The week of February 20 at Sony Music Studios was unlike any other. Although film and music history had often been made at the legendary studio complex (the former Fox Movietone Studios), this was the first time a double “live” CD, two-hour television special and home video had ever been undertaken in a single session. It simply hadn’t been done. The demands such a project would put on an artist made the idea utterly ridiculous. It would require a television camera and dolly tracks, miles of cable, and a highly specialized recording and technical crew approaching 100. This was nuts! Nonetheless, we dared the impossible.
On Tuesday evening, as the final pieces of the set were being lifted into place, lights hung and cables taped down on the cavernous sound stage, we gathered in Rehearsal Room B. Between the nervous jokes and the frantic barking of technical orders, the thump of drums, tuning guitars and piano runs punctuated our conversations. The silence – a pause. Suddenly, in a quick burst, James Burton’s blistering guitar seized the room. Jim Horn responded, his driving sax mocking and angry. “The Harder They Fall.” Rock ‘n’ roll at its best – John’s voice, grabbing and taunting. We all looked at each other. Stunned. John Denver?
“Bet On the Blues” followed. The acerbic humor of the lyrics, along with John’s sly and witty attack, provided a counterpoint to the soulful slide of Burton’s dobro and Horn’s alto sax. One after another, new sounds unfolded. “Darcy Farrow” was next. The warm tones of John’s six-string enveloped the poignant and tragic story, simply and gently echoed by Pete Huttlinger’s mandolin. Classic John Denver.
Two days of rehearsals and nearly 40 songs later, the excitement in the hallways at Sony Music Studios was palpable. We could sense the ghosts of years past, those film stars and performers who haunt the studio, pleased and listening through the walls. This was a new John Denver.
With a hot new band anchored by old friends and legendary session players James Burton (Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Elvis Costello) and Jim Horn (The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon), the sound was astonishing.
This was to be more than just another concert; it was to be The Wildlife Concert, an important distinction for John.
“We’re doing this to help support the Wildlife Conservation Society. They’re on the front lines and in the field, doing more hands-on work protecting wildlife and habitat than any other single organization in the world. Helping to produce this concert marks the first time they’ve gone public in this way, and it’s truly thrilling for me to have them as a sponsor. Their people, like George Schaller, are the real heroes of our time.”
By Thursday, on the streets outside the studio, winter’s bite had become cold and bitter. An evening fell, cutting winds and driving rains pressed hard against the growing crowd; hundreds of fans had begun to gather outside the studio earlier that morning. The line snaked all the way down West 54th Street. From as far away as Germany and England, they came, from Maine to Texas and beyond. In the darkness they stood. Waiting on the wet sidewalk, they kept warm by singing. Tonight it was “Country Roads.” Unforgettable, especially for John.
“When I arrived for sound-check, I was amazed. So many friends and fans patiently standing in line, their faces nearly frozen, singing a song I’d written with Bill Danoff almost 25 years ago! I don’t know all the ways that song must touch people, but I’m grateful that I have somehow been able to say something that has meaning for others. I can’t tell you how thankful I am, and how thrilled I still get to know people all over the world are familiar with my songs.”
Over the next two nights, John Denver returned to center stage and, for the first time in a legendary career spanning more than 25 years, recorded these 28 songs, both old and new, in a live, intimate setting. Along with many of his best-loved songs, including “Annie’s Song,” “Poems, Prayers & Promises,” and “Rocky Mountain High,” other hits like “Calypso” and “Back Home Again” were also captured live for the first time.
Through this set of new performances, we’re taken on a journey across the landscape of popular music, embracing an extraordinary range including rock & roll, blues, folk, country & western, as well as John’s signature ballads and love songs. There are new arrangements and a more immediate sound thanks to the experienced ear of producer Bob Irwin (The Byrds, Carole King) assisted by Kris O’Connor. Heavy production mixing and overdubbing have been replaced with a warm concert sound, allowing the subtlety and character of each song to come forward with more energy and texture. The result, as you can hear, is an intimate and striking portrait of the artist and his music. Old favorites like “Fly Away” and “Matthew” have never sounded better. As John points out, there are other changes in the music as well.
“In addition to a new band which provided fresh ideas and a new spirit to some of the songs, I think the greatest evolution has really taken place in my voice. I’m starting to learn how to sing. I’ve also got a different perspective on a lot of the songs. It’s surprising to me the different levels I find, and how a song I wrote 20 years ago can, all of a sudden, take on whole new meanings for me. Sometimes it happens when I’m in the middle of performing it. Suddenly I think of something or see something I never did before.”
There are other aspects of this recording that make it especially noteworthy. The newer songs. Undiscovered gems like “Eagles and Horses” with Chris Nole’s spectacular tumbling piano bridges, the enchanting imagery of the new “A Song for All Lovers,” and “Falling Out of Love,” with its lilting sax, whose melody belies a painful subject. Alan Deremo’s spectacular bass solo on “Me & My Uncle,” and Michito Sanchez’s driving percussion on “Amazon” offer fans and new listeners alike, thrilling moments. Just as compelling, the solo performances, John Denver alone with his guitar on “Whispering Jesse” provides a wise and eloquent counterpoint to the youthful idealism of “I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado.” Best of all, John at the piano, alone but for a string quartet, singing “For You” – a love song whose stunning melody and grace is, perhaps, matched only by “Annie’s Song.” The subtle vulnerability and passion in his voice creates an extraordinary intimacy. Then there’s “Wild Montana Skies” with Pat Hawk’s rich alto harmonies and Burton’s masterful guitar bridge. For John, the western songs hold a special place I the repertoire.
