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John Denver (1943 – 1997) Four Minutes to Read

6/17/2013

 
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., later changed his name to John Denver because a music promoter said his name wouldn’t go over well in the industry (good call). He chose Denver because that was his favorite place to be. He was born in Roswell, New Mexico, and his dad was an Air Force officer who set three speed records and earned a place in the Air Force Hall of Fame.  
 
Because Denver's father was in the military, they family moved often, making it difficult for him to make friends. Constantly being the new kid was agony for him as he had become introverted. At the age of 11, Denver received an acoustic guitar from his grandmother and it became his best friend and it changed his life forever. If you’ve never heard the song he wrote called: “This Old Guitar” it’s beautiful. In his third year of high school, he borrowed (stole?) his father's car and ran away to California to visit family friends and begin his music career. His father flew to California to bring him back, and Denver unhappily returned to finish high school.

He learned to play well enough to perform at local clubs by the time he was in college. He attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock and sang in a folk-music group called "The Alpine Trio" while pursuing architecture studies. Denver dropped out of the Texas Tech School of Engineering and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he sang in clubs. 
 
In 1969, John Denver released his first album for RCA Records: Rhymes & Reasons. Two years prior, Denver had made a self-produced demo recording of some of the songs he played when he’d perform in the clubs. He was run off of more than one sidewalk after a show while trying to sale his tapes. He included in the demo a song called "Babe I Hate to Go," later renamed "Leaving on A Jet Plane." The man who helped John produce his demo brought the unreleased "Jet Plane" song to Peter, Paul and Mary and their version of the song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This was a huge feather in his cap.

Although RCA did not actively promote Rhymes & Reasons with a tour, Denver himself 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 local coffee-house to let him play, he would spend a day or so distributing posters in the town and could usually be counted upon to show up at the local radio station, guitar in hand, offering himself for an interview.

After several months of this constant low-key touring schedule he had sold enough albums to persuade RCA to take a chance on extending his recording contract. He had also built a sizable and solid fan base, many of whom remained loyal throughout his career. RCA didn’t know just how much to get behind him because he looked and sounded different. They didn’t know if there was a market for Denver but found out there was.

Denver’s career started taking off in 1971 as his albums became huge successes with number one hits like: Take Me Home Country Roads, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Sunshine on my Shoulders, Annie’s Song, I’m Sorry, etc. He had the signature look of long blonde hair, round glasses, and embroidered shirts and/or buckskin jackets. Like the Grateful Dead would experience years later, his fan base would travel for miles to hear him play. 
 
Denver was a huge advocate for the environment. One of my favorite songs of his is “Calypso” which was the name of Jacques Cousteau’s boat. I can’t begin to cover the amount of his humanitarian projects but Aids and Hunger were some of his favorites.

He accomplished great things beyond music like his works with the Muppets and the movie “Oh, God” with George Burns. His annual variety Christmas shows on ABC were record breaking for them achieving up to 60 million viewers during one episode; about 10 times better than their average shows generate now. He hosted the Grammy Awards. The Olympic Committee asked him to write a theme song for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Because of his skiing prowess, ABC asked him to be a commentator for skiing events. He loved flying airplanes and was very involved in promoting NASA and their aerospace programs; he won the “NASA Public Service Medal” in 1985.   
 
John Denver was married to his first wife Annie for around 14 years. He wrote the song “Annie” while riding on ski lifts during a ski outing. They adopted two children. Six years after Denver got a divorce from Annie he married an actress from Australia and they had a girl. They divorced after five years and John never remarried.

After all those years, Denver never moved from his home in Colorado. The last few years of his life he struggled with a drinking problem and was caught driving drunk a few times in his small community and was involved in a drunk driving case when he died. 
 
At the age of 53, Denver crashed his plane into the Pacific Ocean due to mechanical problems. He was an accomplished pilot and could fly practically anything even a Lear Jet. He was flying a test aircraft at the time and was doing touch and goes at the Monterey Airport. This is where you don’t actually land the plane but instead you touch the runway with your wheels and immediately take off again. This is a required test in case a pilot attempts to land and sees something on the runway. He wasn’t supposed to be flying at the time because of a suspended license due to his alcohol problem but fortunately they didn’t find drugs or alcohol in his system when they found his body.

Here are some of Denver’s many accomplishments:

1) For 31 years straight he came out with an album. No one in the music industry has been this productive. 
2) He wrote three books, one being his autobiography.
3) Album of the year for “Back Home Again.”
4) He was the AMA’s Pop/Rock Artist of the Year in 1975 and became Favorite Country Male Artist one year later and CMA’s Entertainer of the Year. A lot of people in the country music industry were mad about this because he wasn’t exactly seen as the typical country artist.  
5) He won Emmy’s and Grammy’s and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and Music Writer’s Hall of Fame. He’s also won awards for his poetry.
6) The last album he cut in 1997 was called: “All Aboard” and was geared towards children. It was a hit as well and he won another Grammy for it.      

