Remembering Donovan's Mellow Yellow - singer-songwriter's coming of age

Mellow Yellow
Donovan
Epic Records

A blend of psychedelic pop gems and unorthodox, plangent acoustic folk that set the template for generations of singer-songwriters, Mellow Yellow captured one of 1960s pop's top artists in a fascinating transitional stage. On his fourth album, released when he was just 20 years old, Donovan was clearly both intoxicated and jaded with the pop scene he'd already conquered.

Donovan, who seemed to have an affinity with the colour yellow (he had a hand in writing The Beatles' Yellow Submarine), emerged from the vibrant British folk scene of the time and initially was thought of as a sort of Scottish Bob Dylan. But by the time he recorded Mellow Yellow, a far broader palette of influences was evident.

Produced by the phenomenally successful Mickie Most, who worked with Donovan during his most creative period in the latter half of the 1960s, and arranged by John Paul Jones, then a renowned session player and later the bass player of Led Zeppelin, the album draws on everything from jazz (The Observation, which prefigured Van Morrison's Moondance by three years), to blues ( Hampstead Incident), to Broadway ( Bleak City Woman), to South Asian music.

But the album's main bifurcation is between the fully instrumented, fairly mainstream psychedelic pop songs with which Donovan made his name, and a new line in acoustic, downbeat and philosophical pieces that blend breathtaking beauty with off-kilter tunings and constant swerves into unexpected directions.