Take Me Home: The Story of John Denver

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. Coming to you from where the West begins in Fort Worth, Texas. John Denver’s songs have become part of the American bloodstream. His melodies and words are played all over the planet. His music is simple; it’s honest. No auto tunes, no flashy outfits, just a man and his guitar. Today we’re going to tell his story. Here’s Greg Hengler.

On October twelfth, nineteen ninety-seven, at Monterey Airport, just one hundred miles south of San Francisco, one of the world’s best-known and best-loved singers took off to test his new plane. The son of a famous Air Force pilot, John Denver had thousands of hours of flying experience. It was a simple flight on a cloudless day. He was five hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean and one hundred and fifty feet from the Monterey Bay shoreline when eyewitnesses heard a popping sound. A second or two later, they watched in horror as the plane plummeted into the sea. He was killed instantly, aged only fifty-three. John Denver was born in nineteen forty-three in Roswell, New Mexico, at the Air Force Base where his father was stationed. It was a far ways away from Denver, but then again, so was his name. Here’s John.

My real name is Henry John Dutchendorf, Junior. And my father was in the Air Force, and we moved around a great deal.

Here’s John’s brother Ron.

It was always hard because you were going into a new school, new people. John was a little bit more shy, and so it was harder for him.

And I said, “I like music.” I played guitar, blah, blah, blah, and so they asked me to bring my guitar to class one day, which I did. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, people were saying hello to me in the halls. All of a sudden, people knew me as more than just another one of the Air Force brats that was coming through every year through the Maxwell Air Force Base.

John’s father, Dutch Dutchendorff, joined the Air Force in the Second World War and soon became a top pilot. Here again is John’s brother Ron.

He flew a number of planes. He actually gave Lindbergh a test ride, and I think it was a B-twenty-five when he was flying those bombers. And then he went on to fly the plane that carried all the electronics when they dropped the first atomic bomb to test it.

Dutch achieved fame flying a new bomber, the B-fifty-eight Hustler. In nineteen sixty-one, he broke six world airspeed records in one day.

Six records set by Major Dujin Dark ben Crow, four of them previously held by the Soviet.

For this sensitive son of a Cold War warrior, something had to give. At age sixteen, he took the family car and ran away out West to Los Angeles with a dream of becoming a folk singer. But it didn’t work out. His dad jumped into a friend’s jet to retrieve his wayward son.

Dad flew out there, and they went to Disneyland and SeaWorld and did all these things and then came back, and that, to me, their relationship was like.

Golden. Four years later, John tried again, dropping out of college and hitting L.A. just as the folk boom was at its height. He got a singing gig, and in no time the music execs could see where John’s star was headed. But they first saw complications with his name.

One day there was this big, heavy meeting. They sat down, they said, “Listen, kid, Dutchendorff has got to go, has got to go!”

Randy says that they asked him to change his name, and John said, “No, I will not give up my father’s name. I’m proud to be a Dutchendorff.” And Randy said, “It won’t fit on the marquee. You have to change it.” They had a minor hit at the time called “Denver,” written about this city, and the sheet music was on the wall behind the desk. “You’re John Denver.”

Now with his new name, John Denver set out to make it as a folk singer. The opening came when one of the big names on the folk circuit, that Chad Mitchell Trio, lost their lead singer. Hundreds of young vocalist auditioned for the spot, but John was the obvious choice. Here’s Mike Koblik, one of the trio’s singers.

John was a fine musician, an excellent musician, a very fine twelve-string guitar player. There was an innocence, I think, in a way that was believable and true.

The Mitchell Trio’s trademark was political satire. John’s innocence was on full display.

He says, “Well, I don’t know anything about politics.” And we looked at him and said, “John, it’s politics.” He said, “That’s what I said. I don’t know anything about that.”

The Mitchell Trio’s main audience were university students. In the spring of nineteen sixty-six, they were at Gustavus Adolphus, a Lutheran college in Saint Peter, Minnesota. In the audience was a sophomore student, Annie Martell.

I was twenty and John was twenty-three, very young, but I thought he was very glamorous, very worldly.

He was not at all, but I thought so.

The two were married in June nineteen sixty-seven. John began writing songs and recorded some of them at his own expense, sending the album out as a Christmas present. Track three of the album was called “Babe, I Hate to Go.” Mitchell Trio producer Milt Okun liked the tune but not the title.

