Aligning himself so closely to the psychedelia of the late ‘60s, Donovan ran into commercial difficulties as a new decade began. Released in 1970, Open Road is a very good Donovan album at a time when people had started to look elsewhere and his record label was not perfectly aligned with his star. How else to explain the lack of interest in such solid material? The album begins with a tougher British blues underlying “Changes,” but “Song for John” and the modest hit “Riki Tiki Tavi” are prime Donovan. The beautiful psychedelia revisited of the piano-mad “Celtic Rock” set the template for Led Zeppelin’s folk excursions where rock is very much part of the British folk equation. “Clara Clairvoyant” slinks with a sexy funk that leads to a scream. “Roots of Oak” spooks out with a psych-folk groove from the not-so-distant past. ”Poke At the Pope” simply rocks like Donovan never had before. Donovan wouldn’t be much of a commercial force in the ‘70s, but his legacy was intact for future generations.