Speaker 1: It's a pretty big deal to read the lyrics of
Speaker 1: a song with the person it was written about. It's
Speaker 1: an even bigger deal when that song is a hugely
Speaker 1: popular ballad Anie Song, and that person is Annie Denver,
Speaker 1: the former wife of singer and activist John Denver. It's
Speaker 1: such a beautiful song. He wrote it for me, But
Speaker 1: it's about love, and it's about nature and how that
Speaker 1: stirs those profound feelings up. You fill up myselfss like
Speaker 1: night and aforest, like the mountains, and spreads like a
Speaker 1: walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert,
Speaker 1: like a sleepy blue ocean. You fill up my senses.
Speaker 1: Come fill me again. Denver wrote those words in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four while riding a ski lift here in Aspen, Colorado,
Speaker 1: after a spat with Annie, his then wife. Decades later,
Speaker 1: the lyrics have been etched into a large river boulder
Speaker 1: displayed here at Aspen's John Denver Sanctuary. This park, along
Speaker 1: the Roaring Fork River is equal parts nature, preserve and memorial.
Speaker 1: Annie song became a number one hit. Although John and
Speaker 1: Annie ended up divorcing, the song is still staple at weddings,
Speaker 1: and yet, like so much of his work, it's tinged
Speaker 1: with melancholy. Let me come, let me love you, let
Speaker 1: me give my life to you, let me drown in
Speaker 1: your laughter, let me die in your arms. So there's
Speaker 1: a kind of wistfulness about it, right, I mean, it
Speaker 1: goes from a sense of wonder in romance. But then
Speaker 1: let me die in your arms. Is that's the part
Speaker 1: that makes me sad. It makes me sad. John Denver
Speaker 1: died at fifty three while piloting an experimental home built aircraft.
Speaker 1: He went out fast, kind of went out like a
Speaker 1: shooting star, and sometimes I wonder, I hope that he
Speaker 1: wasn't scared. That it all happened pretty quickly for him.
Speaker 1: One of the best selling artists of the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Denver also made his mark on the world as a
Speaker 1: TV and movie star, a humanitarian and environmentalist, but not
Speaker 1: everyone saw the depth in him. As Annie explained to
Speaker 1: CBS days after he died, I think people tended to
Speaker 1: simplify John because of the simplicity and eloquence of his
Speaker 1: of his music, but that he was a very complex man.
Speaker 1: There was a very sad, sad part in John, and
Speaker 1: and it's really the part that the the music came
Speaker 1: from the utter sincerity of John Denver's songs endeared him
Speaker 1: to fans worldwide, but also made him an easy target
Speaker 1: for critics who considered his music to earnest or even corny.
Speaker 1: People would be embarrassed because it wasn't cool, but there
Speaker 1: was a shining light with goodness and beauty and awe
Speaker 1: wonder from CBS Sunday Morning and I heart I'm Morocca
Speaker 1: and this is mobituaries this moment John Denver, October Death
Speaker 1: of the Sunshine Boy. I love John Denver's voice. Listening
Speaker 1: to his greatest hits brings me a sense of peace.
Speaker 1: This sanctuary includes a different boulder for each of those hits.
Speaker 1: You don't know where things are, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you look at a rock and there it
Speaker 1: is Annie Denver and I left no stone on read
Speaker 1: Down by the river bank, we found Rocky Mountain high.
Speaker 1: I'm an eagle and hot guy and it's right over there. Yes,
Speaker 1: higher up on the embankment, we found the eagle and
Speaker 1: the hawk and he's really hitting those notes though he is.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yes, don't you feel like you're flying? Where
Speaker 1: is sunshine on my shoulder? So around the corner. Come on.
Speaker 1: Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. Sunshine in my
Speaker 1: eyes can make me cry. It makes you just feel,
Speaker 1: at least for me, connected with the goodness and people.
Speaker 1: Eighteen year old Duncan Moore was feeling the connection to
Speaker 1: John Denver the same day we were there. Seems like
Speaker 1: he really enjoyed nature and just enjoyed all the little
Speaker 1: things in life as you can, like see all the
Speaker 1: flowers and of the nature park over there, and the
Speaker 1: little streams, and all of the songs and all his poems.
Speaker 1: Our friends said you must come to John Denver Sanctuary.
Speaker 1: We did not know it was here. Big John Denver
Speaker 1: fans Dan and Susan Stephen drove down from northern Colorado.
Speaker 1: John's music and songs allays struck me as being sincere.
Speaker 1: And when we moved here eight years ago, then all
Speaker 1: of his songs became really real rocky mountain high. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, here we are in the
Speaker 1: rocky mountains. So really it's just kind of like regenerated
Speaker 1: our love for John Denver all over again. And it
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with smoking weed. John Denver was
Speaker 1: not from Colorado. He was born Henry John Dutchendorf Jr.
Speaker 1: In Roswell, New Mexico, near the Army Airfield where his
Speaker 1: dad worked as a pilot and flight instructor. John grew
Speaker 1: up moving from place to place, a shy and lonely
Speaker 1: military brat. I think much of John's life was looking
Speaker 1: for home connection. One of his earliest memories was having
Speaker 1: a birthday party and maybe one person came. I know,
Speaker 1: I know. John told a group of Aspen kids about
Speaker 1: his childhood on a local TV show In so every
Speaker 1: time we went someplace, it was difficult to get to
Speaker 1: know people. And the thing that happened is that my
Speaker 1: guitar helped me make friends, and so I always I
Speaker 1: wanted to have a lot of friends. I want people
Speaker 1: to like me. Things began to shift around age twelve,
Speaker 1: when John's grandmother gave him her nineteen ten Gibson acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: He started carrying it everywhere he went. This old guitar
Speaker 1: taught me to say, showed me the soul guitar. There's
Speaker 1: a line about that in it. The soul guitar gave
Speaker 1: me my life, my living, all the things I love
Speaker 1: to do. That's where he felt most at home, hanging
Speaker 1: onto that guitar. Help me make it without that old
Speaker 1: guitar in hand, John wasn't comfortable, As he would later
Speaker 1: explain in his autobiography Take Me Home. I feel things
Speaker 1: very deeply, But for most of my life it has
Speaker 1: been easier for me to talk casually to a thousand
Speaker 1: people than to talk openly to just one one person.