I said, “John, that’s a terrible name for a very beautiful song.” He said, “What would you call it?” I said, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” He said, “But that’s the third line of the chorus.” He never heard a song named after the third line of a chorus. I said, “It’s a good name, let’s go with it,” and he went with it.

Here’s that original John Denver recording, “All My.”

Bags are fact, I’m ready to go.

Standing here outside your door. I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.

Milt Okun passed the song on to another one of his acts, Peter, Paul and Mary, and it became their first number-one hit. With the Vietnam War at its height, the song struck a deep nerve and became a favorite amongst the troops.

And you’ve been listening to the story of John Denver: how he got his name, who his father was, where he was born; what happens next in John Denver’s life? Stay with us here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we’re bringing inspiring stories from across this great country—stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can’t do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little. Give a lot. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give. And we returned to Our American Stories and the story of John Denver. Let’s pick up where we last left off. Here again is our own Greg Hengler.

In nineteen sixty-eight, John decided to pursue a solo career, but his producer, Milt Okun, struggled to get the record companies interested.

I struck out with John Hammond at Columbia, WEX Atlantic, and half a dozen others, and someone at RCA, Harry Jenkins, liked it.

John Denver signed with RCA in nineteen sixty-nine. His first records were in the classic singer-songwriter Vain, but his early records refused to sell. A young talent agent by the name of Jerry Weintraub, who would become I’m a top Hollywood producer, became John’s manager.

We all got on a rocket ship together, and it was big.

It was really big. The song that launched the rocket ship was the classic sing-along song, now known all over the world, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” It was co-written by two of John’s friends from the folk scene, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert. Bill and Taffy planned on finishing the song and then selling it to Johnny Cash. Then one evening, John Denver showed up to share songs with his two friends. Here’s Taffy.

I said, “Let’s show him Country Rhoads.” Bill says, “It’s not finished.” I says, “Well, I know, but, you know, let’s just show me what we got.” And he absolutely loved it. And in the singing of it, John took the lead, Bill and I fell in with a harmony, and it just sounded so good, like that.

Heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains, Channon, the river. Life is older, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growing lack of breeze.

Country Roads, Take Me Home.

To the Place, Hoby Longe, West Virginia.

Mountain Mama, Take me Home, Country.

Road, Take Me Home. “Country Roads” was a huge hit in the summer of seventy-one, peaking at number-two on the charts and selling more than three million copies. Then, on March third, nineteen seventy-seven, Johnny Cash would get to sing it with John Denver on John’s ABC television special “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

I hear her voice in the morning hour. She calls me. Radio reminds me of my home far a week, driving down the road, I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday.

Yesterday. Country Road.

Take me home.

To the place.

I belong West Virginia, Mattha, Mama, Take me home, Country.

Road, Take me home, that country road, Take me home, Take me home that couch.

After the success of “Country Roads,” John and Annie moved permanently up to the Rocky Mountains and built their dream home in the old mining town-turned-ski resort of Aspen, Colorado.

The year that I moved here in nineteen seventy, I was twenty-seven years old, and coming to Colorado was like coming home for me. I don’t know how to explain that, except I just felt that this was my home. And in that first summer here, I started really getting into camping again. And one of them was too alike. Across the valley during a time in August when there’s what is called the Perseid meteor shower, and this is, in my mind, the most fantastic meteor shower of the year. You don’t only see the little flashes of the light. Oh, oh, there was one.

Did you see that?

And sometimes people do, and sometimes they don’t. On this occasion, there were balls of fire would go all the way across the sky, smoking. You would swear that you could hear them. In any case, I was camping with some friends at this lake and told him what to expect, and I think everybody was pretty nonchalant about the evening. Everybody: “I’ve seen shooting stars, a big deal.” And so, as the evening grew on, we all went to our separate camping areas to kind of quiet down and lie there and look at the stars. I was pretty sure everybody had gone to sleep. Until all of a sudden, one of those came smoking across the sky, and everybody, “Oh, wow, did you see that?” So we were up all night watching the most glorious display that I’ve ever seen in these mountains of meteorites. With that camping trip, and with a feeling of coming home here to Colorado, to a place I’d never been before, I ended up riding Rocky Mountain.

High.” Here’s the hymn John wrote to the Rocky Mountains and his new life there. The song went on to become an anthem to the state of Colorado.

Born in Summer is twenty-seven years coming home to the place he never been before he left yesterday, five. You might say he’s born again, might say found the keys every door when he first came to.

The barcoms his life far away on the load, hanging by song.

