Before he died in a plane crash in 1997, he had defied a court order that kept him from flying his plane. He racked up DUIs, including one after crashing his car into a tree in Aspen. Denver owned up to that - sort of - in his autobiography “Take me Home,” confirming but toning down the events. Ex-wife Annie Martell said Denver choked her and cut their bed in half with a chainsaw near the end of their marriage (they were divorced in 1982). The fact that Colorado has successfully pioneered legal, recreational cannabis in Colorado since 2014 is something Denver might have found amusing, given his defense of the lyrics and the fact that openly admitting to smoking pot in the 1970s was still problematic (at best) for a musician, even a top-charting one.ĭenver was no saint.

Nuzum’s 2001 book “Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America.” “This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains …” Denver told Congress as part of the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985, according to Eric D. If you missed the epic “South Park” concert at Red Rocks, stream in on Aug. His final show there was in the summer of 1989. That kicked off a run of 16 concerts that would position Denver as the first-ever artist to play four consecutive nights at the venue. “On the road and hanging by a song / But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care / It keeps changing fast and it don’t last for long.”ĭenver had just debuted at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on June 21, 1972, about four months before “Rocky Mountain High” began climbing the charts, according to the Castle Pines Connection. “When he first came to the mountains his life was far away,” he wrote in the gentle, melodically intoxicating song. He had moved to Colorado three years prior, according to Red Rocks and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (the latter of which inducted Denver in 2011), and his time living in the fast-changing mountain town of Aspen - now synonymous with glitz and unaffordability - inspired him to see Colorado through itinerant eyes. 30, 1972, “Rocky Mountain High” became a chart-topping hit in 1973 and a staple of Denver’s live sets. “And not just any lyrics, but world-famous lyrics that span genres and generations.” “Here in Colorado, we’ve always known that our majestic mountains, our bright blue skies, our starlit nights and our forest and streams were the stuff of legends - but John Denver made them the stuff of song lyrics, too,” Polis said in a statement. Friday, August 26th 2022 Home Page Close Menu

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