Speaker 1: He had trouble talking to his high achieving father, Dutch,
Speaker 1: who said at least three speed records piloting a mock
Speaker 1: to bomber for the Air Force. Dutch was skeptical of
Speaker 1: John's musical aspirations, so John attended college at Texas Tech
Speaker 1: in Lubbock, where he studied architecture and played in bands,
Speaker 1: but he dropped that at twenty and moved to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles to try to make it in the city's swelling
Speaker 1: folk revival scene. He made connections and got some experience
Speaker 1: playing clubs, including a place owned by Randy Sparks, the
Speaker 1: founder of a popular folk ensemble called the New Christie Minstrels.
Speaker 1: It was Sparks who told him Dutchendorff wouldn't fit on
Speaker 1: a marquee. The first suggestion was Summerville. John eventually agreed
Speaker 1: to change it to Denver same. John Denver's first big
Speaker 1: break came in nineteen five when he was asked to
Speaker 1: join the Chad Mitchell Trio, taking the place of founder
Speaker 1: Chad Mitchell, who had left to make his debut on Broadway.
Speaker 1: Unlike John, the trio were political, doing mostly topical satire
Speaker 1: like a send up of the extreme right wing John
Speaker 1: Birch Society, Society, Society to save our country club in
Speaker 1: this big block joined the John Birt's Society holding off
Speaker 1: the reds. Will use our heads and hearts in him,
Speaker 1: we must will use our heads. Here's John performing one
Speaker 1: of the trio satirical hits which mocked the k K
Speaker 1: K yep, since we got a lawyer and the public
Speaker 1: relations man where your friendly liberal label? Did John have politics? Then? No?
Speaker 1: And my Coblet, who was in the trio and interviewers
Speaker 1: has said, well, how naive John was about so many
Speaker 1: of these things. I think he said he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to pronounce the word politics. He said politic or
Speaker 1: something like that. Clearly it was the beginning of any
Speaker 1: activism he had. Later on, I started to find out
Speaker 1: that there is a lot more you can do with music.
Speaker 1: On the stage and then just sing it. You can
Speaker 1: make people think, you can make them laugh at things
Speaker 1: going on in the world. That's John from his autobiography. Again,
Speaker 1: it was a revelation to me when I could make
Speaker 1: a ridge to an audience's psyche. At this point, John
Speaker 1: wasn't yet the guy on TV with the Dutch boy
Speaker 1: haircut and the granny glasses. So when you met him,
Speaker 1: what was where was his collegiate looking part? And don't
Speaker 1: forget he was with the Mitchell trio and they were
Speaker 1: doing a lot of collegiate dates, Jack and tie. It
Speaker 1: was at one such campus performance that John and Annie
Speaker 1: first laid eyes on each other. At Gustavus Adolphus College
Speaker 1: in St. Peter, Minnesota, the college that I was going
Speaker 1: to was in the town that I grew up in,
Speaker 1: and John was giving a concert with the Mitchell Trion,
Speaker 1: and afterwards he was playing his guitar and there were
Speaker 1: a group of people. They were doing a play and
Speaker 1: kind of a silly little musical, and I was the
Speaker 1: girl that carried the signs across the stage Act one,
Speaker 1: Act two, and according to John, I had a pair
Speaker 1: of blue jeans on and a flannel shirt and Penny
Speaker 1: Loafers and I just paraded across the stage and then
Speaker 1: he left and we didn't speak. Soon enough, John was
Speaker 1: back for another college gig, and this time he invited
Speaker 1: her on a date before he showed. That night, Amy
Speaker 1: sat alone in the audience while John did his sound
Speaker 1: check on stage. It was dark and there were lights
Speaker 1: on the stage and it was just his voice and
Speaker 1: this light was on him and he and it were
Speaker 1: so beautiful, right, And then he came over to meet
Speaker 1: my parents and they liked him a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was charming. He asked them questions, he listened, and
Speaker 1: that's how it all started. How soon did he propose?
Speaker 1: Nine months later? And then we got married within a
Speaker 1: couple of months. And with all due respect, did you
Speaker 1: know what the hell you were doing? Not at all. No,
Speaker 1: you don't get to be as big a star as
Speaker 1: John was by accident. I mean he was ambitious, yeah,
Speaker 1: very and then John had this gift, really so I
Speaker 1: don't think I looked at it as ambition until things
Speaker 1: started happening. Things really started happening. When John left the trio,
Speaker 1: it's popularity was waning fast. Then scored a record deal
Speaker 1: with our c A pursuing a solo career drew John
Speaker 1: out of himself but also away from Annie. In My Songs,
Speaker 1: John wrote in his memoir, I was able to say
Speaker 1: things I couldn't say directly to Annie. Case in point.
Speaker 1: For Our ci A, he recorded a song he had
Speaker 1: written a few years earlier called Babe, I Hate to
Speaker 1: go kissed me a smile of me to tell me
Speaker 1: that you wait for me. His producer, Milt Oaken, convinced
Speaker 1: him to change the title. Oaken passed along what was
Speaker 1: now titled Leaving on a Jet Plane to folk group
Speaker 1: Peter Paul and Mary. There's so many times I've let
Speaker 1: you down, so many times I've played. Bands thought it
Speaker 1: was an anti war song about soldiers shipping out to
Speaker 1: Vietnam every place, but John wrote it about his life
Speaker 1: on the road and it's toll on his relationship with Annie.
Speaker 1: It became Peter Paul and Mary's biggest hit. Annie Denver
Speaker 1: remembers when John got his first check in the mail.
Speaker 1: We would drive at night and we would go by
Speaker 1: this furniture place that had antiques, and there was a
Speaker 1: lit Tiffany and original Tiffany lamp in the window. And
Speaker 1: so when we got the check. He wanted to buy
Speaker 1: a Porsche, and we wanted to buy the Tiffany lamp.
