Friday, April 1, 2011

The Day John Denver Visited December, 1968


I managed to sloppily edit this footage from John Denver's visit to our Iowa farmhouse in December of 1968. It's only a few week's before Denver's 25th birthday. Dad brought out the movie camera and tape recorder. This is all the footage. Denver also played "Mr Bojangles", his own "Circus" and Leonard Cohen's "Sisters of Mercy" that afternoon.

This cover version of The Beatles "When I'm 64" would appear on his 1969 album Rhymes and Reasons. which also featured a song called "Leaving on a Jet Plane". Peter Paul and Mary had already recorded the song in 1967 for Album 1700 but didn't release "Jet Plane" as a single until late 1969.It would hit #1.

Denver spent 1969 performing on the college circuit all over the Midwest. He'd put up his own posters and show up at radio stations, guitar in hand, ready to do interviews. His home base was an apartment he shared with his newlywed wife Annie in Edina, Minnesota.

For more on John Denver read last November's entry, The Famous Family Friend.

2 comments:

  1. What a rare treasure! Thanks for sharing it with us. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an amazing treat you have shared! Thank you very, very much!

    ReplyDelete