John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997),[3] known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer and songwriter. He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s and one of the bestselling artists in that decade.[4] AllMusic has called Denver "among the most beloved entertainers of his era".[5]
John Denver
October 12, 1997 (aged 53)
Blunt force trauma as a result of a plane crash
Ashes scattered in the Colorado Rocky Mountains
Texas Tech University (No degree)
- Singer
- composer
- guitarist
- actor
- record producer
- activist
- humanitarian
1962–1997
-
Annie Martell(m. 1967; div. 1982)
3[a]
- Henry John "Dutch" Deutschendorf Sr. (1920–1982)
- Emma Louise Swope (1922–2010)
- Vocals
- guitar
- The Alpine Trio
- The Chad Mitchell Trio
Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he wrote himself. He had 33 albums and singles that were certified Gold and Platinum in the U.S by the RIAA,[6] with estimated sales of more than 33 million units.[7] He recorded and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, disdain for city life, enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials. Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts, including country music, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, earning 12 gold and four platinum albums with his signature songs "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Poems, Prayers & Promises", "Annie's Song", "Rocky Mountain High", "Calypso", "Thank God I'm a Country Boy", and "Sunshine on My Shoulders".
Denver appeared in several films and television specials during the 1970s and 1980s, including the 1977 hit Oh, God!, in which he starred alongside George Burns. He continued to record into the 1990s, also focusing on environmental issues as well as lending vocal support to space exploration and testifying in front of Congress to protest censorship in music.[8] Known for his love of Colorado, Denver lived in Aspen for much of his life. In 1974, Denver was named poet laureate of the state. The Colorado state legislature also adopted "Rocky Mountain High" as one of its two state songs in 2007, and West Virginia did the same for "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in 2014.
An avid pilot, Denver was killed in a single-fatality crash while piloting a recently purchased light plane in 1997 at age 53.
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
At age 11, Denver received an acoustic guitar from his grandmother.[17] He learned to play well enough to perform at local clubs by the time he was in college. Denver decided to change his name when Randy Sparks, founder of the New Christy Minstrels, suggested that 'Deutschendorf' would not fit comfortably on a marquee.[18] Denver attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock and sang in a folk-music group, "The Alpine Trio", while studying architecture.[19][20][21] He was also a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Denver dropped out of Texas Tech in 1963[17] and moved to Los Angeles, where he sang in folk clubs. In 1965, Denver joined The Chad Mitchell Trio, replacing founder Chad Mitchell. After more personnel changes, the trio later became known as "Denver, Boise, and Johnson" (John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson).[17]
In 1969, Denver abandoned band life to pursue a solo career and released his first album for RCA Records, Rhymes & Reasons. Two years earlier, he had made a self-produced demo recording of some of the songs he played at his concerts. It included a song Denver had written called "Babe, I Hate to Go", later renamed "Leaving on a Jet Plane". He made several copies and gave them out as presents for Christmas.[22] Milt Okun, who produced records for The Chad Mitchell Trio and folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, had become Denver's producer as well. Okun brought the unreleased "Jet Plane" song to Peter, Paul and Mary. Their rendition hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[23] Denver's song also made it to No. 2 in the UK in February 1970, having also made No. 1 on the US Cash Box chart in December 1969.
RCA did not actively promote Rhymes & Reasons with a tour, but Denver embarked on an impromptu supporting tour throughout the Midwest, stopping at towns and cities, offering to play free concerts at local venues. When he was successful in persuading a school, college, American Legion hall, or coffeehouse to let him play, Denver distributed posters in the town and usually showed up at the local radio station, guitar in hand, offering himself for an interview.[24] As the writer of "Leaving on a Jet Plane", Denver was often successful in gaining some promotional airtime, usually performing one or two songs live. Some venues let him play for the 'door'; others restricted him to selling copies of the album at intermission and after the show. After several months of this, Denver had built a solid fan base, many of whom remained loyal throughout his career.[17]
Denver recorded two more albums in 1970, Take Me to Tomorrow and Whose Garden Was This, including a mix of songs he had written and covers.
Political views and activism[edit]
In the mid-1970s, Denver became outspoken in politics. He expressed his ecologic interests in the epic 1975 song "Calypso", an ode to the eponymous exploration ship RV Calypso used by Jacques Cousteau. In 1976, Denver campaigned for Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party and of a number of charitable causes for the environmental movement, the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the African AIDS crisis. He founded the charitable Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote sustainable living. Denver's dismay at the Chernobyl disaster led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of communist Asia and Europe.[19]
During the 1980s, Denver was critical of the Ronald Reagan’s administration and remained active in his campaign against hunger, for which Reagan awarded Denver the Presidential World Without Hunger Award in 1987.[19] Denver's criticism of the conservative politics of the 1980s was expressed in his autobiographical folk-rock ballad "Let Us Begin (What Are We Making Weapons For?)". In an open letter to the media, Denver wrote that he opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He had battled to expand the refuge in the 1980s, and he praised President Bill Clinton for his opposition to the proposed drilling. The letter, which Denver wrote in the midst of the 1996 United States presidential election, was one of the last he ever wrote.[19] In 1992, Denver, along with fellow singers Liza Minnelli and John Oates, performed a benefit to fight the passage of Amendment 2, an anti-LGBT ballot measure that prevented Colorado municipalities from enacting anti-discrimination protections.[35] Denver was also on the National Space Society's board of governors for many years.
