J~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J O R O C K Y M O U N T A I N H I G H O H =============================================== H N The John Denver Internet Fan Club N D D E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R E N N V S E P T E M B E R 1 9 9 4 V E E R Written by: Emily Parris Email: emily@sky.net R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS - September - John's Book Signing Tour................................ 2 Review of "Take Me Home" ............................... 2 Survey of Favorite John Denver Songs.................... 3 Current Membership Information.......................... 4 Article: "John Denver's Journey: Getting There From Here"............................ 5 John Denver in the News Tulsa World 8/27/94 ............................... 9 Poetry Corner: "Mountain Man" by Karoline Benford........................ 9 "Country Love Songs"............................. 10 "Hearts in Harmony" .............................. 1 by Emily M. Parris HEARTS IN HARMONY by Emily M. Parris We are hearts in harmony Because John has inspired He gave us the love That we all required He brought us together Taught that we are the same He lovingly brought us Right into the game JOHN DENVER - Book Signing Dates John Denver will be in the following cities signing his new autobiography "Take Me Home". Please call the bookstores in question to get an exact time and address. October 29 Denver, CO Rocky Mountain Book Festival October 30 Boulder, CO Waldenbooks October 31 Denver, CO Tattered Cover Bookstore November 1 Los Angeles, CA Crown Superstore November 2 San Diego Barnes & Noble November 3 San Francisco Tower Books November 4 Seattle, WA University Bookstore November 5 Minneapolis Readwell Bookstore November 6 Milwaukee Schwartz Bookstore November 8 CHicago Krocks and Brentanos November 9 New York Tower Records November 11 Miami, FL Liberties Bookstore November 12 Orlando, FL Walt Disney World "TAKE ME HOME" by John Denver with Arthur Tobier ================================================= A Review by Emily Parris 9/13/94 John Denver's new autobiography "Take Me Home" is almost heaven. For it takes us through the years of his life in an intimate and easy going style. It begins with the story of the big family he grew up in; showing the roots of the family values that John sings so lovingly of in his music. Then it takes us through the years of his musical career giving us an inside look at what was going on through all those years when we were loving his music. He takes us through the breakup of two marriages, showing us the pain as well as the Rocky Mountain Highs. He does all this with the easy simplicity of a John Denver lyric. John's autobiography tells the simple truth about his life, and when you finish the last page you'll know and love him just a little bit more than you did before. "Take Me Home" by John Denver with Arthur Tobier Autobiography 30 black and white photographs 6 x 9; 256 pages 595370 $22.00 hardcover Publication date: October 1994 Harmony Books (a division of Crown Publishers Inc.) 201 East 50th Street New York, New York 10022 NOBODY CAN PICK JUST ONE! ====================================== RMH: The John Denver Internet Fan Club Favorite Song Survey Results ====================================== If you couldn't pick just one favorite John Denver song, you weren't alone. Most members listed from 3 to 10 favorites. "Rocky Mountain High" came in as the favorite song. The second place was a tie. "Back Home Again", "Shanghai Breezes" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" each got 4 votes each. The vote was based on 23 surveys, but as more surveys come in there will be updated results. Favorite Song ---------------------------------- All of Them! Annie's Song (2) Autograph Back Home Again (4) Boy From The Country Calypso (3) Country Girl In Paris Eagle and the Hawk Flower That Shattered The Stone (3) Flying For Me (3) For You Garden Song Goodbye Again Grandma's Feather Bed Heart To Heart Homegrown Tomatoes I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado I Want To Live (2) Islands It's About Time (2) Like A Sad Song Matthew My Sweet Lady (3) On The Road Perhaps Love (2) Poems, Prayers and Promises (3) Postcard From Paris Potter's Wheel Rocky Mountain High (5) Rocky Mountain Suite Seasons of the Heart Shanghai Breezes (4) Sunshine On My Shoulders (2) Take Me Home, Country Roads (4) Thank God I'm A Country Boy The Gift You Are The Thought of You Trail of Tears What Are We Making Weapons For? Wild Montana Skies (2) Windsong ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: THE JOHN DENVER INTERNET FAN CLUB ****************************************************** We now have members in 9 countries and 16 states here in the U.S. (If no number follows there is only one member from that state or country). STATES IN THE US: Arizona (4) California (5) Colorado Hawaii Iowa Massachusetts Michigan Missouri (3) Montana (2) Mississippi (2) New Jersey Nevada New York Ohio Tennessee (2) Texas Utah Washington COUNTRIES: Country Code Australia AU Canada CA Germany DE Israel Japan JP Netherlands NL Singapore SG United Kingdom UK United States US COUNTRY ROADS AND CROSSROADS "John Denver's Journey - Getting Here From There" by Alice Steinbach Saturday Review Sept/Oct 1985 The voice coming at you from deep in the recesses of an overstuffed sofa is exactly as you remember it from records and TV: sweet, clear, a little reedy and, even in conversation, full of musical nuance. It's so familiar, this voice of John Denver's, so full of the capacity to evoke instant memories of the young, nature-loving singer who shaped a whole musical ethos during the seventies, that it comes as a surprise to me that while the voice is the same, almost everything else about the man has changed. Gone are the wire-rimmed granny glasses and long hair that identified the old John Denver. And gone is the boyish, gee-whiz, "far out" approach to life - an approach, it might be added, that earned him a reputation as the "Tom Sawyer of Rock." Gone, too, is the wife he immortalized in one of his biggest hit records, "Annie's Song" (John and Annie Denver were divorced two years ago after fifteen years of marriage). And although not completely gone - more like forgotten - Denver's once very high profile, top of the charts career is not what it used to be. And now for the new John Denver, the on who's been slowly - and privately - evolving over the last several years: he wears contact lenses, has cut his hair and uses words like "catalyst" and "quark" when discussing one of his favorite topics - his concern about the nuclear arms race. And although he's unfailingly polite and will answer anything you ask him, he also seems a bit more guarded than the man who, ten years ago, grabbed the knees and ankles of an interviewer in an attempt to get his point across. He doesn't smile the famous John Denver smile as often, either. (But when he does flash that wide grin, he still looks like a kid who's just been told school is out - early). At forty-one, the man who's been known to thank God for making him a country boy seems to have learned that you can take the boy out of the country and he is busy doing just that. (Denver, who made news last year by touring both the Soviet Union and China in a sort of personal detente, will be returning to both countries again this year at their requests). it doesn't take an interviewer long to discover that what we have here is a thoughtful, serious and socially-committed man. (Denver co-founded the Hunger Project several years ago and has also worked with the World Commission for Hunger). But wait. There's yet another change in the man, one that is even more surprising. Ready? Okay, write this down: the new John Denver has become one sexy man. Not Tom Sawyer sexy, but Richard Gere sexy. This is the image his publicists are pushing - along with his latest record, "Dreamland Express" - hoping, one supposes, that sex will help his reentry into the top ten charts and the hearts and minds of a younger audience. But, frankly, Denver doesn't need the hype. He can get the job done on his own. Relaxed, suntanned, dressed in a pastel-striped shirt and tan chino pants that taper neatly at the tops of his expensive, hand-sewn boots, he's trim and sharp, a man who gives of a natural, healthy sensuality that hype can't buy. And he shows it off, too, in the new video he's made for his latest single, "Don't Close Your Eyes Tonight." In it, the all-American singer has leapfrogged from performing with Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of the hilarious, but definitely wholesome Muppets to displaying some bare skin and surprisingly sexy moves. "That was a side of myself I was really not comfortable showing before" says Denver. "But now...well, I can live with it." There's a long pause as his eyes drift to the window of the Manhattan apartment he's borrowed for the interview. Then: "You know, I really don't see the change in me as 'old' or 'new.' I see it as 'then' and 'now'. I've gone through a bunch of stuff in the last several years, but my heart is still the same." he seems almost wistful when he talks about the past. Or maybe he's just tired from his non-stop concert tour of nineteen cities, which is almost at an end now. Denver sighs and picks up the thought he has left dangling in the air: "I guess I believe we live in a very superficial world. So because I had a very specific image in people's minds - it had to do with this little, naive guy with the granny glasses and the long hair - that's how a lot of people still look at me. And they haven't watched the growth and changes in my life. I'm a mature man now. And I'm my own man now. I think I was about forty years old before I became my own man," says Denver, his voice containing an odd combination of self-assurance and