Customer Reviews

John Denver's Greatest Hits

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Long after his untimely death in 1997, John Denver's songs continue to flicker through America's collective unconscious. Everyone, even the hip hop generation, can sing "Take me Home, Country Roads" and "Rocky Mountain High." Time has actually treated the oft-maligned Denver, born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., rather well. Stripped of the 1970s music culture that derided him as sappy, corny, hokey, shallow, and the essence of uncool, his songs can finally speak for themselves. The era of "art" and "glam" rock had no patience for a "high on life" grinning ear-to-ear songwriter who, to them, resembled the Marlboro Man's disowned hippy son. He got it from all sides. After climbing up the rock/pop charts, Denver soon began to score on the country charts. He became a crossover phenomenon, which meant, in his case, that neither the rock/pop nor the country music communities accepted him. Like usurped royalty they watched as his albums sold millions.

No album of Denver's outsold "John Denver's Greatest Hits." According to the RIAA, it has sold over nine million copies in the United States and still occupies a spot on their top 100 all-time best selling albums list. But its title remains a slight misnomer. At the time of its release in 1973 only four of the album's eleven songs really qualified as "hits." The others had appeared on his then neglected first three albums, released between 1969 and 1970. Those nonstarters nearly ended his career with a splat. Then, a miracle. The final album of his four album contract, 1971's "Poems, Prayers, and Promises," included the now archetypal "Take Me Home, Country Roads." In a flash Denver became ubiquitous. Another gargantuan hit followed in 1972, "Rocky Mountain High," that solidfied the Cheshire Cat nature boy as a major celebrity. The fuse was lit. "Sunshine On My Shoulder" soared to number one in 1974, outdoing both "Country Roads" and "Rocky Mountain High," following the release of this "Greatest Hits" compilation. Self-fulfilling prophecy, indeed. The remaining qualifying "hit", "Leaving On a Jet Plane," wasn't even a John Denver hit. Though he wrote the song, it was Peter, Paul and Mary that launched it up the charts in 1967. He recorded it for his first solo album, 1969's "Rhymes & Reasons," but the album went nowhere. Paradoxically, regardless of the fact that this "Greatest Hits" album only contains a few actual "hits," the album nonetheless remains Denver's biggest hit album.

Not only that, Denver actually re-recorded many of the older songs specifically for this collection. As he says in the apologetic liner notes: "I felt that some of these songs had grown a bit, that I am singing better than I was four or five years ago, and that I would like to treat some of the songs a little differently than I had in the original recordings." This very unorthodox, and unprecedented, approach to a greatest hits collecton gives the album a very consistent sound. Instead of a creating a collage of styles and production values, Denver essentially constructed an entirely new album. This allowed the once neglected songs to take on a new life. He made them sound like hits.

The songs on this album capture the sound and feel of their era. Just listen. A mere nanosecond of "Country Roads" has enough potency to evoke now whispy images of dark paneled walls with moving waterfall beer signs, oversaturated technicolor landscapes, three-channel television playing documentaries on Sasquatch and Nessie, ubiquitous ashtrays, wide aisled department store dreams, and analog living standards. "Rocky Mountain High" contains enough Americana one can almost imagine Woody Guthrie singing it. Almost. The 1970s would not have sounded the same without John Denver, which, though some may have preferred, detractors cannot deny.

John Denver remains one of the most adored and satirized singer songwriters in recent memory. He had the "honor" of being strangled on a Monty Python Record (resulting in a defamation lawsuit that he won), as well as being honored with numerous awards and tributes following his accidental death. He even embraced conservation long before it went mainstream. "Greatest Hits" captures his career on the early upswing, but not quite at its peak. He continued to dominate the radio and television airwaves throughout the 1970s. "Greatest Hits Volume II" continues the story.

In 1974, my fourth grade teacher told us that on the last day of school we could bring a record of our choosing and we would listen to it while we had our end-of-school-celebration. You probably couldn't get away with doing that now because some fourth grader might bring Limp Bizket or Korn to to the party...kids these days...but in '74, there was some pretty innocuous music going on. My friend brought Jim Croce, another friend brought some Stevie Wonder, and this girl that I was absolutely crazy about brought this particular album.

The thing that was so great about John Denver was that he was a very accomplished musician and knew how to elicit some pretty strong emotions with his music. A lot of people think his music was just sweet without much substance, it was sweet but it was always on the border of being just a little bit sad, as well. I guess that is called 'bittersweet'.

For example, Sunshine. What a great song. It's so simple. It's about the sun. Do we even think about the sun? Do we even realize what a blessing it is? Did you know that if the sun was just a little bit closer we'd burn to a crisp or if it was just a little bit farther away, it would be too cold for the earth to sustain life? But this is just a touching little song about the beauty of the sun and how good it feels to be in the sunshine. Simple. Nice. Touching.

And then Poems, Prayers, and Promises. It's just about being with good friends...and, uhhhh "passing the pipe around"...but y'know, it's okay, it's John Denver. I mean, at least he wasn't all tatted out and had a bone through his nose.

And then there's Leaving On A Jet Plane. Now when I was nine, I didn't realize the heaviness of this song. Brother, this is a sad, sad song and yet in typical Denver style, there's a few glimmers of hope going on in there and maybe that was the beauty of Denver's writing, he knew that every situation could be turned around, every cloud had its silver lining.

When I heard of Denver's death, I really got sad. He just seemed like a friend. In the back of my mind I knew he wasn't long for this world, most people who wear their soul on their sleeve aren't, but at the same time when they do go, the world just seems like a less brighter place.

I play this record on a regular basis, missing my "friend", and knowing that while he was here, he gave us some pretty incredible gifts.