Speaker 1: And we did it. And I thought my father was
Speaker 1: going to croak that that's what we did with that
Speaker 1: money to make ends meet. Annie had been selling baby
Speaker 1: clothes at a department store in Minneapolis, but after the
Speaker 1: young couple traveled to Aspen with annie Ski club, they
Speaker 1: decided to relocate there. Aspen back then was not the
Speaker 1: sheshy place it is now. Was it a little hippy dippy? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Waitresses wore their hiking boots, and people had long braids,
Speaker 1: and everybody was doing macromay. I made so much macromay.
Speaker 1: The Rocky Mountains became John's greatest muse. Funny then, that
Speaker 1: his first big hit as a recording artist was about
Speaker 1: a state in America's other great mountain range. John Denver
Speaker 1: did not write the famous chorus to take Me Home,
Speaker 1: Country Roads. The credit goes to his friend's husband and
Speaker 1: wife songwriting duo Bill dan Off and Taffy Nivert. But
Speaker 1: when he sang it, the song became a worldwide phenomenon.
Speaker 1: The reason it was such a hit is people could
Speaker 1: relate to being home, are coming home, or this, this
Speaker 1: idea of connectedness and belonging. It's been translated into dozens
Speaker 1: of languages, from Finnish which to Hindi and don't forget
Speaker 1: a hugely popular Jamaican reggae version by Toots and the Maytals.
Speaker 1: One year after Country Roads came John's love letter to
Speaker 1: the first place he actually called home. He was born
Speaker 1: in the suburbs Kenny. Seven year at home to place
Speaker 1: never been before. Rocky Mountain High is not about drugs.
Speaker 1: More about that later. John was inspired to write it
Speaker 1: after witnessing a stunning meteor shower from ten thousand feet
Speaker 1: up in the Rockies Shadow. You could travel in other
Speaker 1: countries and they don't quite know the Rocky Mountains, but
Speaker 1: they'll go oh, Rocky Mountain High. Fun fact. John Denver
Speaker 1: is a writer of two official state songs, Colorado's and
Speaker 1: West Virginia's. By the time he had released Country Roads,
Speaker 1: John Denver had signed with a talent manager named Jerry
Speaker 1: Wine Troube. A likely pair John Denver and Jerry Wintroub.
Speaker 1: No allow me to translate for Annie. Jerry Wine Troub
Speaker 1: was brash, bold, the ultimate go big or go home guy.
Speaker 1: The same year he signed Denver nine. He also convinced
Speaker 1: Elvis's manager to let him book and promote the King's
Speaker 1: national comeback tour. Wine Troub later took Frank Sinatra back
Speaker 1: on the road and helped bring in the era of
Speaker 1: the arena concert tour. He would eventually become a major
Speaker 1: movie producer, and he believed he could turn this easy
Speaker 1: mannered mountaineer into the next big thing. Terry had a
Speaker 1: vision and could see I think talent. He didn't create John,
Speaker 1: but he took what he saw in John and really
Speaker 1: developed it. One of the shrewdest moves engineered by wine
Speaker 1: Traub was the release of a John Denver's Greatest Hits album. Now.
Speaker 1: The album did include some genuine hits Country Roads, Rocky Mountain, High,
Speaker 1: Sunshine on My Shoulders, but most of the songs on
Speaker 1: it were new recordings of lesser known, earlier released tracks,
Speaker 1: not hits, but songs that would help define Denver, like
Speaker 1: follow Me and Rhymes and Reasons. The album went multi platinum,
Speaker 1: selling more than ten million copies, but that was just
Speaker 1: one piece of the puzzle. Wine Troup was convinced that
Speaker 1: television was the key to turning John Denver into a
Speaker 1: Superstar by controduced Mr John Denver. Denver's first TV appearance
Speaker 1: was on The MERV Griffin Show. Once from the Fame
Speaker 1: Chad Mitchell Trio and now composer of well the number
Speaker 1: one hit songs of this season. After that, it seemed
Speaker 1: like he was on TV all the time, Aren't you Denver?
Speaker 1: On The Bob Hope Show, he and the host dressed
Speaker 1: as doppelgangers. I'm your twin brother, Irving Idaho. Denver hosted
Speaker 1: the Grammy Awards five times. Slid is Grammy nine the
Speaker 1: biggest slide in music. And we're here live in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles with the show That's so hot, it's gonna pop
Speaker 1: if we don't get right into it. John Denver eventually
Speaker 1: got the ult him at Show Business co sign. You know, Frank,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking a TV special with Sinatra about
Speaker 1: the time that song was first heard, so was I.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to make a guy wearing his
Speaker 1: now trademark wire rimmed glasses and sporting hair down to
Speaker 1: his shoulders. John Denver was a made for TV hippie,
Speaker 1: safe and fun for the whole family. Yeah, he kind
Speaker 1: of looked like a muppet, don't you agree? And then
Speaker 1: he performed with the Muppets. Have you seen him with
Speaker 1: the Muppet I know he celebrated Christmas with the Muppets
Speaker 1: in nine Shine Start Up. But to really get a
Speaker 1: sense of John Denver and the nineteen seventies, there may
Speaker 1: be no better document than his own Rocky Mountain Christmas Special.
Speaker 1: In let me describe it, He performs for a live
Speaker 1: audience from inside what looks like a giant snow globe,
Speaker 1: but with snow on the outside. Well we did. What
Speaker 1: we did is we built a transparent bubble and placed
Speaker 1: it in the middle of a snow covered meadow in
Speaker 1: the Rockies. And in here we've got flowers and grows
Speaker 1: and greenies and little butterflies bloating around high there. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's John saying hi to a butterfly that's landed on
Speaker 1: his hand. The special is a weird blend of comedy
Speaker 1: bits with stars like Valerie Harper and Steve Martin and
Speaker 1: nature scenes. Some of us are trying to reintroduce the
Speaker 1: grizzly bear into this part of the world. Oh and
Speaker 1: this is our first experiment in that regard. John wrestles
Speaker 1: with a grizzly cup at one point. It's a little
Speaker 1: nerve racking. Watch this little lady is a here and
Speaker 1: a half old grizzly come and he is a turkey.