vulnerability. There were, of course, some pretty low points on the road to becoming his own man. The breakup of his marriage was one, a split that he blames to a great extent on his roadaholic concert schedule, one which frequently kept him on the road eight months a year. He stretched himself pretty thin, too, he admits, in terms of his humanitarian commitments, chiefly his interest in solving the problem of world hunger. his non-stop, whirlwind lifestyle took its toll, personally and professionally. "I remember one incident in London," he says hesitantly, as if undecided whether to go on with the thought or abandon it. But after a long pause he chooses to go with it: "I was in London about six years ago doing the Christmas album with the Muppets. It was a very important project to me, and then in the middle of that project I went down to Rome to attend a world conference on agrarian reform, and then back to London to work some more. I was really exhausted. And at one point during that trip, Annie called me, and when we finished the conversation- which was more a fight than a conversation - i walked out of my hotel room onto the balcony with the thought that I was going to jump off." He didn't; instead he picked up his guitar and composed a song called "In My Heart." Denver refers to it as a "killer song" and laughs wryly when he recalls some of the words. "It says: 'There goes my best friend, there goes my last dime.' It helped." But while it may have helped him get through the night, it didn't help him sustain the marriage. "There was a lot of pain going on, a lot of anger between Annie and me," he says, recalling that period. "But time is the ultimate healer and our relationship has healed. Wonderfully." Annie and his two adopted children, Zachary, eleven, and Anna Kate, eight, will soon move into a house that is "within walking distance from mine." Now that the wounds are healed, he says, he is ready "to look at the possibility of love again." Right now, he is alone. "There is, unfortunately, no special relationship in my life. I wish there were." Still, despite whatever void exists for Denver personally, there is more than enough going on in his professional life. Sometime this fall, after returning from his trips to Russia and China - where he hopes to do a live broadcast that will air around the world - he will tackle a musical project based on the life of American humorist Will Rogers. Denver, who will write the lyrics and music, is hoping the project will wind up on Broadway with its author playing the lead role. "There's nobody in entertainment that I relate to more than Will Rogers. He's a hero of mine" says Denver of the man who started out as a humorist and eventually became an American sage and institution. Denver admits that he would like to become a role model for young people - in much the same way that Will Rogers was for him. In fact, one of the reasons he is trying to revitalize his career at this time is to give young men another choice when they're looking around for examples to emulate in the celebrity culture. "You know, one of the by-products of the women's movement is that men don't know how to be men anymore" he says. There's a pause and then John Denver gets visibly angry and impulsively sheds light on something that's really bothering him: "And now all of a sudden we're being shown that the way to be a man is to be a Rambo" he says, referring to the violent character created by Sylvester Stallone in the wildly successful movie of the same name. "Well, I don't want to be Rambo. It's sickening and it's part of this old mind set of 'It's either you or me.' And that's what young people see as a hero. i want to make sure they have something else to look at," says Denver who, at this point, is practically shouting. His alternative? "I think I have the potential to be - for a lot of people around the world - a hero. I think I have the opportunity to represent another option, another future, that has to do with demonstrating to young people what they, too, are capable of doing." Denver says all this is what could easily come across, but somehow doesn't, as a breathtaking display of arrogance. Maybe that's because he has shown he is capable of doing a lot more than singing. After all, the man has spent more than a decade, neglecting his career in the process, working for solutions to what he calls "the obscenity of world hunger." Long before "We Are The World" - and scores of other musicians - jumped on the hunger bandwagon, Denver was there, donating money, raising money and working on hunger and agrarian reform commissions. (Oddly enough, he says, when he asked the "We Are The World" organizers if he could be a part of their project, they rejected his offer. "I shed a few tears over that" he says. "I would have given anything to be a part of it). Denver visited Africa for the first time last year and finally saw for himself the devastating effects of