All language subtitles for John.Denver.Country.Boy.2013.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

On 12 October 1997,
at Monterey Airport, California,

the singer John Denver took off
to test his new plane.

The son of a famous pilot,
Denver had thousands of hours'

flying experience, and it was
a simple flight on a cloudless day.

But over Monterey Bay,
something went wrong

and John Denver's plane
plummeted into the sea.

He was killed instantly,
aged only 53.

# You fill up my senses

# Like a night in a forest

# Like the mountains
In spring time... #

When he died, John Denver was
no longer in the limelight,

but during the mid-1970s
he was America's most successful
solo singer.

He was huge. He was one of
the biggest artists in America,

one of the biggest artists
around the world.

What Frank Sinatra was to the '40s,
Elvis Presley was to the '50s,

and the Beatles were to the '60s,
John Denver was to the '70s.

It was a rocket ship.

And...it was big.
It was really great.

He projected an image
of an easy-going country boy,

at home with nature,
skiing in the mountains.

But behind the image was a more
complicated man -

an Air Force brat who became
a peace campaigner.

He was sort of the grandfather
of celebrities being activists.

The Stings and the Bonos - I think
they were inspired by John back then.

An ambitious, driven man
who struggle with depression

and the barbs of the music critics.

He was called the Mickey Mouse of
rock. The Ronald Reagan of pop.

That angered him.
That's what got under his skin.

70 years after his birth,
who was the real John Denver?

And what's the appeal
of his timeless songs?

# Come fill me again... #

SONG: 'Rocky Mountain High'

# He was born in the summer
Of his 27th year... #

The Rocky Mountains of Colorado,

are forever associated with
the music of John Denver,

and many of his most famous songs
were inspired
by the landscape there.

In the early 1970s, John Denver
was a new type of pop star,

living in tune with nature,
away from the city.

I find when I come to Los Angeles
especially,

more so than most cities,
that I physically don't feel good.

I don't have the energy that
I have when I'm back up in the
mountains.

My eyes hurt. Sometimes I feel
a little nauseous from the smog.

And I just prefer being back a ways
where it's a little bit quieter.

To me it's a little bit
more peaceful.

I can see more of the stars at night.
I feel more comfortable.

# Rocky Mountain high... #

He just liked to sit
and be in nature.

It filled him up, and out of that,

beautiful things came forth
in terms of his songwriting.

When he was in nature,
it inspired his songs,

it gave him a sense
of who he really was.

It brought him to be able to
communicate,

because he lived in it.

# Colorado
Rocky Mountain high... #

but the idyllic setting
of the Rocky Mountains

was a long way from the place
where he grew up.

BIG-BAND SWING MUSIC

John Denver was born
in 1943 in Roswell, New Mexico,

at the Air Force base
where his father was stationed.

And if this was far away from
Denver, Colorado, so was his name.

My real name is Henry John
Deutschendorf Junior. And...

That's a whole album cover!

My father was in the Air Force

and we moved around a great deal.

And it was one particular period
in my life

when I was 13 years old
and we moved from Tucson, Arizona
to Montgomery, Alabama.

And I was there for one year and
then we moved to Fort Worth, Texas.

It was always hard because you were
going into a new school, new people.

John was a little bit more shy,
and so it was harder for him.

And the music,
especially his guitar,

became a way of making friends
and being accepted.

And I said, "I like music,
play guitar," blah blah blah.

And so they asked me to bring my
guitar to class one day, which I did.

And all of a sudden...

All of a sudden people were saying
hello to me in the halls.

All of a sudden people knew me

as more than just another
one of the Air Force brats

that was coming through every year
through Maxwell Air Force base.

John's father, Dutch Deutschendorf,

had been born to
a poor Oklahoma farmer,

but joined the Air Force
in the Second World War
and soon became a top pilot.

He flew a number of planes.

He actually gave Lindberg
a test ride,

and I think it was a B-25,
he was flying those bombers,

and then he went on to fly the plane
that carried all the electronics

when they dropped the first
atomic bomb to test it.

Dutch Deutschendorf achieved
national fame flying a new bomber,

the B-58 Hustler.

In 1961, he broke six world
air speed records in one day.

My dad was a very tough guy.
A hard guy.

And he was hard on us. Not abusive.

I think John was...
Not more sensitive,

but a little shier
and a little more withdrawn,

and so where Dad and I would fight,
John and Dad would argue,

and John would get upset and go
in his room, play his guitar.

For this sensitive son of a Cold
War warrior, something had to give.

Aged 16, he took the family car
and ran away from home,

heading out West to Los Angeles,

with a dream of becoming
a folk singer.

But it didn't work out,

and his dad jumped into a friend's
jet to retrieve his wayward son.