Speaker 1: There's a sequence about the life cycle of brook Trout
Speaker 1: that looks like something you'd watch in fourth grade science.
Speaker 1: Olivia Newton John is introduced singing on horseback. Later she
Speaker 1: comes back for a genuinely lovely duet of fly Away.
Speaker 1: It stars studied, for sure, but the pacing of the
Speaker 1: special is lank, even listless. Kingle, I guess I'm just
Speaker 1: used to a more upbeat jingle bells. It's like this
Speaker 1: special predicted Jimmy Carter's infamous malaise speech later in the decade. Honestly,
Speaker 1: this whole hour feels slathered in malaise. Towards the end,
Speaker 1: during a sing along, we see Annie looking serene and
Speaker 1: the audience their infant son, Zach, the first of their
Speaker 1: two adopted children, at her side, But everyone else in
Speaker 1: the audience looks a little dazed, a little glazed over,
Speaker 1: like they're experiencing their own energy crisis. It's all supremely
Speaker 1: strange and supremely seventies and guess what. More than sixty
Speaker 1: million people tuned into John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas sixty million.
Speaker 1: The boy who had grown up searching for home had
Speaker 1: apparently found a place in homes everywhere. Jerry wine Troub
Speaker 1: would later say, if you give Elvis the fifties and
Speaker 1: the Beatles the sixties, I think you've got to give
Speaker 1: John Denver the seventies. With wine Troub's help, the wholesome
Speaker 1: hippie had become a mass commodity. The very next year,
Speaker 1: John Denver made the cover of Newsweek, the magazine dubbing
Speaker 1: him the Sunshine Boy, but the article itself wasn't exactly sunny.
Speaker 1: He may have become a phenomenon with the public, but
Speaker 1: he was far from critics choice how much did that
Speaker 1: bother him? I actually think it bothered him more than
Speaker 1: a hat lead on. I think it bothered him a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, I met Julianne Moore the other day the
Speaker 1: terrific Radiant Act. It's not because I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: we're friends yet. And our our mutual friend who brought
Speaker 1: us together, was talking to her about this podcast. Now
Speaker 1: this is really turning into a plug and she said,
Speaker 1: who do you have coming up next season? And I said,
Speaker 1: John Denver, and she simultaneously melted and sighed and just
Speaker 1: exhaled John Tenver and the way she said it, And
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if it was just that I took
Speaker 1: her back to a time that at least seems like
Speaker 1: it was a safer, kinder time. Well sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems reasonable that Julianne Moore when she was eleven
Speaker 1: years old would have listened to John Denver and that
Speaker 1: might have been her entry point for music. That's my pal,
Speaker 1: music writer Bill flan Again. Unlike me and Julianne Moore,
Speaker 1: when Bill first encountered John Denver's music, he was a
Speaker 1: cool New York rock critic writing for an underground magazine,
Speaker 1: and like most music critics at the time, he wasn't
Speaker 1: filled with any childlike warmth. In fact, John's boyishness and
Speaker 1: enthusiasm are part of what he was teased for. They
Speaker 1: called him the Mickey Mouse of rock and roll, the
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart of folk music, the Ronald Reagan of pop.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, here's the thing. As a former recovering
Speaker 1: rock critic, if if you're sent to review a show
Speaker 1: and you think the person is insipid, then you've got
Speaker 1: to say they're insipid. But John Denver was absolutely playing
Speaker 1: for the whole family and playing a very kind of
Speaker 1: Network TV version of pop music. And maybe what offended
Speaker 1: some rock critics was that he looked like a hippie.
Speaker 1: What he was doing was he was sort of taking
Speaker 1: countercultural fashion and moving it into the mainstream, the Family Channel,
Speaker 1: the Walt Disney World, and some people were very defensive
Speaker 1: about that. The nine seventies were an especially rich period
Speaker 1: for singer songwriters Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Carol King, Marvin Gay.
Speaker 1: John Denver didn't fit in with any of them. John
Speaker 1: Denver came out of a folk tradition that was not
Speaker 1: exactly what James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and csn Y
Speaker 1: and the Lourel Canyon people were doing. He came out
Speaker 1: of that Chad Mitchell trio, Michael Rode, the Boat Ashore,
Speaker 1: Peter Paul and Mary, very early sixties kind of harmony
Speaker 1: folk singing that of everybody sing along that had its
Speaker 1: roots in the Weavers and Pete Seeger and you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of graduated into Christian rock, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of graduated into music to be played at the folkmass
Speaker 1: I think John Denver has said in interviews that that
Speaker 1: is kind of what he He grew up singing in
Speaker 1: the church choir and going to the football games in Texas.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a very kind of mainstream America,
Speaker 1: non counter cultural. He comes from a military family life,
Speaker 1: and his version of the counter culture was more to
Speaker 1: do with ecology, preserving the land, camping in the mountains,
Speaker 1: getting away from the city, which is perfectly legitimate. How
Speaker 1: big a deal was John Denver in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: Boy in the middle of the nineteen seventies, John Denver
Speaker 1: had about two or three years when he was huge.
Speaker 1: He was the acceptable face of the sort of hippie
Speaker 1: songwriter to mainstream America. He was family entertainment, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a difficult slot to fill, and you
Speaker 1: you kind of have about one every decade, you know.
Speaker 1: But the John Denver phenomenon specifically, could that have only
Speaker 1: happened in the nineteen seventies, Well, I think it only
Speaker 1: could have happened with a guy with the Beatles haircut
Speaker 1: and you know, moccasins in the nineteen seventies. But I
Speaker 1: think there's a version of it. Whatever is on FM radio,
Speaker 1: and is being written about in Rolling Stone probably has
Speaker 1: a translation for mom and dad going on on television.
Speaker 1: And in the sixties it might have been Sunny and Share.
