In September 1981 the band I was playing in at the time, Sensation, was performing in Calgary at the Scotch Room in the Four Seasons. It was a big Vegas-style room and we had just finished out last set when the manager came up and announced that the John Denver Band was in the audience and would like to perform a few tunes.

The band got up and my eyes could not get off John Denver He was there too and, to my surprise, picked up our guitarist’s Telecaster. But it was the rest of the band that had my friends in awe. “Do you see who’se got my Strat,” Ray Anderson asked, trying to get his jaw off the table,. “That’s James Burton and the guy on your boards is Glen D. Hardin. That’s Elvis’s band, man!” Well they started playing and Joh Denver sounded as much like rockstar as he did a folkie. He was that good. 

The son of a U.S Air Force officer, Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. began his foray into music after the family moved to Tucson, where at age eleven, he was given his grandmother’s guitar. John eventually took up guitar lessons and joined a boy’s choir, which led him at age 20 to take matters into his own hands and pursue his dream of a career in music.

In 1963 he struck out on his own, moving to Los Angeles to be in the heart of the burgeoning music scene. It was during this time he was urged by friends to change his name . The name John Sommerville was suggested but he ultimately took his stage name from the capital city of Colorado, his home state.

John Denver

Picture from http://www.rollingstone.com

I used to practice the guitar parts in Poems, Prayers and Promises and, of course, Rocky Mountain High. I always liked tuning the low E string to D to play that.

We are now coming up to the 10th Anniversary of his death which was on October 12, 1997. A pilot with over 2700 hours of experience, Denver was a more than good pilot with multi-engine and instrument ratings. He also was checked out on lear Jets. He had recently purchased the Long-EZ aircraft and had taken a half-hour checkout flight with the aircraft the day before the accident. The NTSB cited Denver’s unfamiliarity with the aircraft and his failure to have the aircraft refueled as factors in the accident.

I miss John Denver. Like Buddy Holly and Jim Croce he died far too young. My greatest memory of him - as I did not see him live - was driving through the Rocky Mountains in early October, the top down on my Fiat sports car and John Denver’s Greatest Hits blasting from the 8-Track.