Dad flew out there, and they went to
Disneyland and SeaWorld

and did all these things,
and then came back and, to me,

their relationship was, like,
golden.

But four years later, John tried
again, dropping out of college

and hitting LA just as the folk boom
was at its height.

So I left school and I came out here,
and started singing every place

I could around Los Angeles, at the
hootenannies that were going on,

and things at the Troubadour and
stuff like that. And Randy Sparks,

who in those days had a group called
the New Christy Minstrels,

gave me the chance to sing
and to do it for a couple of weeks,

and gave me an opportunity to
find out a little bit about

whether I could work on stage.

And he found out if I worked for him
and the audiences liked me.

Were you John...? I was John
Deutschendorf. Deutschendorf.

And things kind of started
going well for us,

at least they felt that we might
go someplace.

And one day there was this big
heavy meeting

and they sat down and said,
"Listen, kid, Deutschendorf..."

"Has got to go!"
"..has got to go!"

Randy says that they asked him
to change his name and John said,

"No, I will not give up
my father's name.

"I'm proud to be
a Deutschendorf." And Randy said,

"It won't fit on the marquee.
You have to change it."

They had a minor hit at the time
called Denver,

written about this city,
and the sheet music was on the wall
behind the desk.

And they said, "You're John Denver."

Now with his new name, John Denver
set out to make it as a folk singer.

The opening came when one of the big
names on the folk circuit,

the Chad Mitchell Trio,
lost their lead singer,

and hundreds of young folk artists
tried out for the role.

He came to New York to audition,

and it was very clear right away
that he was the best.

And it turns out I was very cruel,
didn't call him for a week.

And he had a very nervous week.

But it was obvious that John was
going to be terrific.

We just, you know, we were just
knocked out by this guy.

John was a fine musician,
an excellent musician,

a very fine 12-string guitar player.

There was an innocence,
I think, in a way,

that was believable and true.

The Mitchell Trio's trademark was
left-wing political satire.

Their targets were politicians,
religious leaders

and any opponents of Civil Rights.

Top of the list was the secret
racist group, the Ku Klux Klan.

# You'll never recognise us
There's a smile upon our face

# We're changing all our dirty sheets
And a-cleaning up the place

# Yep, since we got a lawyer
and a public relations man

# We're your friendly, liberal
Neighbourhood Ku Klux Klan

# Yes, we're your friendly, liberal
Neighbourhood Ku Klux Klan

# Ever since we got that lawyer
And that public relations man

# Of course, we did shoot
One reporter

# But he was just obscene

# And you can't call us
No filthy names

# What does Anglo-Saxon mean? #

For John, being in The Mitchell Trio
was a political education.

He says, "I don't know
anything about pol-IT-ics."

And we looked at him and said,
"John - it's PO-li-tics."

He said, "That's what I said,
I don't know anything about that."

Which was really true.

He was youthful, he was young,

and grew up from the viewpoint
of the material that we were doing.

# Your friendly neighbourhood Klan
who asks

# "What's wrong with a hood?"

# Your friendly, liberal
Neighbourhood Ku Klux...

# Grab your Cadillac
And head for the hills. #

APPLAUSE

The Mitchell Trio's main audience
were university students,

and the group played campuses
right across the Midwest.

In spring 1966, they were
in St Peter, Minnesota.

In the audience was a young
Annie Martell.

I was a sophomore in college,

and John was part of
The Mitchell Trio.

And he came into town,

and about three weeks later
I got a letter,

and he said that
if he was ever in the area again

he would love to meet me and...

have a talk.

And a year later, he called me
and he came over and picked me up,

and that's how this all started.

I was 20 and John was 23.

Very young, but I thought he was
very glamorous, very worldly.

He was not at all, but I thought so.

The two were married in June 1967,
but for John,

the hard life touring with
The Mitchell Trio carried on.

He was starting to write songs,
and recorded some of them

at his own expense, sending the
album out as a Christmas present.

This is the Christmas album that
John made for all his friends,

relatives, associates early
in his tenure in The Mitchell Trio.

Track three on the album was called,
Babe, I Hate To Go.

Milt Okun liked the tune,
but not the title.

I said, "John, that's a terrible
name for a very beautiful song."

He said, "What would you call it?"
I said, "Leaving on a jet plane."

He said, "But that's the third
line of the chorus.

"You never heard a song named after
the third line of a chorus."

I said, "It's a good name, let's go
with it." And he went with it.

SONG: 'Leaving On A Jet Plane'

# All my bags are packed
I'm ready to go

# I'm standing here
Outside your door... #

Milt Okun passed the song onto
another of his acts,

Peter, Paul and Mary,
and it became a smash hit,

going to the top
of the American pop charts.

# The taxi's waiting
He's blowing his horn

# Already I'm so lonesome... #

John became a friend of the group,
and would sometimes
join them on stage.

