Sunshine Superman is the third studio LP by singer-songwriter Donovan. On August 26, 1966, it was released in the United States on Epic Records.
Donovan and his record producer Mickie Most began the album at the EMI studios at Abbey Road with arranger John Cameron, guitarist Jimmy Page, and Shawn Phillips on sitar.
The landmark album featured Donovan's hit single “Sunshine Superman,” issued in July ’66.
In early April 1966 Donovan came to Hollywood and was booked for a well-received week-long residency at The Trip nightclub on Sunset Strip.
While in town, Donovan played the Hollywood Bowl and recorded at Columbia Studios on Sunset, and cut “Season of the Witch,” “The Trip,” a tune about the venue he headlined, and “Superlungs.”
Session players on those dates included Bobby Ray on bass, drummer “Fast” Eddie Hoh, and Lenny Maitlin on Hammond organ. Additional musicians on “The Fat Angel,” “Ferris Wheel,” and “Three King Fishers” were Shawn Phillips, “Candy” John Carr on bongos, and electric violinist Peter Pilifian. On “Celeste,” the MFQ’s Cyrus Faryar is heard on the bouzouki instrument. Other songs cut in Hollywood are “Young Girl Blues,” “Museum,” and “Epistle to Dippy.”
“Mickie Most was bar none the most versatile and successful British record producer of the sixties. George Martin had the Beatles, I had the Rolling Stones, Shel Talmy had the Who and the Kinks—all self-contained acts,” underlined Andrew Loog Oldham in a 2008 interview with me.
In 1973, Loog Oldham produced Donovan’s Cosmic Wheels.
“Mickie spotted great talent—Herman’s Hermits, the Animals—and he matched them with great songs, again and again and again.
“Mickie Most and Peter Noone. These two guys had a great run together and nailed down that American affection for British song and vaudeville. Mickie Most was a great song sniffer, one of the best. ‘I’m into Something Good’ and ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’ are great records. And then there was his run with Donovan.”
Donovan was the first recording artist Clive Davis signed to the Epic label after he was appointed vice president and general manager of Columbia Records in 1965, and later president during 1966.
“I signed Donovan to Epic in 1966,” offered Davis in a 2008 interview we conducted. “I was in the business side of it for a year. I was working with Andy Williams, the young Barbra Streisand, and Bob Dylan.
“I was observing. I was seeing the business change. I was seeing music change, but I was waiting for the A&R staff to lead into these changes that were showing evidence in becoming important in music.
“In June 1967, I really came to the Monterey International Pop Festival not knowing what to expect, but seeing a revolution before my eyes. I was very aware that contemporary music was changing.”
Sunshine Superman has always been one of my desert island discs.
I remember first meeting Donovan in 1974 at a press party for his 7-Tease album tossed by Epic Records at the Dar Maghreb Moroccan restaurant on Sunset Blvd.
The guests sat on pillows in a smoky private room and ate Moroccan food, pigeon pastilla, a sweet-and-savory pie with pigeon meat. Donovan discussed his new LP, answered my fanboy questions about Sunshine Superman, and chatted about his November 1965 taping in Hollywood at The Big T.N.T. Show in the Moulin Rouge.
In 2007, I interviewed Donovan via email and asked about his 1966 visit to Hollywood.
"LA TV was a bit diff from British Telly, but the elements were the same. Hollywood A Go Go, Shindig! and other little TV shows had the 3 dancers, and I had the shades on. Gypsy and I smiling at it all and the craziness. On the street, of course, the girls still in bobby socks and pony tails and the guys in plaid shorts and crew cuts that was to change. We were treated like visitors from another planet…The British Invasion...But the Planet we were from was Planet Bohemia, and soon it would change the way youth saw so-called reality.
"In May of 1966, I played a week at The Trip club on Sunset. All of Hollywood turned up. New pals. I met The Mamas and The Papas and Cyrus Faryar.
“Peer Music was and still is my Music Publishing family and Linda and I stayed up in the old Peer Mansion on lower Laurel Canyon. We fell in love and she is my Sunshine Supergirl. The album dedicated to Linda. Ralph Peer of Peer Music supported me all the way and I am so grateful, as I learned early Music Publishing is the beginning of this music business and is the center of it all today.
“Mickie Most my Brit producer and I went into CBS Studios recording ‘Season of the Witch.’ The sound engineers in white coats! Like doctors.
“Mickie said to one engineer, as we recorded the ‘Season of the Witch,’ turn the bass level up. And the two in white coats said they needed a conference on this. They left the studio control room. They returned and said they couldn’t turn up the bass as it was going into THE RED on the dial.
“Mickie said, ‘Look guys, your boss Clive Davis just gave me a million dollars to record 3 artists, do you think if I asked him for a little more bass he would give it to me?’
“The bass was turned up. A real Spinal Tap Moment long before the film of the same name.”
