When Donovan reviewed Bob Dylan’s ‘Bring It All Back Home’
As folk music gathered pace in the 1960s, artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell emerged, defining an era with their songs of love and protest. These American and Canadian artists were some of the biggest names within the genre, but across the pond, Britain had its own thriving scene.
One of the most significant artists to emerge from the British folk scene during this period was Donovan, who found popularity with songs such as ‘The Hurdy Gurdy Man’ and ‘Mellow Yellow’. Born in 1946, the singer was still a teenager when he signed to Pye Records. However, it wasn’t long until people started making comparisons to Dylan, who was enjoying great international success during the mid-1960s.
In fact, the press began to accuse Donovan of being a Dylan copycat and the British singer featured in the documentary Don’t Look Back. When the pair finally met, they played some songs together, with Dylan asserting that he liked his ‘rival’ singer.
In 2001, Donovan spoke to the BBC about Dylan’s influence on him, recalling the first time he heard ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, referring to it as a “clarion call to the new generation”.
He added: “We were not captured by his influence, we were encouraged to mimic him. […] 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.”
When Donovan was 19, he was asked by Record Mirror to review Dylan’s latest album, Bringing It All Back. He went through track-by-track and shared his thoughts, summing up his opinion on the record as a whole by stating: “That’s a good LP to play in the fallout shelter when the bombs dropped because they’ll all realise what they could have done.”
Starting with ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, Donovan called it “a gas”, adding that “Chuck Berry rhythms and Dylan words go well together”. From there, he called the next track, ‘She Belongs To Me’, “beautiful”, noting the influence of Buddy Holly.
While he didn’t like ‘Maggie’s Farm’ “too much” he explained that he really liked ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’ despite the fact that “a lot of people have said it’s a bit crappy with his accompanists, but they’re very sympathetic, really”.
Donovan explained: “He played this one to me without accompaniment; it’s good.”
The singer’s review also featured commentary on ‘Tambourine Man’, which he borrowed from, reportedly believing it to be based on an old folk song. “When I first heard it about a year and a half ago, I wrote my song ‘Tangerine Eyes’ from it, but I didn’t ever record it because I didn’t want to steal it. I didn’t know what the lyrics were. I’ve sung it to him, and he digs it. That’s the best one on the LP.”
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