All you had to do was be in Colorado somewhere when he would start singing “Rocky Mountain High,” and I’d swear you could feel the whole state rocking.

That song is more than.

Just a pop song.

It’s now folklore.

How it’s part of our American heretics.

The Colorado Rocky Mountain Live. I’ve seen it rained.

Five s guy sattle from Starmide, Saut then a lot of the.

Rocky Mountain.

“Country Roads” and “Rocky Mountain High” were big hits, but John’s next move cemented his stardom. Folk music in that day had been serious and earnest, but John’s warmth and outgoing personality made him a natural for the small screen.

We’re alife on the farm, kind of lived back, and much an old country ball, like became hack Thurler to ride early in a side, I thank God on the Country Ball.

In nineteen seventy-three, Jerry launched “The John Denver Show.” The series established John’s catchphrase, “far out.”

“It’s far out. You guys have been so great. Ah, my dad’s far out.”

Out.

Will have got me if I’m… I forgot me old fiddle. When sun’s coming up with got cake, saw the riddles, lve thing.

Nothing about a phot of the riddle. Thank God, I’m.

a country ball. He was fast becoming one of the biggest stars in American music, and his “Greatest Hits” album of nineteen seventy-three sold over ten million copies in the first six months alone.

Yeah a good. The Lord, him alive, wouldn’t take it very good. So a fiddleman, I can work up. Thank God. I’m a punch of ball. You liddle gotten me a vime. I forgot the old fiddleman. The sun’s coming up.

I hate song on the riddle. Light Dane, nothing about a puddle. My God, I’m a puncher ball.

And you’ve been listening to our own Greg Hengler tell the story of John Denver, and my goodness, when they started shopping him to major record labels, the great John Hammond turned him down, and my goodness, he didn’t turn down what turned out to be great stars. He was the man known for discovering them. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Sarah Vaughan.

He missed it.

Jerry Wexler from Atlantic Records didn’t hear it either. And I think part of it was in the times. This music was just too happy. John Denver had a different voice, and the song that launched him was that song “Country Roads,” originally written for Johnny Cash, and we heard the two of them come together to sing it the way Cash would have done it. Fine though it was, it would have never become the hit that we’d come to know. And then, of course, came that hymn to the Rockies and his own life story, born to the home he never lived before. Many of us feel that way. I feel that way about Fort Worth, where I live now, a tribute not only to the Rockies, but God’s magnificent design in that space, and Denver always was celebrating that. When we come back, more of this remarkable life story, the story of John Denver here on Our American Stories. And we continue with Our American Stories and the story of John Denver. Let’s return to our own Greg Hengler with more of the story.

The Rocky Mountains were John’s retreat. While at home in Aspen in nineteen seventy-four, he wrote his most famous song, a love letter to his wife, Annie.

You phil a messes, s.

Lock, night in a forest, lock mountains, and springtime.

Lock, walk in the rain.

John and I were in our kitchen and we had had an argument, and we had had an argument, and then we had sorted it out, and he left to go skiing.

Come fill me.

There was nobody on the mountain when I started out that day. I skied down this very tough run, all out of breath. I skied right on to the lift. I was riding up again, sitting there, catching my breath, looking down at where I’d just been a few moments ago. All this physical stuff going on, when suddenly, I was hypersensitive to how beautiful everything was. The sky was a blue you only see from mountaintops. Then I became aware of the other people skiing: the colors of their clothes, the birds singing, the sound of the lift, the sibilant sound of the skiers going down the mountain. All of these things filled up my senses. And when I said this to myself, unbidden images came, one after the other. The night in the forest, a walk in the rain, the mountains in springtime, all of the pictures merged, and then what I was left with was Annie. In the ten minutes it took to reach the top of the mountain, the song was there.

It’s been wonderful for me because I’ve heard it in elevators. I’ve heard it in Saint Mark’s Square with violinists. My daughter had it played at her wedding. But people still carry that with them, and it’s just a. It’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful gift.

John Denver’s rise to stardom coincided with obleak time in American life, with the Watergate scandal, gasoline shortages, and the end of the Vietnam War. His simple songs of love and nature struck a chord across war-weary America.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.

John’s songs offered a refrashen affirmation of kindness and contrast to the steady stream of opposition and protest music that was emptying out of America’s radios and turntables. But not everyone like John Denver. In the rock music press, he was widely loathed. Here’s G. Brown from the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.

The last interview I conducted with John was in the early ’90s, and we got around to the topic of his detractors. He was calle