Speaker 1: In the fifties it might have been Pat Boone. In
Speaker 1: the eighties it might have been Olivia Newton John somebody
Speaker 1: that Middle America and all generations can appreciate. Okay, well then,
Speaker 1: and I hear what you're saying. So, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about what I think you're really talking about, which is
Speaker 1: so the criticism of him, the music criticism. I want
Speaker 1: to just read a few things. Oh, there's gonna be painful,
Speaker 1: isn't it? They are? Uh. Robert Christi Gal probably a
Speaker 1: friend of yours, a dean of rock critics, the legendary
Speaker 1: rock critic, wrote for The Village Voice for nearly four decades,
Speaker 1: Denver is everything an acoustic singer songwriter might be pretty
Speaker 1: vapid and commercial. This in nineteen seventy four, he described
Speaker 1: Denver's music as simple minded escapism, and it compared him
Speaker 1: unfavorably with James Taylor and Carly Sigman. He finally, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven called him the blandest pop singer in history.
Speaker 1: Well clearly Robert had some angry issues. You know, you
Speaker 1: got to consider he's writing for the Village Voice. He's
Speaker 1: you know, very interested in what lou Reid is up to,
Speaker 1: and you know he'd probably be just as tough on
Speaker 1: Andy Williams and Andy Williams had had alongside burns and
Speaker 1: wire room glasses. I love Andy Williams, by the way,
Speaker 1: Well that's you know, John Denver is as much out
Speaker 1: of the tradition of Andy Williams and Perry Como as
Speaker 1: he is out of the tradition of John Pryan and
Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen Boy. That nineteen seventy six cover story in Newsweek,
Speaker 1: written by Maureen Orth, she says she described his music
Speaker 1: as the n seventies favorite snake oil in the guise
Speaker 1: of warm milk. That's assuming something that's unfair to assume,
Speaker 1: which is that he's insincere or that he's manufacturing. And
Speaker 1: you know, who's to say manufactured music is bad. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: my eleven year old favorite band was The Monkeys, and
Speaker 1: I still love the Monkeys, and I will defend the
Speaker 1: Monkeys as being a great entry point for people who
Speaker 1: soon we're listening to more sophisticated stuff. The other thing
Speaker 1: to remember is that reviews are written to be read
Speaker 1: the day after and then thrown away, and they're not
Speaker 1: meant to be pulled out as prosecution uh forty or
Speaker 1: fifty years later. It's like, man, look at what Bob
Speaker 1: Chris Gau said, What a nasty guy. Well, we actually
Speaker 1: tried to subpoena Bob christ Gawen he to see if
Speaker 1: he would recant on any of this, and he said no, thanks,
Speaker 1: we can't blame him. You want to hear something really mean?
Speaker 1: How can I stop you go? This is from British
Speaker 1: rock critic Nick Kent in Vree wrote, John's the stereotype
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood whimp who would get his head constantly
Speaker 1: pushed down toilets in junior high school, who spent his
Speaker 1: teenage years learning how to play old wood. He got
Speaker 1: three songs in the TV room while the gang was
Speaker 1: out on the streets stealing hub caps and cruising for
Speaker 1: and who turn up at folk clubs and a denim
Speaker 1: cap and promptly have beer cants thrown at him. Yep,
Speaker 1: John Denver's sure paid his dues. As Steve Stills would say,
Speaker 1: so far be it from me to lay the proverbial
Speaker 1: mark of kine on him for producing this unadulterated piece
Speaker 1: of organic draws. It doesn't seem impossible that Nick Kent
Speaker 1: is projecting his own childhood or teenage years onto John
Speaker 1: Denver in that piece. This is making me feel so
Speaker 1: much better. Hashtag team Denver. Somehow, Mo, you have used
Speaker 1: you have Perry Mason like wiles to turn me into
Speaker 1: someone who is attacking my peers and defending John Denver.
Speaker 1: I may never recover from this. Bill say is that
Speaker 1: John Denver was intentionally middle of the road where you're
Speaker 1: bound to get run over. At the end of the sixties,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit like today, you know today
Speaker 1: with the Red state Blue state divide. It was the
Speaker 1: counterculture and the mainstream culture. It was a M and
Speaker 1: F M. It was Rolling Stone or Time magazine, and
Speaker 1: it felt like never the Twain would meet. But in fact,
Speaker 1: the seventies was all about sort of people letting go
Speaker 1: of that anger and coming together, and John Denver was
Speaker 1: probably a symbol of that. But you know, again, he
Speaker 1: was I'm not saying he wasn't kind of corny. He
Speaker 1: was kind of corny, but that's what he set out
Speaker 1: to be, and Not everybody has a thousand LPs in
Speaker 1: their collection and reached the underground press. Some people just
Speaker 1: want to hear a nice melody and a pleasant song,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that
Speaker 1: at all. As Bill witnessed firsthand, my younger brother and
Speaker 1: sister absolutely adored John Denver. And when our mother died,
Speaker 1: she was in My mother was in her forties. When
Speaker 1: she died, she was she had five kids. I was
Speaker 1: the oldest, I was nineteen. The youngest were nine and twelve.
Speaker 1: And the day after her funeral, I took him to
Speaker 1: see John Denver and it was the most joyous, life
Speaker 1: affirming experience that we could have had. And I'll always
Speaker 1: have a soft spot for John Denver for that, because,
Speaker 1: you know, if you can imagine anything sadder than a
Speaker 1: young mother dying and leaving five children than to watch
Speaker 1: my little brother and sister just you know, who had
Speaker 1: been were beyond grief stricken, who were who were just
Speaker 1: stunned to watch them fall into delight listening to John
Speaker 1: Denver saying was just a that that's the best thing
Speaker 1: music can possibly do. And how well do you remember
Speaker 1: that concert? First time I'd ever seen really big screens
Speaker 1: at an arena concert and suddenly the screen split up
Speaker 1: with film of a harvester going through the field, olds
Speaker 1: and farmers gathering gathering. Hey, and it was magical, you know,
Speaker 1: And listen, whether it's John Denver or whether it's Frank Sinatra,
Speaker 1: or whether it's Frank's Appa, if music can lift somebody
Speaker 1: out of the worst kind of grief at the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable moment of their life and give them something to
Speaker 1: look forward to and bring joy back into the life
Speaker 1: of a grieving child. I mean, I don't mean to
Speaker 1: get all Jerry Lewis tallethan here, but you know that's
Speaker 1: a that's a very very powerful thing to accomplish. And
Speaker 1: that's why, you know, I think if there's one thing
Speaker 1: where we probably want to come back to and talking
Speaker 1: about John Denver, it's that if music touches somebody, then great,
Speaker 1: that's that's the best thing in the world. And if
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit somebody else's framework or their aesthetic judgment,
Speaker 1: you know, that's okay too, but it doesn't detract from
Speaker 1: the power it has with someone who loves it. And
Speaker 1: nobody should be told that they shouldn't love any kind
Speaker 1: of art if it moves them. I've thought about who
Speaker 1: John Denver would be in pop culture today had he
Speaker 1: not died. My friend, the actress Pamela ad Lawn was
Speaker 1: in a TV movie with him in and she's got
Speaker 1: a really interesting theory which I floated by Bill. Pamela
Speaker 1: ad Lawn said to me, if he had lived, he
Speaker 1: might have been Dolly Parton. Big that kind of you.
