John Denver: Mother Nature's Son [Hardcover]

John Collis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

John Denver was America's biggest-selling solo star of the '70s. In commercial terms he was on a par with Sinatra in the '40s, Elvis in the '50s and the Beatles in the '60s. He experimented with a variety of styles and won fans from such diverse worlds as folk, pop and country music. Beneath the often tranquil surface of his music and his clear, clean tenor voice, however, lurked a darker side to Denver's character. The writer of 'Annie's Song', one of the most straightforward and personal expressions of love, became a wife-beater. The man who cavorted with the Muppets was an alcoholic. The committed environmentalist had his own plane, the most polluting form of transport. John Collis has delved deep to discover exactly who John Denver was. By unravelling the complexities of the singer's personality and background, he reveals Denver as a complicated, contradictory man, much more intriguing than the sometimes placid surface of his music might suggest. Millions of people around the globe found something in his music that touched their souls; Collis, by charting Denver's career and development as an artist, explores his legendary contribution not only to the world of music but also to the society of which he was a protagonist and a victim.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Shallow survey of the sandy-haired pop singer whose airy nature-loving ballads hid a darker life of drunkenness, emotional turmoil, and spousal violence. In his introduction, British music journalist Collis (Van Morrison: Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, not reviewed) confesses that he has ``always harboured some reservations'' about Denver's music, and later dismisses such chart-topping hits as ``Sunshine on My Shoulders'' as ``irredeemably banal.'' Born Henry J. Deutschendorf Jr. in Roswell, New Mexico, on New Year's Eve 1943, the future pop star chafed against the severity of domestic life with his father, an Air Force pilot whose frequent postings took his family all over the world but gave the youngster a feeling of homelessness. At the age of 13, Henry Jr. received his first guitar (from his grandmother) and five years later left home for Los Angeles to become a folk singer. After some false starts, he became a fixture in the folk clubs, where he changed his name and eventually joined the Chad Mitchell Trio. His ``Leaving on a Jet Plane'' became a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary. He was later signed to RCA as a solo act andthanks to a likable stage presence, a songbook promoting nature appreciation over drugs, and several cleverly placed TV appearancesDenver became an international star in the 1970s, while secretly indulging in drugs, booze, and violent acts (some involving chainsaws) against his wife. After co-starring with the Muppets and George Burns in movies, Denver championed environmental issues and EST founder Werner Erhard's ill-fated Hunger Project. He was in the midst of a comeback when he died in 1997 while flying an experimental airplane off the California coast. Because Collis has relied almost exclusively on published sources and has done comparatively little original research, he falls back too heavily upon speculation about Denver's hidden personality and private demons. As a biography, this book has about as much depth as Denver's songs. (6 photos) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Say it ain't so. Could it be that pop star John Denver--a bard of love and life and American's best-selling solo star of the 70s--abused his wife? That the hard-core environmentalist was a private-plane-flying air polluter?...While discussing the dark sides that may...have lurked beneath Denver's grin, Collis also gives a nod to the positive impact of the singer's ecological activism and wholesome music." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square Publishing (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840181249
• ISBN-13: 978-1840181241
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,432,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

107 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars John Denver's Amazing Life Deserves A Better Effort, May 23, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Denver: Mother Nature's Son (Hardcover)

I was saddened to discover that the so-called biographer of one of this century's most beloved artists, entertainers, conservationists, and humanists couldn't marshall a more formidable effort on behalf of John Denver. Why undertake a project like this with such misgivings and such a lack of appreciation for who Denver was, how much he personally contributed, or how deeply he affected millions of fans and admirers. While the author may personally find aspects of John's musical style superficial or slick, no one delving deeper into John Denver's story can fail to appreciate his sheer talent, energy, sincerity, and humanity, nor to be impressed by the energy, talent, or persistence in the plethora of important projects John threw himself into.

Any number of his songs are quite widely covered, even today, yet no one has ever been more successful presenting what was basically an extremely popular and easy-to-listen to (the word beautiful seems descriptively inadequate) country music cross over into the popular realm than was John Denver. He was indeed a phenomenon.

At a time when singer/songwriters like James Taylor, Van Morrison, and Elton John were tearing up the charts, Denver effectively outsold, outwrote, and outperformed them in terms of his public appeal. This is not intended as a put-down of any of these incredible artists, all of whom have continued to create and contribute today . It is rather to emphasize how amazing his continuing success and effective domination of the popular music charts in the 1970s was. John Denver was THE singular popular musical superstar of thee 1970s, and the fact that he was deserves to be recognized for the phenomenal success it was.

