Denver is busy with new album, TV special
Originally published in the July 24, 1997 edition of the Potomac News.
At the moment, John Denver isn’t anywhere near the mountains he celebrated in song 20 years ago. Instead, he’s relaxing in a setting more fitting to a Beach Boy.
“I love it, too, I want to hang out by the ocean,” Denver said by telephone Monday, while sitting on a porch swing overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Monterey, California. “I’m renting a place out here, but I haven’t had much time to hang out. I’ve been doing an awful lot of work.”
Denver may not be at the top of the charts as he was in the ’70s and early ’80s, but he’s still keeping busy. Next Wednesday he’ll be performing at the Wolf Trap Filene Center. He has just returned from a tour of Europe, recorded an album of train songs for Sony/Wonder and just wrapped up taping a PBS special.
“It’s about some people I’ve met over the years,” he said, the chains of his porch swing creaking as he rocked. “One guy is perhaps the most knowledgeable man in the world about birds of prey. … [It’s] about people who have given their voice or lives to wildlife preservation.”
No surprise here: The man who once sang “Rocky Mountain High” is still a big environmentalist.
“Nature is my first and best friend, always has been. Consequentially, my songs are full of images of nature,” Denver said. He’s still busy using his fame, “trying to wake people up, so that we don’t take our world, our environment for granted. That, in a very small way, is what I’m trying to do with my music.”
Although Denver is still a household name, his current fame is a far cry from the 1970s, when he had 11 hit songs and a string of gold and platinum songs.
“On one hand, I don’t necessarily want to do all that again. I had a taste of that stardom, or superstardom, and it can be fun, but I don’t want to do that again. On the other hand, it’s frustrating when you’re doing the best work of your career … and I don’t have the audience I had. And the same thing when you want to get a message out, and it’s harder to get people to listen,” he said, speaking quickly.
“I think that I’m singing better than I ever had before. I’m starting to learn how to sing. … I think the songs are as good if not better than they ever [were] before,” Denver said. Not that he has anything against his older songs, which he says are still his favorites. “It’s always wonderful, you never know when any particular song is going to get you.”
Those attending his concerts nowadays are a mix of the hardcore fans who have kept up with his career and those going for nostalgia reasons.
“I’m finding a wonderful new audience of young people who were raised on my music and are listening to it now with new ears,” he said. “I think they are the ones who are most surprised by – well, I’m just going to say it, I don’t mean to be presumptuous or arrogant – by the richness of the show. And there’s always someone who gets dragged along to the show, who is not a John Denver fan. And when their opinion gets changed over the course of the show, I always enjoy that.”
At 53, Denver has accomplished more than most entertainers ever will. But he’s not ready for retirement.
“There are a lot of things I would like yet to do,” he said. “I would like to have done more with films. But otherwise, I feel like in every aspect of my life, I’m still growing.”
Denver died in a plane crash three months later, in October 1997.
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