 | | Reviews | | |  DONOVAN
Beat Café
Appleseed Recordings APR CD 1081
Eight years after the Rick Rubin-produced Sutras, Donovan is back with a new studio album. Beat Café is like a good book that you just can't put down. The story begins like a beat novel, with Love Floats and Poorman's Sunshine followed by the title track which, with the magnificent talents of Danny Thompson on bass and Jim Keltner on drums and percussion, transports the listener to the smoky realms of bohemia.
As the album unfolds it's easy to get caught up in the heady optimism of Yin My Yang which captures the freedom of the beatniks who made their bed under the stars in the early Sixties. The simplicity of Two Lovers and Whirlwind creates a mellow ambience while The Question is an exciting Buddhist puzzle of vocals and instruments, but turn the page and Don's superb vocals on the bluesy Lord Of The Universe and sensuous Lover O Lover produce a seductive hit. Don revisits his back pages with The Cuckoo, a folk standard from Don's own 'beat café' days; and who better to transform Dylan Thomas' poem Do Not Go Gentle than Donovan with his rich Celtic voice that makes Thomas's elegy sound as fresh and as hip as ever. Shambhala is like the last few pages before bedtime.
Award winning producer John Chelew has given Donovan the chance to explore his more esoteric side, giving the songs a unique atmospheric quality. A superbly crafted album, reaffirming Donovan's status as one of Britain's finest singer-songwriters. Let's hope we don't have to wait another eight years for the next instalment.
Sara Loveridge - October 2004
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 Beat Café of Donovan is fantastic & magical! It's rather lyrical but alternative to other jazz-pop tries of musicians like Bryan Ferry for example. I guess themes "Beat Cafe" and "Yin My Yang" are the super-pearls of all this genre. I fell in love with this album at the first listening of it. Great thing!
Tima Minsky, Belarus
I went to see the live performance Beat Cafe at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone. If you get a chance to see the show at a venue near you don't miss it.
Kevin Carlton, Canterbury | | | | | | |  |
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Folk & Acoustic
