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Donovan
Beat Café
(Appleseed)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2004, Volume 11, #9
Written by John Metzger
Over the course of the past two decades, Donovan has spent more time enjoying
his reclusive retirement than he has devoted to making new albums. Although fans
undoubtedly would love to see him emerge from his self-imposed exile a tad more
frequently, it also is difficult to quibble with his strategy given that each
effort he puts forth is so impeccably crafted. On his previous endeavor
Sutras, he shed the psychedelic layers of his best-known songs, opting
instead to bathe his metaphysical musings on the interconnections between love
and spirituality within the intimately warm glow of his early acoustic outings.
Eight years later, Donovan has resurfaced with Beat Café, a conceptual
piece that finds the Scottish-born songwriter turning a romanticized eye toward
the freethinking, Bohemian subculture that has flourished throughout the world
for more than 150 years. In essence, he is fighting to keep the fire burning for
a movement that connects 1850s Paris with the existentialist intellectuals of
the 1930s, the beatniks of the 1950s, and the folk music revivalists and
spiritual idealists of the 1960s.
Despite a few subtle nods to hip-hop and soul, however, Beat Café
probably won’t inspire a new generation of artists to unite within a virtual
community. After all, its songs are far too closely connected to the sounds of a
bygone era for today’s youth to take heed of the collection’s existence. On the
other hand, the album is likely to please Donovan’s longtime fans, particularly
those who are willing to venture beyond his hits and follow him into more
erudite and esoteric territory that extends his heady brew of jazz, folk, pop,
and blues by infusing it with a breezy blast of fresh perspective. Although
traces of Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow respectively filter
through Poor Man’s Sunshine and the title track, making the collection a
tad more accessible than Sutras’ atmospheric revelations, the bulk of the
material belongs as much to bass player Danny Thompson and drummer Jim Keltner
as it does to Donovan. Whether providing the hazy undercurrent to a beatnik
reading of Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle or the snaky groove that
propels Love Floats, Thompson playfully develops rhythms that dance
freely as Keltner paints the corners of the songs with a light touch of airy
percussion.
In an age when art has been co-opted by oversized conglomerates more
concerned with selling product than painting a portrait of the human soul,
Donovan’s Beat Café shines as a bright beacon of hope for those seeking
something more enlightening. In other words, it isn’t a cold and calculated
slice of super-sized mediocrity that will invade the culture through endless
repetition on television commercials, talk shows, and radio programs. Instead,
it’s a warm, inviting, and organic endeavor — the type of creation that causes
one to feel the heartbeat of life itself at a time when most don’t even know
that such a thing exists. 
Beat Café is available
from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2004
The Music Box
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