I didn’t cover a fraction of his accomplishments but I at least tried to remind you what a diverse superstar he was. His personal life wasn’t as great as he was a workaholic never spending enough time with his family to build good relationships. The tours and cutting one album a year gives us great insight into why he wasn’t around much. He wasn’t a wife’s dream but he was a record label’s dream. 
 
I was a huge fan of John Denver’s and I can’t count the number of times I’ve listened to Annie’s Song, Back Home Again, Grandma’s Feather Bed, Matthew, Sunshine on My Shoulders, This Old Guitar, etc. In a world filled with artists who all sound the same, I feel blessed to have been around to hear the unique sound of John Denver.  


The Legacy (Two Minutes Two Read) 

6/1/2013

 
I’ll never forget how excited my father was when I was accepted at the University of Alabama. I grew up on a small farm on the edge of Piney Creek and no one in my family had ever made it to college. Where I grew up, most people either worked on a farm or were fortunate enough to get a job at the electric plant or sawmill. It was extremely difficult getting a job at either of these places as job openings usually came up only if someone retired or dies; so when my dad realized that one of his children would be getting a formal education and would have a chance to see something outside of our little county, he could hardly contain himself. This was a side of him I had never seen growing up; well except for when he’d land a large fish on his line, he’d get pretty excited then.  

My father in a lot of ways was a hard man. I knew he loved us but it wasn’t something he talked about. Now don’t get me wrong, when I say he was a hard man I am not implying he was a mean. On the contrary, except for getting mad at us sometimes for just doing those things that kids do, he never laid a hand on us. He didn’t have to…when he’d get angry we mostly felt like we let him down so the guilt trip was punishment enough. He just wasn’t the type of father who showed a lot of affection. 
 
After a huge going away party where practically everyone who lived in Piney Creek attended, my parents drove me to Tuscaloosa. The campus was huge and there were more kids running around outside than all the people who lived in my hometown. I studied hard and made it home when I could. Unfortunately we barely had money for gas for my dad to come and pick me up during school breaks, let alone the $39 dollars it would take if I tried to  take the bus. The only reason I got into the university in the first place was they offered fifty scholarships each year for underprivileged kids who had  better than a 3.5 grade point average in high school. Being poor had to be good for something.

It was my senior year and Spring Break was right around the corner. My mom was begging me to come home. She said that my dad saved up the money and was looking forward to picking me up at school. I made up several excuses for not being able to make it home during the break but the truth was, I received too good of an offer to travel down with friends to Cape Dunes on the Gulf of Mexico. I couldn’t tell my mom this as she would never have approved. Keep in mind, my mom’s world was about 30 miles around our farm and the community she grew up in. Any bit of travel was scary to her. I finally convinced her that I just couldn’t make it home this time but would look forward to seeing her at graduation.  
    
While I was on the Gulf with my friends, one of them received a call from our dorm’s resident assistant (Brian), and he wanted to talk to me.  He told me my sister called the dorm looking for me and said there was a family emergency. My heart was pounding when I called my sister to find out what happened. My mind was racing thinking about all the possibilities. Could my  father have had a heart attack or did my little brother get injured somehow working on the farm? When my sister answered the phone, I knew by the sound of  her voice that it was bad. She started crying hysterically so I couldn't make out what she was saying until she pulled herself together; by then my heart was dropping in my chest. She said that mom and dad were killed in an automobile accident while on their way to surprise me on campus. 



On their way there, they were killed by a truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel. One of the paramedics found an envelope on the floorboard of my dad’s pickup truck which had my name on it. I didn’t know about it until I made it back home to the funeral. My sister handed the envelope to me and it was from my father. I went outside on the porch unsure if I was ready to read what he had written. I opened the envelope and this is what my father wrote:

Dear Tyler:

I’m writing this note because as you know I’m not real good at sharing my  feelings. Your mother always got on me about not expressing my love for you kids like I should have, but I guess I never got the courage up. I can’t explain why I am the way that I am, but I guess its just one of the many things God will have a talk with me about some day.
 
I love you son and I am more proud of you than I could ever express in words. I am not just proud of the man you have become or that you are about to be the first person in the family to graduate from college, but I want you to know that I have always been proud of you. There were so many times when you were growing up that I would catch you helping your brother and sisters with their chores or when I would catch you staying up all night in the barn to make sure a sick animal wasn’t lonely. I wanted to hug you then and tell you how much I loved you but for some reason, I just couldn’t do it. Probably one of those bad things that are passed on from generation to generation but the fact is I knew better. 

So I figure this  letter can be a start. I love you son and I am so proud of you.  Your mom and I will try not to embarrass you at graduation!

Love, 
Dad

Apparently my dad was planning on handing the letter to me during their visit. While reading the letter I made my way off our front porch and out towards the barn because I didn’t want anyone to see me break down. I had no idea what his words would do to me. My father loved me. My father was proud of me. I wish more fathers realized how powerful those words are. 
 
I always thought that I would graduate and end up in some big office job in Atlanta or Birmingham; instead I went back home to make sure the family farm stayed afloat. It’s still going strong and still churning out good kids. I have two children of my own and I haven’t forgotten those lessons learned as each night I hug and kiss them and tell them how special they are to me. My dad would be so proud!      

    Author: John Mann

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