# So kiss me and smile for me

# Tell me that you'll wait for me

# Hold me like you'll never let me go

# I'm leaving on a jet plane

# I don't know when
I'll be back again... #

With the Vietnam War at its height,

the song gained added poignancy and
became a favourite among the troops.

For them, it was their goodbye song
when they were going to war.

So it's very moving to see how a
song travels in these kinds of ways.

And how a song like
Leaving On A Jet Plane

has become really
important to people.

The song had a resonance for John
even closer to home

when his younger brother, Ron,
went to Vietnam.

Well, I got drafted in 1968.

The weekend I shipped to Vietnam,

John was at the Washington
Monument at a peace concert.

A protest concert. And...

That was just the way it went.

# Last night I had
The strangest dream

# I never dreamed before

# I dreamed the world
Had all agreed

# To put an end to war. #

Even with his success
as a songwriter,

John and The Mitchell Trio
were struggling.

Their clean-cut good looks were
out of step with the new long-haired
rock bands,

and in 1968 they called it a day.

John decided to pursue
a solo career,

but his producer, Milt Okun,
struggled to get record companies
interested.

I struck out with John Hammond
at Columbia, Wexler at Atlantic,

and half a dozen others.

And someone at RCA, Harry Jenkins,
liked it.

And I brought John in the next
day to sing for the executives.

And it was a home run.

John Denver signed to RCA in 1969.

His first albums were in the classic
singer-songwriter vein.

The songs were intimate
and personal,

full of images of the natural world.

# Oh, I am the eagle
I live in high country

# In rocky cathedrals
That reach to the sky

# I am the hawk and there's
Blood on my feathers

# But time is still turning
They soon will be dry. #

Songs like The Eagle And The Hawk
remained a mainstay of John's act
for years to come.

But those early records
refused to sell.

Jerry Weintraub is now a top
Hollywood producer.

Then, he was a streetwise
New York music promoter,

and was brought in as John's
new manager.

And we got along, and I said, "Yeah,
let's try it." So we tried it.

And it was very successful
for a long time.

He was...

He was a farm boy.

Really didn't understand the city
or the ways of the city.

He was kind of naive at the time.

But he was nice.

John came to the meeting, you know,

with a guitar slung over his back
and wearing sandals,

and I wasn't sure that this meeting
would last more than five minutes.

But, you know, the synergy was
there, and it became successful.

# And reach for the heavens
And hope for the future

# And all that we can be
Not what we are. #

You don't make anybody anything,

you expose people to the talent

and they either like it or they
don't. You can't make anybody
like...

You don't put a gun on their head
and say, "Go buy this record."

They listen to it, and they decide
to enjoy it or not enjoy it.

I enjoyed his music and his songs,

and I always felt he was
going to be a star.

Jerry and John loved each other,

and I think Jerry epitomised
a lot for John in terms of

show business, and Jerry saw
something in John,

I think his wholesomeness and this
kind of, "gee-whiz" quality.

We all got on a rocket ship together,

and it was big, it was really big.

The song that launched
the rocket ship was

Take Me Home, Country Roads.

# Almost Heaven
West Virginia... #

It was co-written by two of John's
friends from the folk scene,

Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert

# Life is old there
Older than the trees

# Younger than the mountains
Blowing like a breeze... #

We were working at the Cellar Door
as John's opening act,

the week between Christmas
and New Year's 1970 going into '71.

John liked our music.

He was going to come over one night
he wanted to know what else we had.

I said, "Let's show him
Country Roads."

Bill says, "It's not finished."

I said, "I know, but, you know,
let's just show him what we got."

And he absolutely loved it.

And in the singing of it,
John took the lead,

Bill and I fell in with a harmony

and it just sounded so good
like that,

that we just decided
to perform it like that
the next night at the club.

# Dark and dusty
Painted on the sky

# Misty taste of moonshine

# Teardrops in my eye
Country roads take me home

# To the place I belong

# West Virginia
Mountain momma

# Take me home
Country roads. #

I remember riding in a car with him.
We were going to a concert
in Connecticut.

And he heard on the radio
for the first time.
We heard it on the radio.

And when I heard it on the radio,
I turned to him and said,

"That's going to be a smash hit.
That's great."

But I loved it. And the public
loved it. And they sold.

Sold a lot of records. He sold
an amazing amount of records.

He was an amazing artist.

Take Me Home, Country Roads was
a huge hit in the summer of 1971,

peaking at number two in the charts

and selling more than
three million copies.

# Mountain momma
Take me home country roads... #

When we recorded Country Roads,

we needed a little "tsch-tsch"
noise at one point,

and the only thing that made
any sense in the studio was,

John had some change in his pocket,

and instead of a tambourine
or something that was loud,

it was just a "tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch."

Money made music, baby.