In mid-July 2026, I asked some friends about Sunshine Superman.
“Sixty years ago, surrealism entered popular culture in the form of a new kind of rock music, the sort that would work as the soundtrack to a public dream,” suggested writer and poet Dr. James Cushing in a 2026 conversation we had.
“Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, “Eight Miles High,” East-West, and Freak Out!, all from 1966, are the first examples that come to mind. Donovan’s Sunshine Superman fully belongs on this short-list of disjunctive originality’s greatest hits. (Even Freak Out! made the top 200.)
“Start with the title song, a big hit. It plucks its title from the first words of both verses, a seemingly arbitrary gesture that fits the arrangement: upright and electric bass, harpsichord, and an electric guitar played with some very strange pedal action. Pow!
“The next cut is six slow minutes of acoustic guitar and strings, with lyrics set in some imaginary tenth century about cascading crystals and thrones of white ivory.
“The third cut opens with Sean Phillips’ sitar — yes, we are in Beatles territory, but Donovan has his own melodic imprint, and nothing sounds derivative. Then, sitar plus jazz bass plus bongoes equals ‘Ferris Wheel,’ a cool breeze of melody. The side ends up in a jazz groove. No cut is foreseeable from the previous one, and the whole 43-minute album is like that.
“Contractual disputes prevented the album from coming out in the UK in its original form, so American listeners actually had the advantage. This LP was followed by Mellow Yellow, A Gift from a Flower to a Garden, Donovan In Concert, and Hurdy Gurdy Man, all in the next two years, all of them richly rewarding. But Sunshine Superman is where Donovan stops following Dylan and starts following only his own star.”
"The first time I ever heard the song 'Sunshine Superman' soaring, more powerful than a locomotive, out of my childhood 6-transistors back in '66 I thought, for some still inexplicable reason, 'Gee, that singer sure sounds like he's some bad guy who should be in jail!'," admits the pre-YouTube/pre-MTV-even Gary Pig Gold.
"Of course, when images of said singer first met my eyes shortly thereafter via 16 Magazine, followed by an iconic, floral-pelted appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, that first audio impression of mine couldn't have been farther off the mark. For 'The Phenomenon of Donovan,' as KRLA introduced his Anaheim Convention Center soiree (captured upon my treasured-to-this-day Donovan In Concert elpee) was in truth the kindest-hearted, gentlest-souled, most-softest-spoken - usually - man imaginable.
"Nevertheless, that initially heard jailhouse vocal, and underlying behind-bars attitude altogether, did sometimes creep to the surface here and then there upon the full Sunshine Superman LP- on "The Trip" in particular. And it certainly was in evidence when, forty-five full years later, I was most fortunate indeed to witness the entire album, and then some, performed by Donovan at no less than the Royal Albert Hall ...with original session guitarist J. Page right back alongside him too on stage, by the way.
“But I'd just have to continue to surmise Such was, and remains, the dichotomy, musical and otherwise, of this particular Phenomenon."
“Donovan was in full psychedelic rock bloom with Sunshine Superman,” emphasized musician and songwriter Morley Bartnoff, “not merely a hit record but the 1966 genesis of an artistically seminal four-way cannonball into the deep abyss; historically massive for its genre as well as his own timeline-- He was welcomed onto radio with sweet folk songs like ‘Catch the Wind,’ ‘Colours’ and ‘Universal Soldier’ — then Sunshine Superman changed everything. Along with hits like ‘Season of the Witch,’ ‘The Trip’ and later, bluesy classics like ‘Sunshine Superman’ and ‘Mellow Yellow,’ the title track opened up an entirely new sonic dimension. An otherworldly sound stitched strictly for the radio made from transcendental verses, space-aged instrumentals, trance-inducing rhythms and bold studio experimentation. Now, Donovan was not following the psychedelic revolution — he was making it.
“And Sunshine Superman hits like a whole other planet. It was Donovan who proved all of these facets could coalesce, and at one time psychedelic rock music could be creative, lyrical, melodic and a commercial staple. His music pushed many composers well past the limits of conventional folk and pop, to play with Eastern elements, psychedelic imagery and wild inventiveness.
“Released before the Summer had even begun, the album is one of the landmark recordings from that era now popularly referred to as the Summer of Love. It transformed him from a phenomenally accomplished folk singer to one of the genuine pioneers of psychedelic rock, and more than half a century later songs such as 'Sunshine Superman', 'Season of the Witch' and 'Mellow Yellow' sound every bit as mesmerizingly inventive and absolutely contemporary as ever.”
Producer-humorist-marketing strategist-polymath Martin Lewis is an unabashed Donovan-lover – who has both produced and managed him at times.
