Chiff and Fipple Forums

The 1967 Vinyl LP "Donovan in Concert" has a photo on the back of the performer playing what appears to be a whistle. It has 6 holes and is end blown. Anyone have an idea what this could have been?

The photo link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15WZP5 ... fZ6Af-gkjW

A prop?

I have a vague idea of owning something similar. I wonder if it is in my attic somewhere. Mine was more of a gift item than a serious instrument made in India out of bamboo. A quick search of India Flute sent me to Amazon where they are selling a set of a fipple flute and a transverse flute for $4. Which was about the quality of mine. Shops that sold beads and hippie stuff would have them along with Indian batik bedspreads, incense, carved boxes, and lava lamps. These stores popped up in Chicago around 67-69. There was a short section of Wells street in a neighborhood called Old Town in Chicago that became a magnet for kids trying to be hippie-like. We'd don our velvet shirts and beads and buy cheap do dads like these. That same street was also a mecca for the folk music scene as well with folks like Steve Goodman, John Prine, Bob Gibson, playing around. Also around that time a school called The Old Town School of Folk music was in its heyday. That still exists in a spiffed up form... with a number of buildings in two different neighborhoods. They attempt with some limited success to add Irish Music to their many class offerings. But, I digress. The whistle Donovan was playing in that picture may have had similar origins. He seems to also have a doumbeck under his arm which later became commonplace, but at the time was pretty exotic.

Yes, it's an Indian bamboo whistle.
I remember these from my hippy years in Edinburgh. Finbar Furey used to play one of these in Sandy Bell's bar around that time.

In the 1972 German film of "The Pied Piper," Donovan is the title character and is seen playing what looks like the same whistle or fipple-synching to someone else playing it. The heavily orchestrated title music can be found below. Since this movie is a fairly authentic version of a Grimm tale, it could be considered grim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngbjYCP ... uD1gQ&t=0s