# Down country roads
Take me home

# Down country roads. #

APPLAUSE

# It's a long way
From LA to Denver... #

After the success of Country Roads,

John moved permanently up to
the Rocky Mountains

and built his dream home in the
ski resort of Aspen, Colorado.

# A long way home
to Starwood in Aspen... #

Now it's one of the wealthiest towns
in America,

home to billionaires
and movie stars,

but back then it was very different.

# Sweet Rocky Mountain paradise... #

All of the mountain towns,

it was a little bit more like
the Wild West then.

But unexplored, certainly.

John fell in love with the outdoors,
and it was reflected in his music.

And I think he was on the cusp of
that becoming part of everyone's
consciousness back in the '70s,

just looking around and
seeing the beauty of nature.

And hearing it expressed in his
music was a big plus for him.

# I forgot what it's like
To be home... #

It was this old mining town becoming
a ski area, becoming a famous
ski area.

And you also had this little
intellectual, cultural aspect.

All of it was in its formation.
It was a wonderful time to be here.

And you'd have dinner with people

that were plumbers, electricians,
fishing guides.

Everything was pretty easy,
very laid-back and safe. Safe.

You could be yourself here.

# Oh, my sweet
Rocky Mountain Paradise. #

Inspired by this relaxed,
back-to-nature lifestyle,

John wrote a hymn to the
Rocky Mountains and his life there.

The song went on to become an anthem
for the state of Colorado.

# He was born in the summer
Of his 27th year

# Coming home to a place
He'd never been before... #

We went camping, backpacking with
some friends to a place

not far from here
called Williams Lake,

and it was the night of
the Perseid meteor shower.

And we're all camping and we're
laying out under the stars

and they start really going through
the sky between midnight and three.

And everybody was clapping
and yelling,

and it's really a magnificent,
magnificent thing to see.

Out of that he wrote
Rocky Mountain High.

"I've seen it raining
fire in the sky."

# But the Colorado
Rocky Mountain high

# I've seen it rainin'
fire in the sky

# The shadow from the starlight
is softer than a lullaby

# Rocky Mountain high. #

'So we were up all night watching
the most glorious display that'

I've ever seen in these mountains,
of meteorites,

and with that camping trip

and with the feeling of coming home
here to Colorado, to a place

I'd never been before, I ended up
writing Rocky Mountain High.

APPLAUSE

Country Roads and
Rocky Mountain High were big hits,

but John's next move
cemented his stardom.

Folk music on television to that
date had been serious and earnest.

But John's outgoing personality made
him a natural for the small screen.

I...I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking,
"Sure, he can play guitar and sing.

"But...can he juggle?"

LAUGHTER

'Television is a
very different medium

'from live entertainment,
because...

'you watch television in
your home and in 1970'

people had television sets
in their bedroom

and they laid in bed
and they watched television.

When you let
somebody into your bedroom,

they'd better be a nice person or
you don't want them in your bedroom.

This is TV, right?

I can do it again or do you
want me to leave it like that?

That's a very different quality,
from just being a performer,

he had that quality.

People wanted to be around him,

he made people feel
good and comfortable.

# Jessie went away last summer

# Couple of months ago. #

In 1973, Jerry Weintraub launched
John Denver's television career

not in America, but on the BBC where
there was less stress on ratings.

The six-part series combined music,
dance and comedy routines.

It was a runaway success
with British viewers.

# I think I'd rather be a cowboy. #

'It was my first step in television,
in entertainment television,

'I'd done a couple of documentaries
prior to that,

'and what I wanted to do was to come
someplace where there wasn't quite

so much pressure on the subject
and to stretch out a little bit

and see if I could dance and
what kind of comedy I could do.

# Magic moments.

'I was doing Top Of The Pops with
Pan's People, six dancers,

'a wonderful choreographer,
Flick Colby.'

I wish we'd had a camera
on the rehearsal of the choreography

because that was insanely funny,
because he was pretty much

flat-footed, but Flick was clever
enough to give him little moves

that he could do and of course
it was always hilarious.

Me Tarzan, you Jane.

It was a joy,
we did a live show every week.

Live on stage with an audience.

But it was more like a variety show.

# And daggers fly
Everybody loves to see the villain. #

And we were wearing costumes
and doing silly songs.

Oh, it was so much fun.

John Denver!

CROWD CHEERS

The series also gave
John his catch phrase.

It's far out,
you guys have been so great.

I thought that was far out,
it made my whole day.

Far out!

The success of the BBC series
was repeated in the USA

where John hosted TV specials
and documentaries.

He was fast becoming one of the
biggest stars in American music.

And his greatest hits album of 1973
sold over 10 million copies

in the first six
months alone.

The Rocky Mountains were
John's retreat,

a place where he could hide away.