hunger. "I went to Africa a little bit afraid" he says. I'd taken a stand on Africa that we can end the hunger by the year 2000. What I was afraid of was that I was going to see the heart of hunger, see the real thing, and that it would dampen my enthusiasm, lessen my commitment. I thought the reality of it might be so overwhelming that I might lose my perspective that it can be ended. But it wasn't. i still believe there is hope and that hunger can be wiped out." A song "African Sunrise" came out of that trip and here's John Denver's recollection of what inspired him to write it: "I was sleeping overnight in a village in Burkina Faso and a dust storm late at night woke me up. I couldn't get back to sleep again - i kept hearing this strange noise. Finally, at about five in the morning, I heard a beautiful sound 0 the sound of roosters crowing. But this strange noise kept interrupting it. Then suddenly I realized it was the sound of babies crying, crying from the pain of malnutrition, and i knew those babies were probably going to die. And i knew there was probably a mother and a father there who could do nothing. now, I'm a father and I related to that very, very strongly," he says, looking away and swallowing hard. It's a long way from Aspen, he is told in response to the story. "It's a very long way from Aspen" he replies sharply. "But it's still part of the same world. And that is my message. I want people to look outside of the narrow focus we all get caught up in and see that whether you live in Aspen or in Africa, underneath we are all the same." Tulsa World 8/27/94 Entertainment John Denver Faces Jail Time If Convicted of Drunk Driving Aspen, Colo., (AP) --The bad news: John Denver faces up to a year in prison if convicted of his second drunken driving offense in the past year. The good news: It's a heck of a nice prison. Famous former inmates give a five-star rating to the Pitkin County Jail, which boasts million-dollar views of Red Mountain, site of some of Aspen's most fashionable homes. "We'll give him the Dewi Sukarno suite," said jailer Billy Tomb. Sukarno, the widow of the former Indonesia dictator, spent 24 days in the jail for slashing the face of a rival jet-setter with a wine goblet at a soiree. Upon her release, she said, "I will treasure it the rest of my life. I liked it immediately from the first day." <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< THE POETRY CORNER >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> MOUNTAIN MAN by Karolin Benford Where are you going, Mountain Man With the sun on your back and guitar in your hand? Your voice is the wind, and your thoughts are as deep as the sea, Filled with wisdom, love, and infinity. Sing for me, please, Mountain Man Of doing for Nature whatever we can Sing about beauty, of caring, of home and of joy; Sing of your wife, your daughter, and your little boy. Just one more song, Mountain Man, Of the vanishing Leviathans. Tell me about how to give all I'm able to give, Sacrificing so that others also may live. The sun is setting, Mountain Man, Casting shadows all over the land. My spirit stays with you, though my body must return home; I've found myself, and a place where my soul can roam. Is it true that you're leaving, Mountain Man Because people have destroyed all of the land? Nature has left us - the forest and creatures are gone; Everyone laughed when you told them what they should have done. Where are you going? Tell me, why are you flying away? Why are you going? Can't you tell you're needed today? Take me with you, Mountain Man -- I'm deep in despair, and I need you to lend me a hand. Once more sing of mountains, of love, and forests of trees; Your plans for the future, or what tomorrow could be. Where are you going? Tell me, why are you flying away? Why are you going? Don't you know we need you today? Where are you going, Mountain Man? Just one more song, Mountain Man.... Why are you leaving, Mountain Man? Won't you take me with you, Mountain Man?..... Copyright December 1977 by Karolin Benford Reprinted from "Sing With The Earth" newsletter December 1977 COUNTRY LOVE SONGS by Emily M. Parris Dedicated to John Denver A legacy of beauty is there In your songs for all to see Songs of love and sunshine Home and hearth and family Songs of country roads and Mama About folks who really care Songs about our families And all the love we share You took us all back home again To the beauty here inside Like an eagle soaring heavenward Your songs taught us to glide You sang about the life you found In it we had a part In every single lyric There was love straight from your heart You sang about a country love So warm and rich and true That's why we love your music That's why we love you! Copyright 9/7/94 by Emily M. Parris ************************************ SEPTEMBER 1994 NEWSLETTER Rocky Mountain High: The John Denver Internet Fan Club Issue #5 emily@sky.net ************************************