Speaker 1: That's a very very very interesting That's that's smart because
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton probably got the same kind of criticism at
Speaker 1: the same time as being manufactured fake, you know, a
Speaker 1: big wig and extreme proportions and tons of makeup and
Speaker 1: singing these little sing along songs that everybody likes and
Speaker 1: appearing in pop movies. So that's a that's a really
Speaker 1: really good observation that John Denver might have become Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1: He might have become as respected as Dolly Parton. And
Speaker 1: now that we live in a world where everyone we're
Speaker 1: beers Dolly Parton and there is great retrospective um affection
Speaker 1: for the Carpenters and nobody cares about what the great
Speaker 1: rock critics of the seventies wrote. Sure, John Denver might
Speaker 1: be uh, you know, might be getting the Presidential Medal
Speaker 1: of Freedom. Today, I just wanted to show you US
Speaker 1: is here meditation. This is Buck. Tom Crumb is showing
Speaker 1: me around his delightful home in Aspen. It's an a
Speaker 1: frame kind of looks like a ski shout from the outside.
Speaker 1: But when he and his wife first moved in in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen seventies, it didn't even have running water.
Speaker 1: So I took a pipe of PBC pipe plastic pipe,
Speaker 1: and ran it up into the hills right up there
Speaker 1: new the where you can see the gondola. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can see it. This was just all
Speaker 1: mining cabins along here. It's a charming outlier in today's Aspen.
Speaker 1: In the backyard a small Japanese rock garden. On the
Speaker 1: other side of the backyard fence, a forty six million
Speaker 1: dollar mansion recently rented out by the Kardashians. How many
Speaker 1: bitcoin billionaires come by trying to buy it? Yeah? Right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They come and go quick. I hear.
Speaker 1: The inside of Tom's house is chocolate block with curiosities,
Speaker 1: including a nineteenth century cross between a music box and phonograph.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is a vagina phone. This is
Speaker 1: I know the Vagina phone. Yes, I know about this.
Speaker 1: This is so cool, so cool. I saw one of
Speaker 1: these in Indianapolis at the President Benjamin Harrison home and
Speaker 1: he was president elected. So it's the same, like the same,
Speaker 1: but this is not a mobituary for Benjamin Harrison. At
Speaker 1: the height of his fame, John Denver was struggling with
Speaker 1: loneliness and demanding work schedule. That's when he turned to
Speaker 1: Tom Crumb, who was teaching martial arts and meditation here
Speaker 1: in Aspen. Tom came aboard to help handle security, but
Speaker 1: also as emotional support for John. There's a song where
Speaker 1: it goes he sometimes I fly like an eagle, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm deep in despair. I think John was one
Speaker 1: of those personalities. There's an up and down in him.
Speaker 1: So those times he'd get quiet, yeah, he'd get dark,
Speaker 1: but also a lot of creativity came out of that.
Speaker 1: Did the songs come from the lonely place? Oh? I
Speaker 1: think a lot of them. Did you know everything that
Speaker 1: he would write about he was so fully committed to
Speaker 1: and that only happens when you're feeling it deeply. Tom
Speaker 1: was there as John's saw songs began fading from the
Speaker 1: air waves, and as John began redirecting his energy towards
Speaker 1: conservation and a host of other causes. In six John
Speaker 1: and Tom bought a ranch near Aspen and set up
Speaker 1: a humanitarian organization they named the Windstar Foundation. John was
Speaker 1: no longer content to entertain the world. He wanted to
Speaker 1: change the planet. We wanted to make a difference. We
Speaker 1: wanted to affect the environment. We wanted to affect Hungary
Speaker 1: with nuclear non proliferation. We had a wind generation, We
Speaker 1: had solar retrofitting. Now this is in the world wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: We're We're putting up solar panels, were doing bio intensive gardening.
Speaker 1: By virtue of his celebrity, John was able to commune
Speaker 1: with luminaries like Guru Ram Das, astronomer Carl Sagan, and
Speaker 1: futurist and architect Buckminster Fuller. You know, friends like Warner Earhart.
Speaker 1: When with the s movement, which was a very big
Speaker 1: movement back in the early seventies, getting involved with that,
Speaker 1: Denver Co found did a hunger nonprofit with Werner Earhard,
Speaker 1: the controversial celebrity guru whose air hard to semin Our
Speaker 1: trainings also known as st promised to transform lives. According
Speaker 1: to sixty Minutes Are Heard was so popular in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies Hollywood that someone once suggested a studio be renamed
Speaker 1: Werner Brothers. Increasingly, when John went on TV, it was
Speaker 1: in support of his array of causes. Well, I'm a
Speaker 1: very optimistic person. I think it's important for people to
Speaker 1: know that we do feel we have the wherewithal if
Speaker 1: people are willing to make the commitment, if governments are
Speaker 1: willing to make the commitment to end hunger in our lifetime,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's incredible. You know, John was so enthusiastic
Speaker 1: if you went to a hearing with him. Let's get
Speaker 1: out of songs now and get into the political world
Speaker 1: where he's working on the Alaska Wildlands Bill, very influential.