Staying there in early 1974,
he wrote his most famous song -

a love letter to his wife, Annie.

Although it was written after a row.

John and I were in our kitchen.

And we had had an argument.

And we'd had an argument
and then we had sorted it out.

And he left to go skiing.

And I was putzing around
and about a half hour later,

45 minutes later,
he came back in the door.

And he had gone to Aspen Mountain
and gotten on the chairlift

and he wrote the song in 10 minutes.

And he came back
and he played it for me.

# You fill up my senses

# Like a night in a forest

# Like the mountains in springtime

# Like a walk in the rain

# Like a storm in the desert

# Like a sleepy blue ocean

# You fill up my senses

# Come fill me again. #

There was nobody on the mountain
when I started out that day.

I skied down this very tough run,
all out of breath,

I skied right onto the lift.

I was riding up again,
sitting there, catching my breath,

looking down at where I'd
just been a few months ago -

all this physical stuff going on.

When suddenly I was hypersensitive
to how beautiful everything was.

The sky was a blue you
only see from mountain tops.

Then I became aware of
the other people skiing,

the colours of their clothes,
the birds singing,

the sound of the lift,

the sibilant sound of
the skiers going down the mountain.

All of these things
filled up my senses

and, when I said this to myself,

unbidden images came
one after the other -

the night in the forest,
a walk in the rain,

the mountains in springtime.

All of the pictures merged and then
what I was left with was Annie.

That song was the embodiment
of the love that I felt at the time.

In the 10 minutes it took to reach
the top of the mountain,

the song was there.

# Let me give my life to you. #

It's been wonderful for me,
because I've heard it in elevators,

I've heard it in St Mark's Square
with violinists.

My daughter had it
played at her wedding.

Erm...

but people still
carry that with them

and it's just a beautiful,
beautiful gift.

The songs weren't contrived,
he wasn't a Tin Pan Alley writer -

he didn't go into an
office in the morning

or a studio and say,

"I'm going to sit and write some
songs," whenever it hit him.

He, erm, he wrote a song.

# You fill up my senses

# Come fill me again. #

APPLAUSE

John Denver's rise to
stardom coincided

with a bleak time
in American life.

With the Watergate crisis
and the end of the Vietnam War,

his simple songs of love and nature

struck a chord across
war-weary America.

# Sunshine on my shoulders
makes me happy. #

You know, this was the Vietnam era,

Nixon, hearings, there were
problems with gasoline shortages.

It's in those crisis moments
when you look to home and hearth

and meaning and taking care of the
Earth and taking care of each other.

# Looks so lovely. #

Yes, it does.

So, this was post the hippie period

and it was more a middle
America appeal, I think,

to people who did
want that kind of kindness.

Not as a gesture of opposition.

But as a simple affirmation

of people's ability to
care about one another.

# Just like today. #

But not everyone liked John Denver.

In the rock music press,
he was widely loathed.

John took his shots from
a generation of rock critics

in the early '70s.

Rock journalism was kind
of in its nascent stages at the time

and you had people jockeying
for position by pointing out

the coolest music or
the newest music

or the most underground music.

And that wasn't John.

John wore granny glasses,
he said "far out",

he was relentlessly cheerful.

So he wasn't going to get
backing in that particular sector

and it's too bad, because they
didn't pay attention to his music,

they paid attention to his image.

Well, they didn't
say good things about him, you know.

They didn't give him the same
adulation that they gave the Beatles

or that they gave...

And he sold as many records.
He didn't get that from the critics.

He got the opposite.
They'd say, "What is this about?"

John read that stuff
and it really affected him.

'The last interview I conducted with
John was in the early '90s

'and we got around to the topic
of his detractors'

and he said something that really
resonated with me.

He was called the
Mickey Mouse Of Rock,

the Ronald Reagan Of Pop.

What he was angry about was what
it meant regarding his fans -

the people that had seen a birth
of a child to his music or

had gotten married to one
of his songs -

that they were being disparaged.

That angered him.
That's what got under his skin.

John would sing to 18,000 people

and the music critics would just
talk about how pap his music was,

and the last tag line was

"But the 18,000 people
seemed to enjoy it."

John Denver was a hugely
popular live entertainer.

His concerts often had the reverence
of a religious gathering,

rather than a regular pop concert.

# I had an uncle name of Matthew. #

He put together a stellar band,

many of whom had played for Elvis,
like guitar legend James Burton.

His music was very disciplined.

And everything had to be just in
the right spot, the right space.

And John relied a lot on his band,

but he was a very good musician
and a great singer/songwriter.

And he could put
the people in the palm of his hand.

It was just like a one-on-one,
you know.

The people were right there with him.

I mean, even though
we had 30,000 people,

it was like they were right
there with us on stage.

# Blue, just a Kansas summer sky. #

Now, you hear that?
That's not a Rocky Mountain High.

