A Gift From A Flower To A Garden – DONOVAN*****

Wear Your Love Like Heaven/Mad John’s Escape/Skip-Along-Sam/Sun/There Was A Time/Oh Gosh/Little Boy In Corduroy/Under The Greenwood Tree/The Land Of Doesn’t Have To Be/Someone’s Singing/Song Of The Naturalist’s Wife/The Enchanted Gypsy/Voyage Into The Golden Screen/Isle Of Islay/The Mandolin Man & His Secret/Lay Of The Last Tinker/The Tinker & The Crab/Widow With Shawl(A Portrait)/The Lullaby Of Spring/The Magpie/Starfish On The Toast/Epistle To Derroll

The imaginatively titled A Gift From A Flower To A Garden was a masterpiece from Donovan comprising an expensively produced boxed double album. Disc one features melodic pop tunes and disc two folk songs, ostensibly for 'little ones'. (US:19 UK:13)

"This was one of those albums that truly took you to another place and time, to me the true meaning of psychedelic."

"A double album, the first disc of full-band adult music and the second of solo acoustic children's music. Ironic, then, that album #2 sounds a good deal more adult than album #1."

"This double album is an example of a creative artist at the top of his game, and using his chosen art form to make a brilliant contribution to the collective output of humans. This is an album for everyone, tuneful, gentle, sing-along, thoughtful - everything good about the human condition. The first album is light jazz/pop, the second part are acoustic pieces originally written for children."

"The beauty of this album is that it creates a magical world of its own, a gentle world filled with love, flowers, trees, babies, tinkers, crabs, starfishes, magpies and other assorted creatures. Some might find all this quaint, naive hippy-dippy nonsense, but then on the other hand there are those who feed on starry-eyed idealism daily and who will find it touching, uplifting and absolutely breathtaking."

"Musically this is an album that is timeless. Melodic inventiveness at its peak, simplicity of chord progressions hiding small harmonic complexities, done with restraint and elegance, and great attention to the sound. Never has an acoustic guitar sounded quite like this, seldom has Donovan sung with such sincerity."

"I imagine him writing this entire album while lying on his back in a bed of flowers on a care-free, blue-skied, fine summer's day. A Gift From A Flower To A Garden is simply delicious."