer?’ Alan, on film, said ‘Well, he’s not like you because he plays guitar better than you.’ We hung out at The Savoy hotel for the next few days and Bobby wanted to see me before he left The Savoy. I was sleeping on someone’s floor in Putney and, a few weeks before that, I was sleeping on the beach in St. Ives.” He does a great impersonation of Bob and the speech.

“When I went into the television room it was all dark and, in those days (1965), at midnight, a vicar came on and said “TV is over, go to sleep” and did a quick Hail Mary. So we were in darkness for a bit, then the light goes on and there’s not one figure, but four sitting down. And they are The Beatles. Bobby put the lights on and we all got up to leave. We have to be careful because there might be fans out there, but there’s nobody. John says to me “Don’t be a stranger, come and see us”. We arrive at the forecourt of The Savoy and there are four identical Mini Coopers, all beautifully decked out. George said to me, “We had so much money we just bought one each.” They are all wearing identical washed-out blue denim suits and match. We went into the dead streets of London, can you imagine nobody was on the streets and it seemed like there was a curfew? Later, George said, “Maybe you felt out of your depth when we met then, but you weren’t”.

He performed in The Richmond Theatre with Jeremy Irons, who used to sing Donovan songs when he was a busker. He used to sing Catch the Wind. “It’s so amazingly simple to sing, you can’t go wrong. It’s not so easy to sing to an audience, but with a Donovan song, it is. He talks of himself Dylan and the Beatles as a brand 

‘The six of us were about to unleash something on the world that no other rock bands or singers had ever done before.