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen.
My friend, Mr Frank Sinatra.

By 1976, less than five years
after Country Roads,

this former folky had
been transformed

into America's most
popular performer.

Now the biggest stars wanted
to be seen alongside him.

# I've got you under my skin. #

'I remember the first time
they worked together,

'we did Harrah's in Lake Tahoe.'

And when we put the show on sale,

the phone lines in
the western United States

went down from
the reservations.

That's how big it was.

You know, Frank, I was just thinking
about the time that song

was first heard, so was I.

LAUGHTER

Boy, you know how to make a guy
feel mature, don't you?

Well, no, really, Frank,

do you have any idea how many
romances got started to your music?

No, I don't, but I never got
any of the action either. Folks...

Sometime during his tenure
with the trio,

I remember him saying that it was
one of his ambitions

in life to become as much
of a household name as Frank Sinatra.

The pay off came years later

when I found myself in Los Angeles
driving up Sunset Boulevard

and looking up and seeing a
humongous poster of the two of them

with their arms crossed, standing
back-to-back with each other.

And I thought to myself,
"By golly, he made it!"

# But I get a kick

# You give me a boot

# I get a kick

# Out of you

# Out of you. #

APPLAUSE

John was now in
the superstar league -

he had his own Learjet
and got his dad to fly it for him.

I hope you folks recognise me,

but I'm not sure you'll recognise
the gentleman on my right.

He's my father, John Deutschendorf.

He's been a pilot all his life,
he taught me how to fly.

# I guess he'd rather
be in Colorado. #

And back home in Aspen, John's
own family started to grow

as he and Annie adopted
two small children.

Zach was the first and he was this
little brown, beautiful little boy.

And then Anna Kate was the second.

And John was just thrilled
and over the moon

that this was happening too,
cos we'd have a boy and a girl.

You know, when I was younger,
I just thought that was, I guess,

it was normal.

Erm, you know,
I thought it was always like that

until I was old enough to
understand that it was different.

Erm, and that all these people
were coming to see him.

And for Zach and kids everywhere,
John was a fixture on '70s TV

through his frequent
appearances with the Muppets.

It was... Early on, it was, you know
when the Muppets were big, I guess.

It's different than it is now.

But it was always a lot of fun.

Where to, Mr?

Get in.

Oh.

Already a big star on TV, John
Denver next went into the movies.

Produced by Jerry Weintraub,

Oh, God was a comedy which played on
John's everyman appeal

by casting him as
a supermarket manager

who is visited by the Almighty,

personified by 90-year-old comedian
George Burns.

I was just thinking, maybe...

What about a little rain?
A little rain?

Yeah, a small shower.

One small shower, you got it.

RAIN STARTS

Hey, hey, it's raining.

You made it rain!

'It was an exciting time and Oh, God
was a big hit all around the world.

'I don't know how skilled
he was as an actor,'

he was good because he did on screen
exactly what he did on television.

He had a great smile and you
accepted him in your house.

I wouldn't term him an ac...
He was a singer, an artist.

It's just like Noah's Ark!

Same thing, without the smell.

# It's cold here in the city. #

Despite his huge success,

John Denver had always been prone
to insecurity and self-doubt.

From the early '70s,

he'd been involved in new-age
therapies including

the controversial self-awareness
programme EST or est.

Est is Erhard Seminars Training,

it's one of the many self discovery
actions or seminars or workshops...

Why did you want to discover more
about yourself? Was it something you
were uncomfortable with?

Oh, I think it's part of what
Tom Wolfe called,

in the 1970s, The Me Decade.

We really want to know who we are.

There are things going on.

We learn more and more
about ourselves all the time.

And to really find out what it is
that makes us tick

and how we are and can
be really individuals

and how our lives
can make a difference.

He was extraordinarily
serious about est.

That doesn't mean that I have to be,
you know,

I thought it was stupid,
but that's just me.

But I know a lot of people
that came out of est,

they'd got a lot from it.

But he needed that.
You know, people need things,

they turn to whatever it is that
gets them through the day.

That helped him get through
the day for a very long time.

John was complicated.

I think people have a certain
vision of him -

the kind of "Gee golly, far out,"
those kind of things.

But he was basically
a pretty quiet guy.

I think he was insecure.

But I think he had
a difficult time with success.

I think that was very hard for him.

Because I don't think
he knew how good he was.

Many, many artists don't realise
how good they are,

that's when the darkness comes out.

I don't think he ever accepted the
fact that he was as good as he was.

Because the critics always
were a problem for him.

I think most of our fear
comes from not thinking we're enough

and that ironically I think sometimes
the more success you can have,

and particularly if it's been
a rocket ship, a rocket ride,

that there's not all that
time to develop perhaps other
aspects of yourself.

That's just my take on it.