Speaker 1: They're working on the space issue, working on a hunger issue,
Speaker 1: working on environmental issue, had all these issues. Once again,
Speaker 1: John Denver seemed to be everywhere this time trying to
Speaker 1: be all things to all causes. And you are involved
Speaker 1: in all different kinds of causes. What does a cause
Speaker 1: have to have? What does it have to represent in
Speaker 1: order to get John Denver involved in Well, it's not
Speaker 1: like a cause, you know, it's it's things that that
Speaker 1: are are given to me or come up for me
Speaker 1: because I am celebrity. I have been successful and have
Speaker 1: certain things that come to people's mind when they when
Speaker 1: they speak of my name or or hear my music.
Speaker 1: To be clear, John Denver did throw himself into some
Speaker 1: causes with real commitment. From saving the ocean, he formed
Speaker 1: a deep bond with Jacques Cousteau to exploring outer space.
Speaker 1: He was a serious contender to join the ill fated
Speaker 1: Challenger mission. Instead, NASA went with teacher Christie mccauliffe. But
Speaker 1: in his memoir, Denver revealed that he did so many
Speaker 1: benefits and supported so many causes because he wanted so
Speaker 1: much to be liked. He said he would agree to
Speaker 1: some things not out of commitment to an issue, but
Speaker 1: because he was afraid to say no. This was no
Speaker 1: surprise to Annie Denver. Basically he was a pleaser. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make people happy. I think that was hard
Speaker 1: for him. He had a rough few years, was especially
Speaker 1: rough early that year. John's father, Dutch, suffered a massive
Speaker 1: heart attack and died. When John and Tom Crumb were
Speaker 1: on tour, they were often flown by John's pilot father,
Speaker 1: and Dutch had taught John how to fly hours spent
Speaker 1: in the cockpit together began to heal their relationship. Once
Speaker 1: he was asked by John to be his pilot and
Speaker 1: to teach him to fly that jet. That's where it
Speaker 1: all shifted. That and of course being at concerts and
Speaker 1: seeing who John was. John mourned Dutch in song and
Speaker 1: the soul the nice thing. Then, only months after Dutch
Speaker 1: died on their fifteenth wedding anniversary, Annie filed for divorce.
Speaker 1: When you look back now, after you've been married for
Speaker 1: fifteen years and you decided to divorce, was that the
Speaker 1: way it had to be? Yes, Yes, she's reluctant to elaborate, understandably,
Speaker 1: But John himself would confess in interviews that he wasn't
Speaker 1: there for Annie. He was still going on the road
Speaker 1: for months at a time, and he'd been unfaithful to her.
Speaker 1: My life is way out of balance in regard to
Speaker 1: the time that I had with my family and uh
Speaker 1: and that I have now, and I feel it more
Speaker 1: with the kids being teenagers now. They had built a
Speaker 1: home together in Aspen, but it just didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be enough for him. John soon suffered another painful break up,
Speaker 1: this time with manager Jerry Weintraub, who John claimed ditched
Speaker 1: him for the move he was producing the Karate Kid.
Speaker 1: Then another disappointment when the biggest stars in music came
Speaker 1: together for African famine relief. Yeah, John wasn't invited. You
Speaker 1: have been involved in hunger projects for fifteen years, long
Speaker 1: before many other celebrities got on the bandwagon, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and yet you were left out of the recording of
Speaker 1: Way of the World. Were you upseid about that? Well,
Speaker 1: you know what had happened. Uh, I was very disappointed.
Speaker 1: I would love to have been there. That hurt him deeply.
Speaker 1: He was on President Carter's Commission on World and Domestic Hunger.
Speaker 1: This guy was out there making a difference way before
Speaker 1: any of these people. I'm suddenly hunger after all these
Speaker 1: years he's working on it becomes a huge public issue.
Speaker 1: You and he's not invited. We are the world's producer.
Speaker 1: Ken Craigan later said John Denver was the hardest artist
Speaker 1: to turn down, but it had been years since John
Speaker 1: had had a hit. He was invited later that year
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. To testify on an issue roiling
Speaker 1: the music industry, sex and violence in rock and roll lyrics.
Speaker 1: Whether records should be rated AX On one side. The
Speaker 1: p t A and a group of influential women in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Called the Parents Music Resource Center. In September,
Speaker 1: Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore, and other
Speaker 1: Washington wives held a congressional hearing on the labeling of
Speaker 1: music deemed obscene. Rock lyrics havept turned from I can't
Speaker 1: get no satisfaction. I'm going to force you at gunpoint
Speaker 1: to eat me alive. Other witnesses included d Snyder of
Speaker 1: Twisted Sister and Frank Zappa. Mr Zappa, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for your testimony. Next witnesses John Denver. Before his testimony,
Speaker 1: it was anyone's guests who Denver would side with. It
Speaker 1: may be very clear that I'm strongly opposed to censorship
Speaker 1: of any kind in our society or anywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world. My song Rocky Mountain High was banned from
Speaker 1: many of radio stations as a drug related song. This
Speaker 1: was obviously done by people who have never seen or
Speaker 1: been to the Rocky Mountains and also had never experienced
Speaker 1: the elation, the celebration of life for the joy in
Speaker 1: living that one feels when he observes something is wondrous
Speaker 1: as the perceed meteor shower. Years later, in a radio interview,
Speaker 1: d Snyder said Denver's testimony was key. Me and Frank
Speaker 1: were very worried about what John was gonna do. He
Speaker 1: was such, he was like the all American guy then,
Speaker 1: and we were very worried that he would turn his
Speaker 1: back on his on on rock. But he did not.
Speaker 1: He tall for us and I never got to shake
Speaker 1: his hands though it's one of my regrets. But all
Speaker 1: the activism didn't change the fact that his sales were
Speaker 1: continuing to flag. The public had moved on. The following year,
Speaker 1: in June of six, r c A tropped John Denver.
Speaker 1: He was one of the top selling artists in their history,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't worth what they were paying him anymore.
