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ITN Source
USA: 1960s musical icon Donovan returns to promote music and meditation
USA: 1960s musical icon Donovan returns to promote music and meditation
It's been more than forty years since sixties music icon Donovan burst on to the world music scene with a string of pop hits including Mellow Yellow, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Sunshine Superman and many others. He is now back to celebrate his 40th anniversary as a pop musician. In 2005 he began the festivities; the Scottish born singer said he needed two years to do it. He has recently released an audio box set and an autobiography. A DVD documentary on his career is scheduled to be released next year. After his zenith of popularity in sixties, Donovan kept a much lower public profile, although he continued writing and recording music. He recently toured the Eastern United States where he told Reuters about his fortieth anniversary celebration and what has kept him away from the limelight. "I'm lazy," said the musician jokingly. "The definition of a musician, as once someone told me, is there too lazy to work and too paranoid to steal. It could be the lazy part that describes me. I have to have a mission. I have to be sort of driven to do it." Donovan is expected to release a recording of new original material entitled "Ritual Groove" in 2007. On this latest tour, Donovan played small theatres to houses filled with old fans and new listeners. Most of his performed material includes songs penned when he was a much younger artist. The sixties icon says he has no problem playing the tunes that made him famous but he doesn't try to recreate their original sound. "The Rolling Stones and me and Paul McCartney and many others, we play our history. I think it's important. I don't get fed up doing it. I love the songs," said Donovan. Donovan tells Reuters that his current "mission" includes promoting and highlighting his musical contributions and spreading the word about something that changed his life in India during the sixties, transcendental meditation. Donovan along with Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were taught the practice by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Beatles later fell out with Maharishi but Donovan remained committed to the Transcendental Meditation movement. He, along with film director David Lynch through the David Lynch Foundation, has been raising money to help spread the practice in the United States and around the world. Donovan believes the practice is a panacea for everything from depression, attention deficit disorder and global conflict. When the singer, who wrote anti-war tunes in 1965 like Universal Soldier before many of his contemporaries addressed the issue, said he is concerned about many of the world's conflicts but claims he is not pessimistic. "The world's governments are our generation now. Our age group, my age group. They should have seen the lessons that the sixties brought that the world had to really develop unity and harmony," said Donovan. "What are you are looking at, when you look at the problem and don't see the remedy and the reason to the problem then you can get disillusioned. But, actually, I see the reason and the remedy. The reason why there is so much violence and suffering always is very simply that in meditation, you are connected to the unity of everything and if you don't see the unity than you will be lost in the illusion. Like George Harrison said, the illusion is very strong. So, there's no reason to get pessimistic. I just feel compassion and I feel sorry for those people who don't see the real reason for their suffering." said Donovan. Donovan says he will continue to promote his music and transcendental meditation to the world in 2007. He is expected to hold a benefit concert with David Lynch in Washington early in the year. The singer kicks off a European tour in support of "Ritual Groove" next spring which includes a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall.
ITN Source | December 7, 2006