But for the time being, these doubts
were put to one side as John

continued his reign as
America's favourite singer.

He was one of the first celebrities
to use his fame to raise awareness

of environmental issues and
forged a firm friendship

with underwater explorer
Jacques Cousteau.

Welcome aboard Calypso. It is great
to be here. Let me show you around.

At some point, I think it was
during dinner or after dinner,

he asked my dad, he said,

"Captain, do you mind if I go
to the bow of the ship

"for a while? I need to think."
And my dad said, "Yes, of course."

So he went to the bow and that's
when he wrote Aye Calypso.

# Aye, Calypso,
the places you've been to

# Things that you show us
The stories you tell

# Aye, Calypso,
I sing to your spirit

# The men who have served you
so long and so well. #

Typical of John and his generosity,
ultimately he gave the revenue

of that particular song to the
not-for-profit company of my father.

And I remember
collecting big cheques.

Supporting Jacques Cousteau
was only one strand

of John's political
activism and this side of him,

last seen in the Mitchell Trio days,
was reborn.

He campaigned against whaling...

# Have you heard the song the
humpback hears 500 miles away

# Telling tales of ancient history
of passages and home. #

..and worked with
President Jimmy Carter

on a commission combating
hunger in Africa.

He was the guy that was there
before We Are The World,

the whole Hunger Project,
he started that.

Working on
the President's commission

on world and domestic hunger.

Everywhere he saw... And this
was in the '70s, this is early

and he was ahead of his time.

The Stings and the Bonos

and the people who use their status
well to help others,

I think they were inspired by John
back then, he sort of set the tone.

To further these ideas, John Denver
set up his own foundation, Windstar,

and bought a large tract of land
near Aspen as its base.

This is late '70s, the land was
purchased by the mid-'80s,

we had hundreds of people out there,

we had wind generation experiments,
solar demonstrations,

we had an international symposium
where 1,500 people would come,

so it was an exciting,
exciting place

and probably ahead of its time.

# Usually in the morning

# I'm filled with sweet belonging. #

While he was famous as a campaigner,
by the early 1980s,

John Denver's status as
a pop star was fading.

Although his albums
were still popular,

he hadn't had a hit single
since Calypso in 1975.

His personal life was
also in turmoil.

His father, to whom he'd grown
closer through their love of flying,

died suddenly in March 1982.

And only three months later,
on their 15th wedding anniversary,

Annie asked him for a divorce.

It's complicated.

I think anybody that's been married
to an entertainer or in that

kind of industry where it's
bigger than life...

I think the pressures are enormous
and I didn't have the maturity,

and I don't think John did, either,

to be able to deal with each other
the way perhaps we could now, today.

You know, there was hurt,
there was anger,

there was disappointment and I know
for me when I look back is that we

were young and we didn't know how
to talk about these things.

Well, I think over the last four,
five, six years,

we started drifting away from one
another and part of it had to do with

the amount of time that
we spent not together

and the things that we, I suppose,

got locked into
and not being together

and then an inflexibility
when we got back together

to sort of integrate the
other's life into our own.

Within that, we sort of found that
we have different interests,

we had different friends,
we had very little in common.

Do you see her?
Yes, I do.

# This is what
it's like falling out of love

# This is the way you
lose your very best friend

# This is how it feels
when it's all over

# This is just the way
a true love ends. #

Like so many people, they look
at divorce like it's a failure.

It's one of those big failures,
you know.

John was depressed about it.

He loved his kids,
I think he loved Annie

and John had all of the
things tugging at him

that he wasn't about
to give up.

And Annie wanted a guy to be
around and he wasn't.

# Then the nights grow cold
and hard to live through. #

The down spells cycled
throughout his life

from when he was very young.

And I think he went through
this enormous down spell
with relationships.

And maybe because suddenly
they weren't playing his music,

every star has their flourishing

and then there's a time when
you're not being played,

so those insecurities might
have crept in. Who knows?

All I know is John went
through a very difficult time.

# This is how it feels
when it's all over. #

Well, I think as we get
older and we lose people...

You know, his father died
and then his first marriage failed.

And then he had other
disappointments

and I think you
become more serious.

Yeah, I think
it was a hard period for him,

but like they say, "One door
closes and another one opens."

And in Australia in 1986 there
was a new stage in John's life

when he met singer
and actress Cassandra Delaney.

I was in Sydney, cos that's
where I was raised,

and I was actually a wedding singer
the night that I met John.

I was at the Sebel Town House
doing a show for this wedding

and we were sitting at the bar and
it was packed and in walks this...

this guy with two guys beside him
and I looked over and it was...

And he looked at me and it was
kind of love at first sight.

And I turned to my guitar player
and he was like,

"Do know who that is?"
I'm, like, "No."