His deeply personal musical voice spoke simply yet eloquently through the vehicle of a unique perspective on the world, and combined an intensely personal way of describing himself and his relationships with a seductively romantic view of the world. Of course, he quickly became identified with his soaring paens in praise of the beauty of the natural world, and almost as quickly became a driving force popularizing the environmental movement, often testifying to Congress with great style and verve, often very influential in the drafting of certain aspects of the clean water and clean air acts.

As the years went by became Denver became less and less concerned about his own career and more and more involved in various environmental and humanist causes. He was friend and confidant to luminaries, world leaders and philosophers like Jacques Cousteau and Buckminister "Bucky" Fuller, and spent time working, covorting and relaxing with a list of notables that sounds like a who's who list of 20th century luminaries.

His personal life was as complex and as full of sadness as often true of most exceptional people, and no one denies that he had bouts of depression and tough times over the years. Haven't we all? And isn't that the price one pays for being a human being in this, the last half of the 20th century? Why dwell on his frailties and vulnerabilities when they pale in comparison with his accomplishments and contributions? As his brother commented on suggestions that John's tragic death in a plane crash was a suicide, anyone knowing how much John loved living and life itself who could say that he committed sucide must have his head up his ass.

Still, with all of this taken into account, nothing can still bring such a fond smile to millions of babyboomer faces or such a twinkle to many of our eyes as can the mere mention of John Denver's name. Those of us who have witnessed the incredible panorama of music in the last thirty years or so still hold a special place in the valhalla of artistic fame for the bespectacled kid with a shock of bushy blond hair who walked the frozen streams and mountain passes of the American Rockies, and sang so simply, so beautifully, and so eloquently to all of us from his heart. These kids running around the Rockies in their high-tech clothing and glacier boots haven't got a clue, viewing the wilderness as another Disneyland, just another setting for their self-absorbed personal adventures, something to demonstrate their prowess and flatter their egos. Yet Denver helped a whole generation discover how much of a world onto itself the wilderness is, and how much of a gift from Providence such natural wonder is.

For Denver the wilderness presented us with a chance to be fuller, kinder, and better people, people who cared about all of God's creation and would act as caretakers for everything in this garden. What we need is a better biography to help these kids understand. In essence, Denver wasn't just an incredibly talented and popular and successful singer/songwriter/entertainer; he was a very special human being who reached higher, stronger, and farther than most normal human beings, someone who opened his heart, head, and spirit to share and guide us with. He deserves a better biography that appreciates the full story of his gifts, contributions, and legacy.

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your time with this book!, June 3, 2004

By 

Jessica Herold "jess8h" (OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Denver: Mother Nature's Son (Paperback)

If I could have given this book a negative number, I would have. The 190-page book could have been cut in half; only that much is actually about John Denver. Collis leads the reader to believe the book is a biography about Denver, when in fact he jumps between issues and events surrounding Denver's life. He accuses him of being a "wife-beater", and does give an example, albeit one brief example towards the back of his book. Collis is more interested in telling us about his favorite music stars of the time than giving any information about the artist the book proclaims to be about.
As someone said before, if you want to know about Denver, read his autobiography "Take Me Home", rather than wasting your precious time and money on Collis' biography. There's also a movie that made a better impression on me than this attempt to describe Denver's life, "Take Me Home: The John Denver Story". Don't make the same mistake I did by reading this.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Cut & Paste Job, January 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: John Denver: Mother Nature's Son (Hardcover)

Readers, if you want to learn something about John Denver's life or his place in music history, don't waste your time with this book. I have serious doubts about the "facts" Collis presents, considering that within the first 62 pages Collis informs us that:
* the distance from Ft. Worth to El Paso is "the best part of 1,500 miles" (p. 42)--which will come as quite a surprise to most Texans, who think the true distance is less than half that
*Texas Tech is in Austin (p. 42)--what a shock to the TTU students who've been attending classes in Lubbock since 1925
*Don Kirshner "formed his Monkees by selecting. . .Mickey 'Circus Boy' Dolenz and Davy Jones. . . [and] Peter Tork, an enthusiastic mimer of the bass guitar" (p. 62)--Don Kirshner didn't "form" the Monkees; Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson did. Kirshner was brought in as musical supervisor after Micky (spelled without an "e"), Davy, Peter and Mike were hired (see p. 31 of Glenn Baker's _Monkeemania_). And by the way, Peter is a consumate musician who plays 10 instruments, including bass.

Each of these facts would have been very easy to check. Collis didn't bother, which provokes doubts about the accuracy of anything else he writes in _Mother Nature's Son_.

Nor is there evidence of original research; Collis' sources, when he troubles himself to credit them, are magazine interviews and clips from John Denver's autobiography. This book is a clip job. Read the original sources, especially John's _Take Me Home_, to get the facts in context.