Linda Lawrence

I wrote 'Sunshine Superman' knowing she’d hear the lyrics [in LA] and realise I still loved her. I sang: 'It’ll take time, I know it, but in a while / You’re gonna be mine, I know it / We’ll do it in style'.

— Donovan, 2016 Guardian interview[4]

Lawrence's parents were Alec Lawrence, a middle-class contractor,[5] and his wife Violet. She was born Linda Anne Lawrence in 1947 in Windsor, Berkshire.[5]

As a teen, she began a relationship with musician Brian Jones (then 20) and soon had a child by him, Julian Brian Lawrence (born 23 July, 1964). Lawrence and Jones broke up, and shortly after she met Donovan in the green room at Ready Steady Go!. Donovan fell in love, they spent time together, and he asked Linda to marry him.[6] But, beset by the stresses of teenage motherhood, the rock scene, and her breakup with Jones, Lawrence went to southern California, where she had a brief affair with Gram Parsons.[7][8] A few years later, back in England, she reconnected with Donovan (who meantime had had two children – Donovan Leitch and Ione Skye – with Enid Karl, and become a major star) and they were married within a few weeks,[4] on 2 October, 1970.

Linda Lawrence and Donovan settled in Ireland and raised his stepson, who Donovan and Lawrence later adopted and who changed his name to Julian Leitch (he has used Julian Jones as a stage name).[9] Julian's son (Linda's grandson) Joolz is a musician and has toured with Donovan.[10] Lawrence had two children with Donovan, singer/songwriter[11] and composer[12] Astrella Celeste and Oriole Nebula. Lawrence's granddaughter Coco Sian (daughter of Oriole and Shaun Ryder) is an artist and writer.[1] (Lawrence's stepchildren Donovan Leitch and Ione Skye were raised in America by their mother.)[13]

Lawrence has appeared in three documentary films: You Are What You Eat (1968), Let It Bleed: 40 Years of the Rolling Stones (2002), and Sunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan (2008). She is co-credited on the 2019 album Eco-Song, which is ascribed to "Donovan & Linda" and dedicated to Greta Thunberg,[14] and has on occasion performed on stage with Donovan.[15] She contributed to Brian Jones: Butterfly in the Park, a 2019 book of Michael Cooper's photographs,[16] and was a founding director of Donovan's label, Donovan Discs Limited.[17] Donovan dedicated his 2016 autobiography The Hurdy Gurdy Man "To She..." ("She, my muse and only wife Linda Anne, without whom this book would never have been written").[18]

On 16 October 2020, at Oakley Court, Lawrence publicly unveiled her book Luna Love, an illustrated memoire published in a limited edition of 300 copies.[19]

Linda Lawrence at IMDb