The Giant Panther: Guilty Pleasures

When I was a young man I remember my father, who played a lot of fastpitch softball as I once did, had a teammate named Tommy Armstrong. I used to play bat boy for free sodas so I got to know the team pretty well. Tommy was probably seven or eight years younger than my father and, as such, was in much better touch with the world of rock music I loved so much. My father liked Booker T & The MGs "Green Onions," but that's as far as it got. I'm pretty sure I mentioned in past blogs how much he hated my copy of Tommy James & The Shondells' "Crimson & Clover," but just to reinforce it again my father and I had nothing in common musically. My mother, however, is largely responsible for the passion you see before you on a weekly basis. She played Little Richard, The Shangri La's, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and, of course, Elvis Presley. She loved Frank Sinatra, but this is the gist of my first ten years of exposure to Rock & Roll. Hat off to ya mom...I think...

Incredibly, Tommy Armstrong would actually lend me, a nine or ten year old kid (is he crazy!?) some of his very best records. I remember him lending me The Best of Bob Dylan, Volume I & The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed. I'm pretty sure it was Tommy who lent me a copy of Neil Diamond's Hot August Night too. Neil gets a bad rap what with "Sweet Caroline" being played every night in the 8th inning at Fenway Park and all, but he wrote some great tunes. UB40 can thank him for "Red, Red Wine" if I recall correctly as can The Monkees for "I'm a Believer." And those are just a couple of songs he wrote, but didn't have big hits with himself. I'm a "Kentucky Woman" fan myself, but Neil doesn't have to apologize to anyone and I haven't paid much attention to him since 1973. Back to Tommy's album collection; he also lent me a copy of Donovan's Barabajagal. I've been a fan of this record since I was 10 years old. I know as TV's Craig Ferguson might opine with humor...

Donovan Leitch is a Scottish folk singer-songwriter who was wildly popular in the 60's among the flower power set. He mixed jazz, psychedelic rock, pop, world and fusion sounds to score several top 40 hits. Most people would recognize "Mellow Yellow" or "Sunshine Superman" or "Season of The Witch," but he has a pretty healthy catalogue of good music. He became so popular in England that he was the first artist Clive Davis ever signed to Epic Records, which was a subsidiary of CBS Records at the time. In 1968 Donovan released the single "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and received the best radio airplay he had ever had 'til that point. In 1969, The Jeff Beck Group, sans Rod Stewart, backed him on the single "Barabajagal" and he scored some credibility among the rock set. He had long been friends of The Rolling Stones' Brian Johnson and The Beatles, but many of his songs didn't rock hard enough for the masses. I was too young to know he didn't rock before I started digging his music.

Donovan was also a poet. The song I want to post today is "Atlantis." Atlantis was originally released as a B side to a song called "To Susan On The West Coast Waiting" in January 1968 and radio programmers immediately gravitated to the stronger "Atlantis." No offense to "Susan," a song I enjoy myself very much, but "Atlantis" was a monster track back in the day. It starts out as a poem with some easy listening, but slightly eerie music backing the reading. It then builds until it unleashes a crescendo of great sound and harmonies. Apparently Sir Paul McCartney sang backup on this song, which I didn't know until about fifteen minutes ago, but I just love this whole piece. It's probably folklore, but Atlantis, which was supposedly an island near Greece, is alleged to have fallen into the sea after attempting to invade Athens. Plato is considered largely responsible for its existence in the history books, but truth or fiction, it is not fun to consider a lost city under the Ocean? Seriously, would Aquaman have been able to summon a school of dolphins to his aid without this shaky tale of an underwater community? I think not. The song was also featured in the movie "Goodfellas" during a particularly gruesome scene if memory serves.

Barabajagal was a mix of jazz, rock and folk. It has some weak material on it such as "I Love My Shirt," but I have to tell you I don't mind any of it. "Superlungs My Supergirl" is another fun track. I can throw this onto my turntable or into my CD player and be right back in front of my close and play record player checking out the album artwork. Donovan still records to this day, but from 1966-1971 he was as popular as The Doors, Steppenwolf, Led Zeppelin or any of the acts surrounding the venerable one-two punch of The Beatles and The Stones. Flower power, The Summer of Love, Hippie Dippie Weathermen and many things associated with folk music and peace and love faded as the 60's came to a close, but Donovan's legacy is pretty cool. He was never the English Bob Dylan, but I definitely enjoyed his music antediluvian kings and all. Hail Atlantis!....

Donovan - Atlantis.mp3

Donovan - Atlantis.mp3 YSI