Sixties singer Donovan is on the road with his own Beat Cafe. He tells Charles Hutchinson what's happening.

THE beat goes on for Donovan.

In his 40th anniversary year since his first hit, Catch The Wind - number four in March 1965, pop pickers - he is digging the Beat generation on his new album and tour, Beat Caf.

"This is my Beat happening, a celebration for Beats old and new, combining jazz and poetry, in the ambience of a bohemian caf," says the erstwhile flower-child from Glasgow. "Don't miss the beat, feel the pulse, get up and dance, be part of it. Musicians, writers, poets, artists, students welcome."

Tomorrow, the 59-year-old musical poet will turn the Grand Opera House in York into his Beat Caf, his "intimate live performance and art event". This relaxed forum will allow him to introduce songs from his new album, alongside such Sixties signature tunes as Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Jennifer Juniper.

"Over the past two years, I've been sort of completing a book called The Hurdy Gurdy Man and there's been talk of a boxed set to celebrate 40 years, but it occurred to me that I'd like to release a new album first," Donovan says.

"I started at the point where my music came from in the Sixties, and I realised there were a lot of influences from the bohemian circle of the Fifties, thematically and creatively.

"But I was also finding out what would happen if I started experimenting again with this album, because I wanted to show that I could still do new work that was innovative. I learned many styles of writing from my father reading me poetry and I've always thought it was OK to experiment, so that's why the differences between my songs are extreme."

The result was Donovan's renewed acquaintance with the world of the bohemian caf, a world of poetry and music, philosophy and social politics, meditation and art. The Beat Caf album was duly launched last year in where else but San Francisco, the capital of the Beat Generation during the era of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William H Burroughs.

"We then took a break over the winter months and started up again in Paris, which is such a bohemian city, playing in Montmartre, and now we're doing it over here in my country," he says.

"To create the Beat caf atmosphere, there'll be caf tables and a backdrop with some of my own artwork, and we'll project images on the screen from some of the early work I did."

Donovan will be preceded on stage by his daughter Astrella Celeste - not only the Beckham generation has a hold on daft names - who will perform a "light, poetic set in the chanteuse style". Donovan will then do an acoustic set before being joined by a band that will have punk aficionados raising an eyebrow.

"I've got Rat Scabies, from The Damned, drumming for me. He's been in retirement but he's come out of it for these shows," says Donovan.

Once the Beat Caf has shut up shop, Donovan will turn his thoughts to marking his 40th anniversary. "That will take over proper in the autumn. Dates in Glasgow, Manchester and London are being held back for me, and I gather special guests are being lined up that I'm not supposed to know about," he says.

Record companies are already making the most of the anniversary, as is their wont. On May 9, Sanctuary released the two-disc anthology Summer Day Reflection Songs, the same day that EMI Catalogue reached into the vaults and dusted off four Donovan albums for digitally re-mastered re-discovery.

Sunshine Superman (1966), Mellow Yellow (1967), Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968) and Barabajagal (1969) have each been re-issued with myriad bonus tracks and 4,000-word sleevenotes.

"The first thing to say about the EMI re-releases is: those albums were never released in their entirety in the UK, where the record company hooked up two of the albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow as Sunshine Superman," Donovan recalls.

"The other two never came out over here, just the singles, because my career was moving so fast, but now EMI have corrected that with those four re-releases with extra stuff, and I've been working closely with them to make sure they got good material."

On October 5, a triple CD box set and DVD will be released by Sony BMG, on the same day that St Martin's Press - part of the Random House imprint - publishes The Hurdy Gurdy Man following serialisation in the Daily Mail. The beat will go on for Donovan.

Donovan, The Beat Caf Tour, Grand Opera House, York, June 4; tickets £20 on 0870 606 3595. The album Beat Caf (Appleseed Records) will be on sale at the 7.30pm concert.

Updated: 15:43 Thursday, June 02, 2005