Thursday music corner: The impeccable connections of singer and actor Dana Gillespie – who rejoices in the birth name Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie – resulted in enduring collaborations throughout her long career, including this single. Recorded by Gillespie for her first album Foolish Seasons in 1968, the song was written by Donovan and amongst the musicians who performed on the album was Jimmy Page, who also produced the record.
Gillespie was renowned for her many famous lovers in the 1960s and ‘70s (Bowie, Dylan, Jagger, Caine, Page, Moon, Connery). David Bowie originally wrote his song Andy Warhol for her, before recording it himself for his groundbreaking 1971 album Hunky Dory. Bowie and Ziggy Stardust guitarist Mick Ronson produced Gillespie’s 1973 album Weren’t Born a Man. She was the original Mary Magdalene in the first London production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
In addition to recording Indian devotional music, Gillespie now mainly performs as a blues artist, and she founded the Mustique Blues Festival in 1996. She released her 72nd album in 2021, and in a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian's Garth Cartwright in August 2021 she noted, “A chap from Universal was just around as they are gathering my first two albums and all the songs I demoed for Immediate Records into a box set. A new hip, and then I’ll get on with life.”
Dana Gillespie – You Just Gotta Know My Mind (1968)
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