![\"donovan](\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/donovan-midem-2009-x500-300x228.jpg\")
<\/a>Here’s how the story came about. One of the main rules of journalism is to never bury the lead (what we call lede). That mistake by others allowed me to claim those headlines. We were at the MIDEM music convention in Cannes in 2009.<\/p>\nHe\u00a0made his remark about the internet and the Sixties at a press conference to promote the DVD release of\u00a0a biographical documentary, \u201cSunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan\u201d<\/a>, a MIDEM showcase, and an upcoming world tour.<\/p>\n This is what he said:\u00a0\u201cThe dream of the \u201960s, of me and John Lennon and the others, was: How do we speak to everybody on the planet at the same time? The first answer was via satellite but that didn\u2019t connect to everyone. Then John would say, \u2018How about telepathy?\u2019 Then we forgot about it until now we realise that the Internet fulfils that dream of communicating with everyone. I\u2019m not afraid of the Internet because that\u2019s the dream we had. The Internet is the new \u201960s as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n I knew, however, that before I arrived, Donovan had been awarded the Medal of Officier dans L\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Letttres from the French government and\u00a0there had been a press conference,<\/p>\n I asked him\u00a0if he’d made the Sixties comment\u00a0before and he said he had to reporters who’d covered the French award. But when I checked their stories, they had made the award the lede and buried his comment. No one picked up on it.<\/p>\n I made it my lede and filed my story to The Hollywood Reporter, which was then the default entertainment service for Reuters News Agency, and rapidly it reverberated globally. Even my old newspaper The Windsor Star in Canada picked it up.<\/p>\n Oddly enough, I had written about Donovan (with colleague Peter Cook) for another of my old newspapers, The Gravesend Reporter in England, when he first emerged in the Sixties. He played a set at an old Gravesend pub called The Admiral Duncan, long-gone, I’m sure. Pete and I were not impressed at the time but I became a huge fan.<\/p>\n So, happy birthday, Donovan! Where’s me gong?<\/p>\n Photo of Donovan in Cannes: contact music.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 When Donovan, who turns 70 today, announced in Cannes that the internet is the new Sixties, my story about it made headlines around the world. When I ran into the folk-rocker\u00a0later at a BMI gathering … Continue reading ![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Donovan-60s-Windsor-Star.jpg\")
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