Lovely cruise (Jimmy Buffett) (LP 2925 - 2929)

Donovan  HMS Donovan (Vinyl, Dawn Records, 1971) *** 

Charlie Ainley  Bang Your Door (Vinyl, Nemperor Records, 1978) *** 

Harpers Bizarre  Anything Goes (Vinyl, Warner Bros Records, 1967) *** 

Jimmy Buffett  A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (Vinyl, ABC Records, 1973) ***

Jimmy Buffett  Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (Vinyl, ABC Records, 1977) **** 

Genre: Folk, rock, baroque pop, country rock, Nemperor Records

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffett)

Gear costume: The Great Filing Station Holdup (Jimmy Buffett)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4

Active compensatory factors: These are all from a recent batch of purchases from Real Groovy (and the last vestiges of my voucher from my previous employer). I also bought a Wings double that will have to wait until I get up to Macca.

The Donovan is a double album, and the second attempt at writing songs for children (as opposed to children's songs). The second disc in A Gift From a Flower to a Garden is far superior to HMS Donovan but that doesn't mean there aren't some lovely moments on HMS Donovan - most notably on the second disc. The first one has a lot of Lewis Carroll poems set to music and Donovan's processed vocals have dated a lot.

Donovan had been working on the songs since 1968 and had even played some of them to the aforesaid Macca. I wish he'd included that instead of these versions. You can hear them here though, thanks to modern technology.

HMS Donovan wasn't successful when it was released (Epic refused to release it in America and it only came out in the UK on Dawn, making it the rarest and most sought after item in his catalogue).

There is a lot to digest on the double and it will take me a few listens to sort the wheat from the chaff.

The Charlie Ainley record is on Nemperor Records and I wouldn't have bothered to track it down otherwise. It's pretty standard 1978 pub rock. One thing to note is Neil Aspinall's appearance on the liner notes as Charlie's manager/ music publisher. Weird.

Speaking of weird, Harpers Bizarre hold a strange hold on me. Critically the band get slaughtered but I don't care. I love their nerdy Californian soft baroque rock. 

Anything Goes was their second album and sort of sums them up - they'll have a go at anything! Chattanooga Choo Choo? Why not!

Van Dyke Parks is a quirky presence on the album. Enough said as far as I'm concerned. Sign me up.

I also signed up to the charms of Jimmy Buffett a while ago. I've added another two to his corner of the collection. A White Sports Coat is country rock, or even straight country at times, and his easy-going personality is present and correct.

Changes In Latitude etc has the huge hit on it, of course, but Margaritaville's success is fully justified. It's an inspired song and I love the lyric - Some people claim that there's a woman to blame/But I know it's nobody's fault.

Where do they all belong? Still looking for a few Donovan records, plus I need one more Charlie Ainley album on Nemperor, Harpers Bizarre's 4 is the last of theirs on my list, as is Jimmy Buffett's A1A.