JOHN DENVER - CRITICS ONLY COUNTRY ROAD BUMPS Minneapolis Star Entertainment Section April 23, 1976 by John Bream Minneapolis Star Staff Writer John Denver will kick off his 1976 concert tour of the U.S. with two performances tonight at the St. Paul Civic Center. If the second show sells out, as it is expected, it will be the seventh consecutive sell out concert Denver has given at the Civic Center. About 35,000 people are expected to attend tonights concerts. Denver, who returned this month from a concert tour of Europe, is scheduled to wind up his American tour with a July 4 performance at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Critics have not been kind to Denver since he catapulted to Stardom in 1971 with the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The singer-songwriter with the unerasable smile and all American looks has been labeled by critics everything from "Mr. Nice Guy" and "His Rocky Mountain Highness" to the "Discoverer of the Basic Musical Common Denominator." America's most popular entertainer has avoided interviews with the press in the last couple of years because he says he either "miscommunicates" or he's misinterpreted. Recently, he has been more receptive in giving interviews, he says, if he can have the "time to communicate, be clear about and on top of things." I talked with Denver by telephone this week. Q - What can we expect on this concert tour? A - Last year we had a big production tour with film, a set, orchestra and all that stuff. This year, we'll try to make it a little more intimate. The show will be in the round. We're not going to have the film or the orchestra. It's just my band and I. And we hope to do both old and new material. The old material hopefully will be new, too. We'll go back to the early albums and try to do some of the songs that people in the past requested in small numbers but aren't necessarily the songs you expect to hear me sing every night. Q - What prompted the change in your show? A - I'm tired of the old songs and would like to expand musically by being a bit looser. Q - Was it a rush (thrill) to get billing over Frank Sinatra in your recent tv special "John Denver and Friend"? A - (Laugh). Not as much of a rush as it was to sing with him. I thought that was pretty far out. I feel the show did well for us (the Denver organization). We're still growing in television. Q - You have become one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Is it difficult for you to cope with stardom? A - Well, it's not really difficult to cope with. A lot has to do with your own acceptance of yourself and what you're working for. I haven't worked to achieve stardom. I've worked and wanted to have some value in people's lives through my music. I find that is exactly what happened. And one of the things that goes along with that is that I have a lot of friends out there. People who feel they know me. People who feel they can communicate with me because I communicate with them. People feel easy with me and come up and talk and ask for autographs. It's not really a problem. I've tried to maintain a sense of privacy around my home life, my family life in Colorado, just so that there can be some quiet times in my life. Q - Do you feel a responsibility to your public? A - I do feel a responsibility to represent myself honestly to them. I really don't want people to like my music for any other reason than the value the music has for them. I'm interested in people knowing me for who and what I am and accepting that so we can maintain a relationship which has to do with my being able to participate in their lives and vice versa. Most specifically through singing for them, putting out the music and entertaining them on television. And I hope that what happens is more than just entertainment. I said some time ago that I was interested in not just entertaining people. I want to touch them. I think it has become clear to me how I want to touch them. I do feel a responsibility to continue that. Q - Do you feel that you have the power to affect people's lives? A - I do. I don't think it's necessarily my power. It's something there in my life that I'm more the instrument of than the source of. I don't think you sell as many records as I do, and it continues to grow- it works the same way in Amsterdam, England, Australia and Japan as it has here. It's not a faddish thing. It's a powerful thing. There's a magic in it. I think this thing that is going on is bigger than me, myself. Q - How do you account for your vast popularity? A - Somehow in this music that's coming through me there is some truth and value in the truth. When people drift away from truth and misplace perhaps their values or priorities and some of that comes back and touches them and they catch hold of it for a minute and they get something out of it. Well, then they want to hold onto that and they want to bring a friend over and say "Look what I found". That's simply what's going on. The music is working and I'm supportive of the music in that I live my life in a way that is an acknowledgment of what that music is. People get a sense that perhaps my life is working and it reflects who I am. Then it gets to be a chain reaction. Q - Do you think music can bring about change in society? A - Absolutely Q - How? A - There is an incredible value that we in music have, contributing a little bit of good feeling. The power of music, next to television and movies is a very far reaching thing around the world. You look back to the Beatles and the influence they had on all of society in dress, philosophy, daily living, values, priorities and the way they were able to share that with a large number of people and how that's been happening to a large degree since then, and even back to Elvis Presley. Music does have an effect on society. It reflects on society. It also is perhaps a portrait of where we might be going or could go and I really feel part of that. Q - Is there a specific message to your music? A - I think there is. It has to do with acknowledging what is going on in the world for simply what it is. And that there is value in it. Life is good. It's worth living. Part of what I'm about is telling people success doesn't have anything to do with having two cars, a color television and sending kids to college. Success has to do with doing what you want to do in your life. Being who you are, and growing in that space, and making some kind of contribution to the lives of the people you come in contact with. Q - Many critics contend that your image of good vibrations transcends your craftsmanship. A - That's very true. I don't think I'm the greatest songwriter in the world. I'm certainly not the greatest singer. What's happening with the music and the effect it has on people's lives is much greater than the product you might expect from any of those things. Q - On your records, you often sing off-key. A - I'm after a feeling. Sometimes you hit bad notes. I would like to sing perfectly. But I don't sing perfectly. But that has nothing to do with whether the song works or not. Q - You have never reacted well to negative criticism. Has your attitude toward criticism changed at all? A - I think I'm getting a little bit easier about it. When I was insecure in what I was doing, the critics were taken heavily. I've gotten more secure as I saw what I was doing was working. I believe all the good critics and disagree with the bad ones. I enjoy reading critics. Most often critics are writing from an opinion rather than an assessment of the facts. The thing I have objected to most is the people who write a disagreeable opinion about me personally rather than about the kind of shows and the music I do. Q - What's your reaction to you being the butt of some jokes in the Doonesbury comic strip? A - I think it's great. It's my favorite cartoon strip. I would like to meet him (cartoonist Garry Trudeau). Q - What have been the ramifications of your admitting last year that you have smoked hashish? A - They made such a big to do of that in Australia. I've gotten comments in my fan mail. My only concern is that people would let that idea about me get between them and whatever value the music might have to them. I want my life to be supportive of my music. I'm cautious not to do things that will get between people and their experiences with me. Q - How has your mail been running in regard to that issue? A - (He asks his secretary) We've had about 1,000 letters altogether about that. About 75 percent say naughty, naughty and they don't care. The rest say good for you. Some of the people have burned my records and pictures in disgust. That's a small minority. The letters on this issue have been a small percentage of what we get. On slow weeks we get 500 letters, on a big week two thousand. Q - In the past you've had a high political profile. What is your political involvement in this election year? A - Absolutely nil so far. I've been approached by every single presidential candidate. The way I feel comes from past experience. I don't want someone to vote for an individual because I'm voting for him. What I want to do is get people out to go and decide for themselves. I would like to be involved as part of presenting both sides of the issues so people get that I'm concerned enough to take a look at it and that I can articulate both sides. Not to tell them how I feel about it or how I'm gonna vote. But to get them keyed up so they want to work and find out for themselves. So they can vote for themselves, make a choice, a decision. I could care less how people vote. It's important that people start to take a look themselves. I don't think a democratic society works unless people participate. I don't think in our history we've had participation to the degree it should be. Q - Would you like to run for political office? A - I don't know. I've thought about it and the subject has been broached upon. I don't know if I can be as effective in that kind of arena as I feel I am in music and show business. If I could have to do with improving the quality of life for inhabitants of this planet, I would do that. That's totally what I'm about and I want to do it in the way I can be most effective.