A Gift From a Flower to a Garden is the fifth studio album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan, released in December 1967 through Pye Records in the UK and Epic Records in the US. It marks the first double-disc album of Donovan's career and one of the first box sets in pop music. In the US, Epic also released the two discs separately as the stand-alone albums Wear Your Love Like Heaven and For Little Ones.
A Gift from a Flower to a Garden spent 14 weeks on the UK albums chart, peaking at number 13. In the US, it spent 22 weeks on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number 19. In 1970, the album earned a Gold Record award for half a million sales.
Background
After recording the Mellow Yellow album, Donovan focused on releasing hit singles. "Epistle to Dippy" (essentially an inside-joke/open letter for a childhood friend) hit the US top 20 in February 1967 and "There Is a Mountain" (No. 11 US; No. 8 UK) followed in August.
Riding high on the success of these singles, Donovan planned an album consisting of stripped-down acoustic children's music inspired by his spring 1967 move to Buck's Alley Cottage in Hertfordshire, where he had been writing songs celebrating its natural beauty. When he proposed the album to producer Mickie Most that August, Most did not find the project viable, which led to a temporary parting of ways between the two. and "Lay of the Last Tinker", performed along with the previous three songs at the singer's acclaimed Royal Albert Hall show in January 1967.
On August 16, Donovan's child Donovan Jerome was born. The newborn baby's cries opened the children's record, eventually titled For Little Ones, which was recorded at CBS Studios in London during the first two weeks of September 1967. Another track titled "Under the Greenwood Tree" stemmed from actor Laurence Olivier asking the singer to compose melodies for Olivier's adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It at the National Theatre.
|rev2 = AllMusic <br><small>(for Wear Your Love Like Heaven)</small>
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|rev3 = AllMusic <br><small>(for For Little Ones)</small>
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|rev4 = MusicHound
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|rev5 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide
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|rev6 = Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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Upon release, Melody Maker enthused that "lyrics which might seem mawkish in the hands of a more earthy performer come across with extraordinary charm, assisted by a seemingly endless flow of pretty melodies". In the US, Billboard opined "his poetry, clipped lamenting voice and fable-like simplicity are hypnotic" while Cashbox hailed the album as "a feast for the eyes in spectacular packaging, ears in delicate and moving songs, and mind through tantalizing lyrics and melodic weavings".
Retrospectively, AllMusic stated that the album "stands out as a prime artifact of the flower-power era that produced it," and noted that while "the music still seems a bit fey ... the sheer range of subjects and influences make this a surprisingly rewarding work."
Track listing
Personnel
- Donovan – vocals, guitar, banjo, harmonica, whistling
- Eric Leese – electric guitar
- Cliff Barton – bass
- Jack Bruce – bass on "Someone's Singing"
- Ken Baldock – double bass
- Mike O'Neill – keyboards
- Keith Webb – drums
- Tony Carr – drums, bells, congas, finger cymbals
- Mike Carr – vibraphone
- "Candy" John Carr – congas
- Harold McNair – flute
Release history
{|class="wikitable"
! Region
! Date
! Title
! Label
! Format
! Catalog-Nr.
|-
| United States
| 12/1967
| A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
| Epic
| mono LP
| L2N6071
|-
| United States
| 12/1967
| A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
| Epic
| stereo LP
| B2N171
|-
| UK
| 16 April 1968
| A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
|Pye
| mono LP
| NPL20000
|-
| UK
| 16 April 1968
| A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
|Pye
| stereo LP
| NSPL 20000
|-
| United States
| 12/1967
| Wear Your Love Like Heaven
| Epic
| monaural LP
| LN 24349
|-
| United States
| 12/1967
| Wear Your Love Like Heaven
| Epic
| stereo LP
| BN 26349 (stereo)
|-
| United States
| 1/1968
| For Little Ones
| Epic
| monaural LP
| LN24350
|-
| United States
| 1/1968
| For Little Ones
| Epic
| stereo LP
| BN26350 (stereo)
|-
|}
Reissues
- In 1993, BGO Records reissued A Gift from a Flower to a Garden on compact disc in the UK. Mono and Stereo versions were issued. See Donovan - A Gift From A Flower To A Garden for details.
- On 12 September 2000, Collector's Choice Music reissued A Gift from a Flower to a Garden on compact disc in the US.
- On 16 January 2001, Collectables Records released Mellow Yellow/Wear Your Love Like Heaven (Collectables 6644), which contained all of Mellow Yellow and the Wear Your Love Like Heaven portion of A Gift from a Flower to a Garden.
- On 26 January 2009, EMI reissued A Gift from a Flower to a Garden, remastered, on compact disc with under a license agreement with Donovan.
- On 28 January 2022, The state51 Conspiracy released a remastered mono version of ‘’A Gift from a Flower to a Garden’’, as a double compact disc.
Certifications
References
External links
- A Gift From A Flower To A Garden – Donovan Unofficial Site