History
In late 1964, Peter Eden and Geoff Stephens offered Donovan a recording contract with Pye Records in the UK. Donovan had performed around Britain and had become well known in British folk circles before his record contract. His 1964 demo tapes (released as Sixty Four in 2004) show a great resemblance to both Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, which probably prompted the "British answer to Bob Dylan" press line that was subsequently released. What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid is notable because it captures Donovan at a point where his style and vision were starting to diverge significantly from those of Guthrie and Dylan.
The music primarily consists of Donovan singing and playing mouth harp and acoustic guitar, much like his live performances of the time. He still had some vestiges of Woody Guthrie's style, and here covers Guthrie's "Riding in My Car (Car Song)" — retitled as "Car Car". What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid also includes British folk ("Tangerine Puppet") and even some jazz ("Cuttin' Out").
Donovan rerecorded "Catch the Wind" for the album, which was initially released as his debut single in the UK on 12 March 1965.
Other musicians featured on the album are Brian Locking on bass, Skip Alan (from the Pretty Things) on drums, and Gypsy Dave on kazoo.
Read more about this topic: What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)