“I love Donovan. From the day I saw him singing ‘Catch The Wind’ on Ready Steady Go! in January 1965 – months before he had a record contract—through his rapid rise into the mid-late ‘60s music stratosphere—certainly considered one of the Gods of our time. Through the cruelties of the 1970s and 1980s when he was cast aside and mocked as a hippie leftover rather than revered as the pioneer he was. And all the way since.
“Several times our paths crossed.
“In 1981, at the height of our culture’s cruel indifference to him, I picked him to perform at The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball benefit show that I produced for Amnesty International. His appearance was rather overshadowed by some of the other lads I’d recruited: Sting, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck. Indeed when the curtain rose to reveal him, a typical 80s-era wag in the audience yelled out, ‘I thought you were dead!’ I kept that in the film of the show so I could include Don’s instant, dry riposte, ‘not yet…’
His performance of Sunshine Superman was sublime. For the album I decided to elevate Danny Thompson’s double bass into a lead instrument duetting with Don’s singing. Because of his unique voice, it still sounds like magic in a vinyl bottle.
“I loved Donovan so much that in one of his frequent nadirs I managed him. Or tried to… This was 2003-2005. His talent was still there. I adored him, but I discovered some of the reasons for his fall from public appreciation.
“He was literally unmanageable. Not by way of personal failings. But he was so burned and scarred by the abuse and indifference of the music world—so hurt by the Rodney Dangerfield-ness of his situation in which he literally got 'no respect' - that he had taken to speaking and writing about himself in Bob Dole-style ‘third person’ mode. He would say things such as: ‘In 1968 Donovan would travel to India with the Beatles where he taught John and Paul clawhammer finger-picking guitar style…’
“It sounded bizarre and self-aggrandizing. But the tragedy was that it was all true. But he’d not been given proper credit for his legitimate achievements—so he felt it necessary to be his own publicist in the third person. And that made him appear full of himself.
“Dammit – he had every right to be full of himself! But independent voices needed to be saying it. Not a manager… not a publicist… and certainly not the artist himself. I was frustrated by the unfairness of how he was overlooked. And by him being – quite understandably – in the way of himself.
“So finally I had to let go of my dream of helping restore him to his rightful place in music history. He understood my analysis and we parted as friends. In the end, the sheer passage of time has accorded him some of the huge recognition he deserves
“We continued to collaborate when occasion arose and I tried to do my bit when opportunities presented themselves.
“Such as the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival that I organized in 2007 at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
“Donovan had been due to perform at Monterey in 1967 until the British police—in a warm-up to drug-busting the Stones and the Beatles—had a dry-run by arresting Donovan. An action that screwed his visa status and ability to fly to the US for that festival.
“My Marty McFly Back to the Future remedy was to tell the assembled audience about this, then produce a piece of paper to read from that I had led them to think would be a written greeting to the crowd from Don. Instead I read aloud: ‘So here to perform one of the songs that he would have performed at Monterey - please welcome Donovan!’
“Out strides Donovan – who I’d hidden in the wings - with his green-topped acoustic guitar, ‘Kelly’ made for him by luthier Danny Ferrington, and he slays them with a sublime Sunshine Superman. Open-mouthed slack jaws - just like the audience at the Springtime For Hitler first night - from Michelle Phillips, Lou Adler, Grace Slick, Eric Burdon and other assorted Monterey survivors. Gob-smacked by this piece of Kabuki – and in awe of the sheer Donovan-ness of the man
“At the after-party in the adjacent Pig & Whistle I corralled Eric Burdon to duet with Don on an extended Season of the Witch jam – Eric free-styling new lyrics about present-day politics over sizzling guitar from Moby Grape’s Jerry Miller. I felt that we had belatedly compensated for a glitch in the universe that had blighted 1967!
“The Sunshine Superman album was a supreme achievement by Donovan. Because of contractual issues, we Brits didn’t get that album until October 1967. Fourteen crucial months later. And 14 months was virtually a century in the golden renaissance period of 1966-1967. Even then, the UK album was in diluted form.
“By then British music critics had rightly praised the Beatles’ Revolver and Sgt. Pepper albums and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds —and they didn’t give proper credit to Donovan for having reached similar musical horizons in 1966—because it arrived over a year later on our shores and in our ears. It was the beginning of the British hip-erati unfairly losing respect for Donovan.
“This 60th anniversary of the original Sunshine Superman album is a very good reason to wave our Donovan freak flags! “Born-a high forever to fly…”
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021, they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published in February, 2026 by BearManor Media. Kubernik is currently working as Creative Director on a book on the Beatles for a UK publisher scheduled for a 2027 publication date.
Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.
In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its heralded Distinguished Speakers Series, and as a panelist, where he discussed the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023).
Donovan photo by Henry Dilyz, courtesy of Gary Strobl at the Diltz Archive. KHJ ad from Strobl. The Big TNT Show ad from the Gary Pig Gold archives.
