Unterberger. One of the tour dates saw Donovan and MacLeod playing on stage with Joan Baez. After Donovan's first UK tour MacLeod teamed up first with Dana Gillespie then with another regular on the St Albans music scene, Maddy Prior, to form Mac & Maddy. A demo tape of Mac & Maddy was made but has subsequently been lost. Donovan has since the early 1990s changed his stories as regards MacLeod's influence, naming 'Dirty Hugh' or 'Dirty Phil' as his finger picking teacher and John Vanstone as his early guitar mentor, removing MacLeod's name from the story. However, no interviews with him from the 1960s mention either 'Dirty Hugh', 'Dirty Phil' or John Vanstone. A guitarist called 'Dirty Hugh' (so called because he dressed in rags) played at 'The Cock', but he could only strum and flat pick the guitar, he could not finger pick and therefore was unable to teach Donovan that art. Donovan's first two albums included many songs that he learnt from MacLeod as revealed in Pete Frames ZigZag Wanderer No.5 March 1999 and in the Nigel Cross interviews for Terrascope Sweden, Denmark and back again MacLeod's odyssey was to take him around Britain, and across Sweden and Denmark. The anthology Mac MacLeod – The Incredible Musical Odyssey of the Original Hurdy Gurdy Man on RPM/Cherry Red Records contains many rare recordings, from the acoustic folksy beginnings through a succession of one-off groups like The Other Side (with Boz Scaggs) and Exploding Mushroom, to the Hurdy Gurdy (with producers Rod Argent and Chris White). The group became an underground favourite and went on to headline at Middle Earth, supporting Pink Floyd at the same venue. Hurdy Gurdy MacLeod was the lead singer and bassist in a power trio style group in Denmark (inspired by Cream) which he named Hurdy Gurdy. The group sound was heading in a similar direction to The Jimi Hendrix Experience who had also started at around the same time. After a run-in with the law, MacLeod had written to Donovan's manager, Ashley Kozak, in December 1967 and asked if he could help. Donovan then penned them a song and "Hurdy Gurdy Man" was the result. However, Donovan changed his mind on his gift of the song to MacLeod and recorded it himself. Donovan explained the story to Keith Altham of the NME on 15 June 1968 (a different version of the article appeared