“When I grew up, the music that my father listened to, the music I was raised on, was called ‘Country & Western.’ And in the years since then it’s become very much ‘Country’ music. They took the ‘West’ out of it. But I like this notion of the American West. There’s nothing in the world like its people, its splendor, and its spirit. And the songs that I’m proudest of are the songs that to some degree or another express of represent that spirit.”
Back in the mid-1970s who could have imagined – John Denver playing rock & roll and the blues, composing for the piano, accompanied by a string quartet, or by a jazz saxophone replacing a bluegrass fiddle. Miraculously, the transition has been made without compromise. The music has not so much changed as grown. Today, the sound is more interesting. The palette richer, more diverse. How many other bands in popular music today include both banjo and saxophone – or feature recorders the way we hear them on “Amazon”?
But for all of the music, John Denver remains an enigma. He is no longer America’s “Country Boy.” Ironically, he did not start out that way either. The songs, like rediscovered old friends, are at once familiar, yet have a fresh, new quality to them. The performances are more relaxed and reflective. Perhaps most interesting, his music has endured, no small feat in an industry infatuated with everything new. Several decades later, songs written in the tumult of the 1960s still captivate us and are taught to kids in schools and summer camps everywhere; songs like “Sunshine On MY Shoulders” have become a part of our cultural fabric.
A scrawny young kid in the early years, John traveled alone on the wings of a dream. Guitar in hand, he grew in the legendary folk club circuit of the 1960s, honing his craft, testing himself with protest songs and satire at the Cellar Door in D.C., the Bottom Line here in New York, and the Troubadour in L.A. There was the audition for Milt Okun, who saw potential in the young singer and gave him his first break with The Mitchell Trio. Shortly thereafter, John would find his own songwriting voice at the age of 22 with “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” later to become a number-one hit single for the luminary trio Peter, Paul & Mary.
His meteoric rise in the 1970s, his domination of the pop-music charts, was a phenomenon the music industry had rarely seen since the Beatles. John Denver was everywhere; by 1975, he was the biggest-selling recording artist in the world. Today, his record sales, 14 gold and eight platinum albums in the U.S. alone, continue to make him one of the top-selling artists in history of the music industry.
His impact has been felt in other ways as well. John Denver’s Greatest Hits, at the time only the third album in music history to sell over 10 million copies, ignited a popular celebration of the outdoors. The album cover itself helped launch a fashion trend! Remember the kid sitting in the grass with his down vest and hiking boots? Remember the early ‘70s? Nobody wore that stuff then!
The album ignited a popular consciousness that celebrated nature. Because of its massive appeal, it significantly helped to popularize the conservation ethic in American culture. We all bought that record. We all bought down vests and hiking boots.
For John, the motivation was simpler.
“As a kid I was really shy. I spent a lot of time either outdoors or alone with my guitar. The outdoors was my first and truest best friend. Whether it was in the desert in Arizona when I was in grade school, or wheat harvest in Oklahoma, or later working in the lumber camps in the Pacific Northwest, nature has always felt like my best friend. And because of that, when I began to try to express myself, it was a perfectly natural thing to use images from nature. I think that is one of the things that allows the songs to reach so many people all over the world.”
Along with the environmental movement he gave voice to, John Denver has grown up. In addition to being the first non-classical music artist to receive the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Award in 1993 “for a life dedicated to music and humanity,” he has established two foundations of his own, Windstar and Plant-It 2000. Plant-It 2000 has been remarkably effective in reforestation efforts worldwide, planting more than 250,000 trees in the last two years alone.
Today, John Denver is more than a performer and singing/songwriter. He’s an American icon. The mere mention of his name evokes an immediate image even among those few who are not familiar with his music. Regardless of ethnic heritage, generation, race, or social class; in Hong Kong or on the streets of New York City, most of us think we know who John Denver is. In Manhattan, the cabbies still beep their horns, “Hey, JD!” To understand why is perhaps to understand ourselves. Maybe it’s the idealism or his signature optimism – that sense of hope that is so American – today, so easily scorned; given short shrift in these cynical times. Nonetheless, it is that part of the unique American character that is so admired by people around the world. How else can one explain the monumental and enduring global popularity of songs like “Country Roads” and “Annie’s Song” today in Russia, China, and even Patagonia.
But to know John is to listen to his songs. It is in the music that he’s most at home, most himself.
There was a special magic within the hallways and inside the mixing and editing rooms at Sony Music Studios that cold week in February; but especially so on the main soundstage where the warmth shared between John and the audience was memorable. Those of us lucky enough to be there will never forget. Fortunately, I think we’ve captured it here. Take a moment and listen. You will be surprised. The Wildlife Concert is the music of John Denver. An American Voice. A wandering soul.
