JOHN DENVER: SO SQUARE THAT HE'S HIP? Chicago Tribune March 6, 1976 by Lou Carlozo In a market crowded with tribute albums honoring dead rock gods, entrenched pop heroes and darlings of the underground, the recently released "Minneapolis Does Denver" (October) marks a move back to Square 1. Make that square No. l: It celebrates John Denver, a singer-songwriter who never seemed anywhere near cool, not even at his zenith. Denver certainly is not a rocker (even Donny Osmond is "a little bit rock'n' roll by comparison). Nor does the folk label fit him quite right: it's hard to imagine Denver on the same bill as an angry young Bob Dylan or a protesting Pete Seeger. No, Denver is folksy, the kind of guy who has performed with the Muppets and yodeled the praises of Jacques Cousteau - a man who, in most unDylanesque fashion, summed up human existence as a "funny, funny riddle". So what if Denver has been a stranger to the Billboard charts for years? "I've got five or six songs in every karaoke bar in the world," he boasted in a phone interview last week. Could Denver, who plays the Rosemont Theatre Friday and Saturday be undergoing a Tony Bennett-like transformation from obscurity to celebrity redux? Evidence of his return to pop culture consciousness over the past year range from Jason and the Scorchers' cover of "Country Roads" to the beer commercial that aired during Super Boxl XXX with "Rocky Mountain High" as its soundtrack. Several weeks ago, Denver sang the latter song on "Good Morning America" while standing at the foot of a mountain in Aspen, Colorado (appearing in part to promote his upcoming Midwest concert dates). "In choosing him (for the tribute), it was easy" said John Strawberry Fields, the producer who conceived and compiled "Minneapolis Does Denver". "He's in a class of people that have been left behind with 1979." More than just knee-jerk nostalgia, it's a sure sign of the Ironic '90s when soft-pop crooners such as Denver, Neil Diamond and Karen Carpenter suddenly get heralded as hip - through perhaps sealed with a kitsch. The Carpenters received tribute treatment from a cast including Matthew Sweet, Cracker and Redd Kross on 1994's "If I Were A Carpenter." (A&M). Likewise, Diamond counts Mary's Danish and Urge Overkill among his die-hard fans. Urge's cover of "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" played prominently in the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack. While Denver seems like a natural target for a tribute CD, the appearance of "Minneapolis Does Denver" has raised eyebrows among some skeptics who question its timing. After all, it comes hard on the heels of "Saturday Morning cartoons greatest hits" released by MCA in September. That collection includes Liz Phair and Material Issue singing "The Tra La La Song" from "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" and Butthole Surfers' rendition of "Underdog." "I felt that our record sort of came from a genuine groundswell, all of these people coming out of the closet as Carpenters fans" said David Konjoyan, who conceived and produced "If I Were A Carpenter" with Matt Wallace. "I don't know if that's necessarily the case with these other records." Konjoyan hasn't heard the Denver tribute, but wonders about the purity of its intentions. "There's no great John Denver revisionism going on" he said. "The one appears to be coming out of left field." Try telling that to Fields, who likes to talk about the childhood ski trip when "I forced my family to listen to "Calypso" at least 20 times", or the John Denver Internet Fan Club (emily@sky.net or http://www.sky.net/~emily). Denver adds that "Minneapolis Does Denver" is not the first Denver tribute he has heard. A little more than a year ago, he received a tape where "these guys all wore little round glasses and overalls without T-shirts. It was a punk rock band and they played the hell out of those songs." The name of the album? "Heavy Denver." These days, John Denver is so un-hip that even after 14 gold and 8 platinum albums, he has become a music business outsider, shunned by major radio stations, searching for an elusive record deal. But talk about a perfect resume for acceptance by Baby Busters: Denver's current state of affairs is shared, it just so happens by struggling independent bands that salute him. Secret Admirers For younger fans, confessing a fondness for John Denver has meant risking the scorn of compatriots who enjoy the likes of Alanis Morissette or Nirvana. "I've carried my passion for John Denver as a dark and shameful secret never to be revealed - until the conception of this project." Fields, 27, writes in the liner notes to "Minneapolis Does Denver" , "I timidly asked a few bands if they'd like to be involved with a JD tribute, expecting ridicule and rejection." Instead, Fields was flooded with enthusiastic responses, which has only bolstered his courage to praised Denver in unapologetic (if not exaggerated) terms. "Everybody knows John Denver, whether you like him or not," said Fields, producer of top Minneapolis independent acts including the Delilahs and Mango Jam. Those bands and other country-tinged rockers such as the Honeydogs set the tone for this CD, though Fields indulges a range of styles from ultra-slow metal to quick, cajun-flavored funk. Fields uses the eclectic band mix to prove a point. "Obviously, it's in vogue to say that he's cheesy, but John Denver was just as important as Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix," he said. Or as Denver himself put it, "At one time, in the '70s, I was the biggest-selling record artist in the world. You couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of my songs." These days, a listener could cruise the dial for days without finding a single Denver tune. Even '70s format stations such as WYSY-FM 107.9 would rather play repeated doses of Gordon Lightfoot or the Rupert Holmes hit "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." Denver himself remains baffled over the lack of airplay. "The only reason I can think of is that I don't really have a record company or personal manager to make sure I get in on stuff like that" he said. Industry experts have other theories. "There's something about John Denver that turns people off", said Kal Rudman, founder and publisher of the Friday Morning Quarterback, a radio magazine based in Cherry Hill, NJ. "Personally, I like John, I like him as a folk singer, but I think he's old fashioned, dated." No Overkill Yet there is one hope for Denver on the radio front: '70s stations are limited to a finite number of recognizable songs. Once people get sick of hearing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" or "Night Fever" for the thousandth time, programming directors may give Denver a second look. "His music is fresh; it hasn't been played to death," Rudman observed. "Any oldies station, there's a lot of burnout." In spite of the radio drought, Denver did release a double CD last year, THE WILDLIFE CONCERT (Sony/Legacy), his first live recording in 20 years. According to Denver, it sold more than 250,000 copies but failed to land him an extended record deal. That isn't the only music business blow Denver has sustained recently. "I was really disappointed not to be included in the 'Duets' that Sinatra did," he lamented. "I did a tv special with him, and no one was knocking on my door." No wonder Denver regards the recent attention to his music as "really pleasing." Still, he's not about to declare it a full-fledged Revenge of the Granola-Crunchers. "I'm just enjoying the fact that at my concerts there's a lot of die-hard fans coming, but also a lot of people in their 20's and 30's who grew up on my music" he said. "And I keep getting more and more stories about the generation behind them." Are these folks square? Fields doesn't care. "I'm not necessarily embarrassed being a John Denver fan at all," he asserted. "In reality, I've always loved it."