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Every three weeks, in his estimation, Scottish troubadour Donovan gets a call from his music publisher saying that another company wants to use one of his songs in a film or TV project.

He isn't surprised.

"My lyrics and music have always been cinematic," the 65-year-old singer and songwriter said in a Tribune interview. "I have a song about every human condition."

Donovan, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this spring and is best known for psychedelic folk songs such as "Sunshine Superman" and "Catch the Wind," is therefore the perfect choice to be the headliner at the annual BMI Snowball, an official event sanctioned by the Sundance Institute.

Donovan has a long history with musical endeavors that are tied to film, TV and video. A close friend of the Beatles, he contributed lyrics and vocals to "Yellow Submarine," and Donovan's most recent album "Ritual Groove" is described by Donovan as a "soundtrack to a movie not yet made."

There are two reasons why Donovan has felt a kinship to film, he said. "We grew up around art schools in Britain," he said. "We grew up with those in every industrial town. We were great fans of art-house cinema." Influenced by those films led him and his comrades to make what he called "three-minute movies in our mind."

The second reason is what Donovan has been associated with ever since his now-legendary 1968 trip that he and the Beatles took to learn transcendental meditation at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India. While many of the Beatles became disenchanted with the trip, Donovan has practiced transcendental meditation ever since.

"There would be no Sundance Film Festival without meditation," Donovan claimed. "Meditation can touch a place inside you." By listening to inner voices, film makers "stir this cauldron" to create stories about conflict, and about the human spirit overcoming those obstacles through peace and love, he said. "You find you still have anger, and fear, but you learn you can let it go."

Meditation, consciously or subconsciously, helps the hero in every story grow through trials, as famously described by mythologist Joseph Campbell, Donovan added.

Besides practicing meditation daily, Donovan said he is "the musical wing" of film maker David Lynch's foundation that has a goal of teaching one million at-risk students to meditate. Donovan was one of the featured artists at a 2009 benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation at Radio City Music Hall, in addition to Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

In addition to Donovan, the California-based folk-rock group Dawes (whom Salt Lake City audiences remember from the band's opening gig for last summer's sold-out Alison Krauss concert at Red Butte Garden) are slated to perform at the BMI Snowball.

"I have a lot of his records," said Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith of Donovan. "He's awesome. It will be an honor to play with him."

Like Donovan, whose work over the decades has been made and used to effect social change, Dawes has become more political in recent months. In December, the band joined Jackson Browne to perform at Occupy Wall Street's Liberty Park.

"Like a lot of people, when we were asked, I didn't know much about [the Occupy movement]," Goldsmith said. "I learned, and got really excited about it. I hope it's the first sign that for an apathetic generation, [there is] an issue."

Goldsmith said the focus at Sundance will not so much be political as an opportunity to celebrate film and Donovan. In addition, Goldsmith said he is open to learning more about transcendental meditation.

There is one thing he is not so open to learning more about, he added.

Skiing. That's a dangerous habit for someone whose profession revolves around having the full and uninjured use of your arms and legs.

Sundance Music Showcase: BMI SnowballWhen • Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 8 p.m.Where • Sundance House (Kimball Art Center), 638 Park Ave. (corner of Main Street and Heber Avenue), Park CityTickets • A limited muber of free tickets will be available to Festival credential holders. Check out the Festival website for event updates and follow them at @sundancefestnow to get all the details including where and when to get tickets