Donovan Set to Catch the Wind Again

It seems the unlikeliest of comebacks. Donovan!?! The cartoonishly delicate ‘60s singer-songwriter? The guy who was a running joke in the Bob Dylan documentary “Don’t Look Back?” Mr. Paisley? The guy who sang about smoking bananas?

But there he was, on a tour that brought him to the Coach House on Friday night with a new album on the way that is generating a lot of enthusiastic speculation in the music press.

To be fair, Donovan’s quite considerable catalogue of hit singles--”Catch the Wind,” “Universal Soldier,” “Mellow Yellow,” “Sunshine Superman,” “Colours,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” “Jennifer Juniper,” “Season of the Witch,” “There Is a Mountain,” “Wear Your Love Like Heaven,” “Lalena,” “Atlantis” and “Epistle to Dippy” among them--were and are pleasant, eminently catchy folk-rock ditties with a few tips of the headband to psychedelia.

And if anything, Donovan (nee Donovan Leitch) has improved with age. He has developed into an engaging and well-rounded performer with an amiable stage demeanor, an unexpected arsenal of guitar chops, a batch of perfectly wonderful new material and stronger-than-ever vocal skills at his disposal. His solo performance at the Coach House was a treat.

Dressed in a simple white shirt and jeans and looking virtually untouched by advancing age (he is 49), Donovan delivered an impeccably timed, nearly two-hour set that alternated between his old armory of hits, obscure material from early albums and fresh originals that bespoke an admirable knowledge of folk music traditions.

He was canny enough to laugh at his own past, confirming, during a spoken prelude to “Mellow Yellow,” that “bananas really don’t get you high.”

And he peppered the concert with fascinating and entertaining tales of the ‘60s--of hanging out in the early folk scene, hitchhiking through England, smoking pot with Jamaican Rastamen, getting busted in London. Mostly, he offered anecdote upon anecdote about the Beatles, with whom he was and is close friends. One particularly funny recollection included John Lennon’s patting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the head and saying, “There’s a good little guru.”

Donovan’s voice is still the familiar, breathy wisp it used to be, and he hit all the right notes with ease, adding a remarkably well-controlled vibrato for good measure. The biggest revelation of the evening, though, was his superb finger-picking. Who ever would have thought he had it in him?

His new material is as memorably melodic as any of the old standards and an appreciative crowd applauded the latest songs with as much enthusiasm as it greeted the hits, which seemed to please the cherubic Scot to no end.

Donovan was a relative latecomer in the ‘60s folk revival and was looked down upon in some quarters as a lightweight poseur. But while many standbys of the old scene have died or become hopeless burnouts, Donovan shines, excelling and surpassing his supposed glory days as the millennium draws near.

His new album, being produced by Rick Rubin (who did Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings” last year), could well turn out to be one of the major musical events of 1996.

Astonishing.