Speaker 1: And now I'm not the biggest selling record artist in
Speaker 1: the world, and I don't sell out big arenas like
Speaker 1: I used to, and that might come around again, I
Speaker 1: don't know. John married Australian actress Cassandra Delaney, and the
Speaker 1: two had a daughter, but John continued to struggle to
Speaker 1: find balance between his public and private lives. They soon divorced,
Speaker 1: and friends say he fell into depression In interview, John
Speaker 1: shared what he thought had happened to his career. One
Speaker 1: of the major things I think for me in that
Speaker 1: decline was both my wanting to stick to the music
Speaker 1: that I do. I don't want to be told what
Speaker 1: to record by anybody. I think I earned the right
Speaker 1: to do what I do. That's where I had my
Speaker 1: big success. And I'm not going to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of country songs is because somebody thinks I'm a country
Speaker 1: artist or that's what they want to sell from me.
Speaker 1: It was like John had lost his sense of direction.
Speaker 1: He wasn't sure where he belonged, but he no longer
Speaker 1: had the guiding hand of someone like Jerry Weintraub. In
Speaker 1: He recorded and released his twenty seven studio album All Aboard,
Speaker 1: a children's train themed album, nine A Lie to Blow,
Speaker 1: Dyna World to Blow, nine and one to Blow Your Horn.
Speaker 1: The album earned John Denver his first and only Grammy award,
Speaker 1: but he never got to accept it. Diving crews searched
Speaker 1: the waters of Monterey Bay four pieces of the two
Speaker 1: seaters single engineer plane and clues to the crash, but
Speaker 1: singer John Denver was alone in the plane when witnesses
Speaker 1: say it just fell from the sky and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there was a pop and a popping sound,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of went up a little bit
Speaker 1: and absolutely straight down, not spiraling, just absolutely straight down.
Speaker 1: John was flying with a suspended license. He'd lost it
Speaker 1: after two d u wise, but toxicology tests later showed
Speaker 1: he'd been sober that day, And at the time, Tom
Speaker 1: Crumb wasn't worried about his friend's mental health. Would you
Speaker 1: worry that, you know, he might be suicidal or something? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I just didn't. I knew John when they
Speaker 1: were on the road years earlier. Tom had seen John
Speaker 1: at his lowest. That was a tough time, coming out
Speaker 1: of a dark darkness and and going in and know
Speaker 1: when you're gonna have to perform for twenty two thousand
Speaker 1: people and and bring them up, and you suddenly are
Speaker 1: singing for them because now you have to do something
Speaker 1: out there. That the performing was he antidote that made
Speaker 1: him feel better. You go out and make a difference
Speaker 1: for somebody and you'll feel better. But did you have
Speaker 1: confidence that he'd come through it, that he would like
Speaker 1: through the darker period? I did. I thought he was
Speaker 1: coming out of it when he died. Annie Denver's last
Speaker 1: conversation with John was just before his death. John died
Speaker 1: October twelfth, And he had he had been home and
Speaker 1: he had had dinner with Anna Kate, with your daughter,
Speaker 1: Anna Kate. Yeah, and he called me and he was
Speaker 1: in a great mood. John had recently sent Annie flowers
Speaker 1: for her birthday, which he did every year, even after
Speaker 1: the divorce. Oh, and even things were when things weren't good,
Speaker 1: I always got flowers. And so I thanked him for
Speaker 1: the flowers. And then there was a long, long pause,
Speaker 1: and he said, this is totally indelibly etched in my heart.
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, but Annie, I love you. On
Speaker 1: Phil Donahue's show years before their divorce, Annie described her
Speaker 1: relationship with John and his appeal to the masses. He's
Speaker 1: always been very affectionate, very sensitive, to the point of
Speaker 1: being moody sometimes, and it comes from I think stems
Speaker 1: from his loneliness. He feels a lot of loneliness. Said
Speaker 1: think it's the kids. And consequently he's always been very warm,
Speaker 1: very affectionate, and he's it's really so that a lot
Speaker 1: of men can't share those feelings, and John can sit
Speaker 1: for everybody because everybody feels it, they just can't share it.
Speaker 1: I think the loneliness John Denver projected was a big
Speaker 1: part of his appeal. Like he told those Aspen school
Speaker 1: kids back in nineteen and seven, he just wanted to
Speaker 1: be liked. Who couldn't relate to that? Maybe it makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense that he sang one of the most enduringly
Speaker 1: popular songs ever written about home, a song that's beloved
Speaker 1: worldwide about a place that wasn't ever actually his home.
Speaker 1: I didn't know John Denver. I don't know if he
Speaker 1: ever felt like he found home, but whatever he was
Speaker 1: searching for, that yearning in his voice, that was real.
Speaker 1: I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. May I ask
Speaker 1: you to please rate and review our podcast. You can
Speaker 1: also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Here all new episodes
Speaker 1: of Mobituaries every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: check out Mobituaries. Great Lives Worth Reliving, the New York
Speaker 1: Times best selling book, now available in paperback and audio book.
Speaker 1: It includes plenty of stories not in the podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode of Mobituaries was produced by Aaron Shrank. Our team
Speaker 1: of producers also includes Wilco, Martinez Cacceto and me Morocca.
Speaker 1: Editing was by Moral Walls, engineering by Josh Hahn, and
Speaker 1: fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our production company is Neon
Speaker 1: hom Media. Our archival producer at CBS is Jamie Benson.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Indispensable support
Speaker 1: from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gerveis, Alan Pang, Reggie Basil and
Speaker 1: everyone at CBS News Radio Special thanks to Michelle Castle,
Speaker 1: Young Kim and Alberto Robina. Mobituary's senior producer is the
Speaker 1: comparable Aaron Shrank. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve Raizy's
Speaker 1: and Morocca. This series is created by Yours truly and
Speaker 1: as always undying gratitude to Rand Morrison and John carp
Speaker 1: for helping breathe life into Mobituaries. Okay, High, This is
Speaker 1: the end of Rocky Mountain High with about two thousand
Speaker 1: people at the Paramount Theater, which was built and has
Speaker 1: beautiful murals. Um So let's do this now. Okay, Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountain High, Rocky Mountain High, Rocky Mountain High, Rocky Mountain High,
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain High, thank you,