And he's like, "That's John Denver,"
and I went, "Oh, well...

"John Denver. Well, maybe
I'll just go home!"

After a whirlwind courtship,
John and Cassandra married

and she joined his life on the road
and his campaigning.

When I met him in the late '80s,

he was really getting involved
in the politics of the environment

and you know he was passionate
about NASA and going to the moon.

You know, he was going into space.

For many years, John had been
one of the foremost campaigners

for civilians to go into space.

He hoped to lead the way
as a passenger

on the Challenger
Space Shuttle.

Until President Reagan announced
a year and a half ago, during his

presidential campaign, that he
was going to send a teacher first,

I thought that I would be the first
one to go and that was my flight.

He sent Christa McAuliffe.

I knew all of
the astronauts on board,

I knew Christa.
I support NASA 1,000%.

I think it's one of
the best things going on

not only in the United States,
but in the world.

Tragically, the Challenger
exploded on take off

killing everyone on board.

Would you go if there were another
Challenger mission?

I would go right now, I would go
tomorrow if it were possible.

# They gave us their light

# They gave us their spirit
and all they could be. #

Although he still featured in events
like the Challenger Benefit,

by the mid-1980s John Denver's
star had fallen.

When the charity record, We Are
The World, was produced in 1985,

he wasn't even
invited to take part.

He also broke up with his
long-term manager Jerry Weintraub.

And, in 1986, Denver
was dropped by RCA,

the company for whom he'd
sold over 100 million records.

RCA was an incredibly
stupid record company.

Unfortunately,
every year they changed presidents

and changed A&R people and new
people came in, younger people,

they didn't care about
John Denver,

they probably didn't even know
who he was, you know?

# Lady, are you happy?

# Do you feel the way I do? #

His personal life went
through more troubles.

Although John and Cassandra had
a baby daughter, Jesse Belle,

their marriage was short-lived and
ended in divorce after four years.

In the 1990s, his appearances
in the media were more often

for drunk-driving offences
than for his music.

# My sweet lady. #

But John Denver had a loyal fanbase

and he still played sell-out
shows around the world.

In 1995, he released
a double live album

which surprised
many by going gold.

For his friends,

John seemed to be in a happier place
than he'd been for many years.

He was turning the corner
on so many things.

He was still discovering what he's
going to do in this next era.

But there was a deeper peace
about him, a deeper understanding

about him, much greater wisdom
about this celebrity which the

flourishing star maybe had passed,
but the ability to make a difference

was possibly even stronger,
because he had greater wisdom.

But tragically there was to be
no comeback for John Denver.

Since learning to fly with his
father, he'd become a keen pilot,

owning a number of
high-performance stunt planes.

On October 12th, 1997,

he took delivery of an
experimental kit plane, the Long-EZ.

Test flying it at a low level
over Monterey Bay,

the plane crashed into the sea.

The accident report concluded
that it had run out of fuel

and that John had been unable to
switch to the reserve tank.

He was killed instantly.

We got to talking one
day and I said,

"John, do you ever
think about something,

"maybe tragedy in a plane or
something?" He said, "Never."

He said, "If it's my time to go,

"I would want to go
flying my plane."

I picked up the phone
and Malcolm said that,

"Cassie, there's been an accident."

And I'm like...

I, I pretty much just
fell to the floor.

And then I got on the phone
and started talking to everybody

and telling them how it was
a mistake, it wasn't John,

he wasn't there, you know,
blah, blah, blah.

And trying to cover it to keep
it from getting to Mom...

for a while.

# I've been lately
thinking about my life's time

# All the things I've done
and how it's been

# And I can't help
believing in my own mind

# I know I'm gonna hate
to see it end. #

I think he was a great artist.

I think he was a wonderful man,
a wonderful fellow, when I knew him.

I loved him dearly,
I miss him a lot.

# I've known my lady's pleasures. #

He represented America
at its best and healthiest.

He's a wonderful artist
and a wonderful writer

and I think his songs will be
sung for hundreds of years.

They're that good.

# I have to say it now
It's been a good life all in all. #

My brother was a great guy.

I mean, he could be wonderfully
generous, like all people,

and he could be an asshole
like all people.

And I have experiences
of both, you know.

It didn't affect my love for him
or that I like his music.

# Sit and pass the pipe around. #

He was a hard guy to picture dead,
cos he'd been so alive.

As I said,
nothing scared him.

# How sweet it is to love someone
How great it is to care

# How long it's been
since yesterday. #

I feel close to him, you know,
when I'm in the mountains.

And, you know, when I'm looking at
things that I know he looked at,

you know, that he saw,
I feel pretty close to him.

# And talk of poems
and prayers and promises

# And things that we believe in

# How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care

# How long it's been from yesterday

# What about tomorrow?

# What about our dreams
and all the memories we share? #

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