John Denver

The Mitchell Trio

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1943, the son of a US Air Force officer, and was given his grandmother's guitar at eleven. He moved to Los Angeles in 1963 and took his stage name from the capital of Colorado. In 1965 he was picked from some 250 hopefuls to replace Chad Mitchell as lead singer of the Chad Mitchell Trio. He stayed through its changes of line-up until the last version, Denver, Boise and Johnson, broke up in 1969.

During a layover at Washington National Airport in 1966 he wrote a song called Babe I Hate to Go, and put it on John Denver Sings, a demo album he pressed himself and gave away as Christmas presents. Milt Okun, who went on to produce nearly all his RCA records, persuaded him to retitle it Leaving on a Jet Plane. In 1967 Peter, Paul and Mary recorded it, and the Mitchell Trio released it as a single.

Country roads

His first commercial solo album, Rhymes & Reasons, came out on RCA in October 1969. That December, Peter, Paul and Mary's Leaving on a Jet Plane went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, just as the trio was breaking up and his solo career was beginning to climb. Two more albums followed in 1970. At the end of that year, playing the Cellar Door in Washington, he stayed up all night with his opening act, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, finishing Take Me Home, Country Roads. It appeared on Poems, Prayers & Promises (1971), reached number two on the Hot 100 and became his breakthrough.

Rocky Mountain High (1972) was his first top ten album in the US. John Denver's Greatest Hits (1973), which included new recordings of several early songs, went to number one and spent 176 weeks on the Billboard 200. Back Home Again (1974) and Windsong (1975) also reached number one, and Sunshine on My Shoulders, Annie's Song, Thank God I'm a Country Boy and I'm Sorry all topped the singles chart. The Country Music Association named him Entertainer of the Year in 1975, and his TV special An Evening with John Denver won an Emmy.

Causes

In 1976 he founded the Windstar Foundation, and in 1977 he co-founded The Hunger Project with Werner Erhard and Robert W. Fuller and starred opposite George Burns in the film Oh, God! He was a guest on The Muppet Show, made two holiday albums with the Muppets, and remained a friend of Jim Henson for life. His RCA albums continued through One World (1986), though they charted lower. In June 1985 he played concerts in Leningrad, Tallinn and Moscow, later released as Live in the USSR, and that same year he spoke against censorship before the Senate at the PMRC hearings. From 1988 he released records on his own Windstar label.

Last flight

He entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1996. His children's album All Aboard! (1997) later won the Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children, his only Grammy. He played his last concert at the Selena Auditorium in Corpus Christi, Texas, on 5 October 1997. A week later he was killed when the Rutan Long-EZ he was flying crashed into Monterey Bay near Pacific Grove, California. The NTSB found that he had been unable to switch fuel tanks in flight, and cited the placement of the fuel selector and inadequate transition training. He was 53.

Critics were long divided over him. American Songwriter notes that many rock fans and critics dismissed him as bland, while Record Collector's Max Bel found him almost impossible to parody. Mark Kozelek's tribute Take Me Home (2000) drew Low and Red House Painters, and The Music Is You (2013) drew My Morning Jacket, Brandi Carlile and Emmylou Harris. Colorado made Rocky Mountain High a state song in 2007 and West Virginia adopted Country Roads in 2014, making him the second person after Stephen Foster to write two state songs. His record sales are estimated at more than 33 million.