John Denver

[mikebennidict]

He was probably just considered a streightfoward folk singer. He might of been labled a country singer because some of his songs like Take Me home Country Roads, Thank God I'm a Country Boy and a few other hits were country sounding. I use to listen to country music when I was young and recall hearing a few of his songs on the station I was listening to.

 

[Vic Romano]

I always was surprised when I heard he was considered a country singiner, but yeah; I guess he was!

 

[CensoredAlso]

It's just that you don't hear too many Country songs talking about the Rocky Mountains or the enviornment like he did. There are exceptions, but in general it's true. I personally wouldn't consider his career overall Country.

 

[erniebert1234ss]

Hey, did they just cut the airplane scene from the RMH DVD? If so, VHS, here I come!!!

I am also a HUGE John Denver fan, I remember exactly where I was when I heard he died, and I remember how sad I was. What a great guy and a huge loss to not only the music community, but also to the environmental activist community.

There was this "urban legend" (if you can call it that) surrounding Take Me Home Country Roads. John denied it time after time, but truly, in his heart of hearts, he might have done it.

I lived on the I-81 corridor where my mom and I heard this particular rumor/urban legend. Basically, John had overindulged on alcohol and saw the beauty of his surroundings and thought he was in West Virginia (this is on I-81, mind you). So he wrote Country Roads (or so the story goes). Don't know if ppl don't want this story, but this is concerning John Denver after all. Got lambasted on a JD Yahoo group for posting it. Seems ppl don't exactly take too well to stories like this.

BJ

 

[MartyMuppets]

Bump. John was one of the greatest. Anybody care to carry on the discussion about him?

 

[travellingpat]

John Denver ROCKS he was pretty awesome!!!

 

[MartyMuppets]

I'll say he ROCKED all right Pat. In fact one of my favourite songs of his is ROCKY Mountain High.

Hmm. That gives me another idea for a quirk to post in my happy wanderer thread

 

[Skye]

Hmm. That gives me another idea for a quirk to post in my happy wanderer thread

Ha, and what an interesting thought it was, too.

I recently got the John Denver/Muppets "A Christmas Together" CD, as well as another Christmas CD of John's called "Christmas Like A Lullaby." And both CDs are amazing. "Christmas Like A Lullaby" (both the actual album as a whole, and the song by the same name that's also featured) is so gorgeous, and his renditions of songs like "The First Noel," "White Christmas," and "Little Drummer Boy" are completely perfect. There are so many great songs on this CD.

And he sure did rock! I'm always amazed at how gorgeous his music and his voice are.

 

[MartyMuppets]

I have both those discs in my seasonal collection.
I'll start playing some of them in my unit from December 1st onwards.
RIP John

 

[GroversGal]

Of course he was a musician in his own right. He's was a musician long before The Muppets.

I'd suggest you look at wikipedia for info on JD.People forget,or are too young to know,but JD was pretty much the biggest American pop star of the early 1970s.One of the earliest 'sensitive singer-songwriter' types in the mould of James Taylor,Cat Stevens et al.He sold over 100 million records.What Michael Jackson was to the eighties,Denver was to the 70s.He was EVERYWHERE-guest-hosting the Tonight Show,doing his own specials,on the cover of Newsweek and Rolling Stone.In 1975,he sold the most records of ANYBODY in the world.Every Gen Xer who learned to play a guitar did so by playing Denver songs.His hits stopped after about 1980,but he always drew a good concert crowd right up to his death.Denver was also one of the first pop singers to make use of film clips for his songs:he won an Emmy for a tv show in 1975 where video of illustrating scenes played over his performances.Look him up:every acoustic,soft-sung crooner with a guitar has some influence from JD,whether they admit it or not.