John Denver was born as Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. on December 31, 1943, in Roswell, New Mexico. He is the son of an Army Air Corps flight instructor and the family moving from base to base, living in Phoenix, Arizona, Motgomery, Alabama and Fort Worth, Texas.

When he grew up as a young teenager, John felt a close affinity with the land and would visit the desert every chance he got. In junior high and high school, although he began to play the guitar and wrote music at the age of 13.

 

In 1964 he dropped out and returned to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music. He began performing at Ledbetter's, a club in Westwood /LA.

During this time he changed his name to John Denver, because he identified with the Rocky Mountains.

 

He left California and went to New York City where he came to be a new member of the Chad Mitchell Trio.

In the Summer of 1969, John got a solo recording contract with RCA Records. His first album, "Rhymes and Reasons", came out in the fall of 1969.

 

Later, in 1971, with Bill Dannof and Taffy Nivert, he wrote the song “Take me home, Country Roads” and recorded it. He appeared on the "Merv Griffen Show" and the "Bob Hope Show”.

He starred in the movies "Oh God" (1977) “Leftovers” (1984), “The Christmas Gift” 1986,"Foxfire" (1987), “Higher Ground”, and “~~~~Walking Thunder” (1994).One of John's first appearances as an actor was on an episode of the tv series "McCloud." John played a police officer and sang the song “I’d guess he’d rather be in Colorado” in his role on the episode. Over a fifteen year period (1969 -1984) he recorded 25 albums for RCA

 

In 1976 he bought a thousand acres of land in Snowmass, Colorado, for Windstar. Here people would come to learn about the environment and it's connections between mind, body and spirit. And he looked to renewable forms of energy like wind and sun, not nuclear power.

In the summer of 1993, Denver received the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Music Award, given to him "for a life's work dedicated to music and devoted to humanity." It was the first time a non-classical musical artist had been so honored.

 

He also co-founded Plant-It 2000, a reforestation project that has not only planted over 630,000 indigenous trees nationally and globally since its inception in 1992 but also maintains the trees and educates locals in how to improve their environment by tree planting. Since 1992 a great measure if not all of the proceeds of John's concert memorabilia went to Plant-It 2000.

 

In 1986 John met Cassandra Delaney in Sydney, Australia. They married on August 12, 1988. She later gave birth to Denver's daughter, Jesse Belle. Denver and his wife divorced in 1993.

 

John supported Windstar, The Hunger Project, UNICEF, Plant-It 2000 and many other organizations that helped to improve the quality of life for us all.

Every summer he would pay to bring underprivileged children to an Aspen Summer camp

 

John died October 12, 1997 in a plane crash in Pacific Grove near Monterey California.

Hope you’ve found Peace, John