The Best of Donovan (1969 album)

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The Best of Donovan
Donovan-The Best of Donovan.jpg
Greatest hits album by
Donovan
ReleasedNovember 1969
Recorded1965
Genre folk
Label Hickory
Producer Terry Kennedy, Peter Eden, Geoff Stephens
Donovan chronology
Barabajagal
(1969)		The Best of Donovan
(1969)		 Open Road
(1970)
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The Best of Donovan is a compilation album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the US (Hickory LPS 149) in November 1969. The Best of Donovan marked the third Hickory Records compilation of Donovan's 1965 Pye Records material in the United States, following the Like It Is, Was, and Evermore Shall Be from 1968.

Album collection of recorded music, words, sounds

An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP records played at ​33 1⁄3 rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format widely used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s.

Scotland Country in Northwest Europe, part of the United Kingdom

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain, with a border with England to the southeast, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast, the Irish Sea to the south, and more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

Singer-songwriter musician who writes, composes and sings

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies.

Contents

History

Strong sales of Donovan's material continued throughout the late 1960s, prompting many fans to desire a greatest hits compilation of the most popular hits. Donovan and Epic Records responded by releasing Donovan's Greatest Hits in January 1969, which went on to become Donovan's highest selling album, reaching #4 on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Epic Records American record label

Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc., the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953, but later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of genres, including pop, R&B, rock, and hip hop. Epic Records has released music by artists including Glenn Miller, Tammy Wynette, George Michael, The Yardbirds, Donovan, Shakin Stevens, Europe, Cheap Trick, Meat Loaf, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ted Nugent, Shakira, Sly & the Family Stone, The Hollies, Celine Dion, ABBA, Culture Club, Boston, Dave Clark Five, Gloria Estefan, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, and Michael Jackson. Along with Arista, Columbia and RCA Records, Epic is one of Sony Music Entertainment's four flagship record labels.

<i>Donovans Greatest Hits</i> 1969 greatest hits album by Donovan

Donovan's Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the United States in January 1969 on Epic Records, catalogue BXN 26439 in stereo, and in the United Kingdom in March 1969 on Pye Records, catalogue NPL 18283 in mono and NSPL 18283 in stereo. Donovan's Greatest Hits peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified platinum by the RIAA.

In response to the success of Donovan's Greatest Hits, Hickory Records assembled another compilation of Donovan's 1965 Pye Records recordings and titled it The Best of Donovan. Like Like It Is, Was, and Evermore Shall Be , this compilation was released with psychedelic cover art that fit in with Donovan's late 1960s image rather than his 1965 image as a folk singer. Hickory's marketing strategy worked to a degree, as The Best of Donovan charted at #135 in the United States.

Hickory Records

Hickory Records is an American record label founded in 1954 by Acuff-Rose Music, which operated the label up to 1979. Sony/ATV Music Publishing revived the label in 2007. Originally based in Nashville, and functioning as an independent label throughout its history, it has had several distributors.

Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–69), Petula Clark (1957–71), The Searchers (1963–67), The Kinks (1964–71), Sandie Shaw (1964–71), Status Quo (1968–71) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–79). The label changed its name to PRT Records in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006.

<i>Like It Is, Was, and Evermore Shall Be</i> 1968 compilation album by Donovan

Like It Is, Was, and Evermore Shall Be is a compilation album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the US in April 1968. Like It Is, Was, and Evermore Shall Be marked the second Hickory Records compilation of Donovan's 1965 Pye Records material in the United States, following the moderately successful The Real Donovan from 1966.

Though the collection presents some material (including "Jersey Thursday") in stereo for the first time, a technical flaw was also present. The pitch on several tracks appears to 'wind up to speed', because of the way the transfer machine handled the source tape's banding.

Track listing

All tracks by Donovan Leitch, except where noted.

Side one

  1. "Universal Soldier" (Buffy Sainte-Marie) – 2:13
  2. "Colours" – 2:44
  3. "Catch the Wind" – 2:53
  4. "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)" – 3:05
  5. "Little Tin Soldier" (Shawn Phillips) – 2:58

Side two

  1. "Tangerine Puppet" – 1:50
  2. "Donna Donna" (Aaron Zeitlin, Sholom Secunda, Arthur S Kevess, Teddi Schwartz) – 2:55
  3. "Candy Man" (traditional; arranged by Donovan Leitch) – 3:25
  4. "Jersey Thursday" – 2:11
  5. "Ballad of Geraldine" – 4:35

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