Personal life[edit]
Denver's first 1967 marriage was to Annie Martell of St. Peter, Minnesota.[47] She was the subject of his song "Annie's Song", which he composed in ten minutes as he sat on a Colorado ski lift.[19][48] They lived in Edina, Minnesota, from 1968 to 1971.[49] After the success of "Rocky Mountain High", inspired by a camping trip with Annie and some friends, Denver bought a residence in Aspen, Colorado. He lived in Aspen until his death.[50] The Denvers adopted a boy, Zachary John, and a girl, Anna Kate, who, Denver said, were "meant to be" theirs.[34] Denver once said, "I'll tell you the best thing about me. I'm some guy's dad; I'm some little gal's dad. When I die, Zachary John and Anna Kate's father, boy, that's enough for me to be remembered by. That's more than enough."[51] Zachary was the subject of "A Baby Just Like You", a song that included the line "Merry Christmas, little Zachary" which he wrote for Frank Sinatra. Denver and Martell divorced in 1982. In a 1983 interview shown in the documentary John Denver: Country Boy (2013), Denver said that career demands drove them apart; Martell said they were too young and immature to deal with Denver's sudden success. To drive home the point that their assets were being split in the divorce, he cut their marital bed in half with a chainsaw.[52]
Denver married Australian actress Cassandra Delaney in 1988 after a two-year courtship. Settling at Denver's home in Aspen, the couple had a daughter, Jesse Belle. Denver and Delaney separated in 1991 and divorced in 1993.[19] Of his second marriage, Denver said that "before our short-lived marriage ended in divorce, she managed to make a fool of me from one end of the valley to the other".[43]
In 1993, Denver pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge and was placed on probation.[52] In August 1994, while still on probation, he was again charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence after crashing his Porsche into a tree in Aspen.[52] Though a July 1997 trial resulted in a hung jury on the second DUI charge, prosecutors later decided to reopen the case, which was closed only after Denver's accidental death in October 1997.[52][53] In 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) determined that Denver was medically disqualified from operating an aircraft due to his failure to abstain from alcohol; in October 1995, following Denver's drunk-driving conviction, the FAA had directed Denver to abstain from alcohol if he wished to continue flying airplanes.[54][55]
Beyond music, Denver's artistic interests included painting, but because of his limiting schedule, Denver pursued photography, saying once, "photography is a way to communicate a feeling." An exhibition of over 40 never-before-seen photographs taken by Denver debuted at the Leon Gallery in Denver, Colorado, in 2014.[56]
Denver was also an avid skier and golfer, but his principal interest was in flying. Denver's love of flying was second only to his love of music.[53] In 1974, Denver bought a Learjet to fly himself to concerts. He was a collector of vintage biplanes and owned a Christen Eagle aerobatic plane, two Cessna 210 Centurion airplanes, and a 1997 amateur-built Rutan Long-EZ.[34][55][53]
On April 21, 1989, Denver was in a plane accident while taxiing down the runway at Holbrook Municipal Airport in his vintage 1931 biplane. Denver had stopped to refuel on a flight from Carefree, Arizona, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Reports stated wind gusts caught the plane, causing it to spin around and sustain extensive damage. Denver was not harmed by the incident.[57][58]
Related artists[edit]
Denver began his recording career with The Chad Mitchell Trio; his distinctive voice can be heard where he sings solo on "Violets of Dawn", among other songs. He recorded three albums with the Trio, replacing Chad Mitchell as high tenor.[17] Denver also wrote a number of songs that were covered by the group, such as his hits "For Bobbi", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", as well as "Deal with The Ladies" (later recorded on his 1988 album, Higher Ground) and "Stay With Me". The group Denver, Boise, and Johnson, which had evolved from The Chad Mitchell Trio, released a single before he moved on to a solo career. The Trio also performed at college campuses across the United States.[18]
Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, billed as Fat City[74] and credited as co-writers of Denver's song "Take Me Home, Country Roads", were close friends of Denver and his family, appearing as singers and songwriters on many of Denver's albums until they formed the Starland Vocal Band in 1976. The band's albums were released on Denver's Windsong Records label, later known as Windstar Records.
Denver's solo recording contract resulted in part from the recording by Peter, Paul, and Mary of his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane", which became the sole number-one hit single for the group.[17] Denver recorded songs by Tom Paxton, Eric Andersen, John Prine, David Mallett, and many others in the folk scene. His record company, Windstar, is still an active record label today.[75] Country singer John Berry considers Denver the greatest influence on his own music and has recorded Denver's hit "Annie's Song" with the original arrangement.
Olivia Newton-John, an Australian singer whose across-the-board appeal to pop, middle-of-the-road, and country audiences in the mid-1970s was similar to Denver's, lent her distinctive backup vocals to Denver's 1975 single "Fly Away"; she performed the song with Denver on his 1975 Rocky Mountain Christmas special. She also covered his "Take Me Home, Country Roads", and had a hit in the United Kingdom (#15 in 1973) and Japan (#6 in a belated 1976 release) with it.[76] In 1976, Denver and Newton-John appeared as guest stars on The Carpenters' Very First Television Special, a one-hour special broadcast on the ABC television network.