Peace & Blessings

Whenever I head west and drive through the mountains, this is the CD I want to listen to. It might seem an obvious link, John Denver's music and the Rocky Mountains, but it is nonetheless appropriate. For some reason "Rocky Mountain High," "Starwood in Aspen," and "The Eagle and the Hawk" sound better at higher altitudes. These eleven songs are those Denver said were most requested in his concerts, but also "Rhymes and Reasons," which he considered having his best lyrics and which is my favorite on the album. Denver had been recording his own songs for only a short time, not really long enough of a period to justify a greatest hits collection, but these were the songs that defined John Denver and his music to the world.

This greatest hits album is somewhat unusual because Denver rerecorded many of the songs, explaining that he felt he was signing better and that he wanted to do something a little different with some of these songs than he had in the original versions. The improvements are noticeable, as is Denver's growth as a songwriter from his earliest hits, "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (where, to be fair, he was the third of three writers) to his later works such as "Poems, Prayers and Promises." Recording their most popular songs would not make sense for a lot of artists, but it is hard to argue with the results in this particular instance.

This 1974 collection sold over ten million copies worldwide, and remained on the Billboard charts for over two years making it all the way to the top for a while. Technically only a couple of these songs are legitimate hits, with "Sunshine On My Shoulders" making it to #1 and "Rocky Mountain High" to #9, but that is besides to the point ("John Denver's Greatest Hits, Volume 2" has more "hits," but this is the better collection). Listen again to these lyrics and you will get the sense of how these are songs are hymns about the glories of nature and the depths of human relationships. There is not a bad song on this album and listening to it will always make you feel better.

This is not a horrible remaster, but the original recording on CD has a much "Higher" pitched tone to the music, which I prefer. This remaster sounds like the sound is more "Muffled" and not as high pitched or "trebly." The big kick one hears from the guitar, like the opening string on Rocky Mountain High, is now gone, just listen to the original verses the remaster to get an idea of how this remaster is not like the original CD. Some people might like it better this way, I personally do not. I think a compromise could have been had by those who remastered this CD, instead they went for taking all of the "Treble" and "Kick" out of the original, and to me that ruined it.

Excellent job with the remastering of John Denver's Greatest Hits. Hopefully RCA will reissue and remaster his Greatest Hits: Volume 2 and Windsong cd's real soon!!!

...this is a repackaged CD of the original Album/CD with added songs. I have to say I'm not too crazy about that. This was a pinnacle album in John Denver's career when originally released on vinyl back in 1973. In my opinion this updated version is not a true representation of that historical album, and this hybrid CD has now become something other than it originally was and that lessens its impact for me.

I feel that way despite the fact that they added two great songs! The added song "Daydream" has always been a personal favorite of mine and I'm glad someone has recognized the fact that it is a very fine song. But the drawback to that added track is that on his first Greatest Hits compilation John Denver had originally re-recorded many of the songs back in 1973 because he felt that had grown as a singer and artist since those songs were first recorded. "Daydream" was never re-recorded and that is evident on this CD because the song is representative of his old way of singing, and so despite being a great song it musically seems out of place to the vocal quality of the rest of the songs on the CD. The same could be said of the other two additions, "I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado," a great song that became popular once again among his fans as John played it in concert in his later years. The tune "Friends With You," written by Bill Danoff, was just an okay song and now has become the only song on this CD NOT written by John Denver.

I give it five stars because, despite my ranting, it is John Denver and he was simply the best at what he did. Since the original CD without the added songs is no longer available I'd like to conclude this review by adding my original Amazon review for that version of the CD.

When the original album was released in 1973, it contained only two songs that had been chart hits for John Denver. The two songs were; "Take Me Home, Country Roads," and "Rocky Mountain High." The rest of the material was considered the best songs off of his first five albums for RCA. This was marketing genius. It became a huge seller and solidified John Denver's status as a musical phenomenon.

Many songs had been re-recorded for this album reflecting John's growth as a performer. The melancholy ballad "Sunshine On My Shoulders" was culled from this album, having been ignored on the album "Poems, Prayers and Promises." With a string section added to the track it became John Denver's first number one hit.
Despite the fact that at the time there was only a few bonafide hits on the album, all of the songs have become well-recognized treasures from John Denver's astonishing career. Songs such as "Rhymes and Reasons" and "Starwood in Aspen," "The Eagle and The Hawk" could have been forgotten if they had not had been included on this album. That would have been a shame. I'm grateful that RCA recognized the quality of the material John had produced and showcased it on this album. This truly is an album that personifies the beauty, the profoundness, and depth, of a great musician.

This album contains many of John Denvers early hit songs, all of them favorites of mine - "Rocky Mountain High", "Starwood in Aspen", "For Baby, for Bobbie", "Sunshine on my Shoulders", etc. And while there are a number of anthologies of John Denver's hits, all of which are very good, this is the only one that contains the studio version of "Rhymes and Reasons", one of John's most profound songs, a song he wrote at a very early age (25). It is one of my favorites of all his songs, and as far as I am concerned, worth the price of the disc all on it's own.
John was a masterful performer, but what we miss most, now that he is gone, is the wonderful and touching songs he wrote, the insightful approach to music, people and this planet we call home. To quote one of his later songs, "Here you see what one man can do."

If you want to know what the early 70s were like, this album is for you. Before disco, before Saturday Night fever, there was ...John Denver.

This album reignites beautiful memories for me. In early 1972, I was an enlisted woman in the Air Force, stationed in San Antonio. There was a memographed (anyone else remember the smell of memograph fluid?) announcement up on the bulletin board in the Enlisted Club, about a small music club downtown that had a young artist playing for the weekend. They used his real name, Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., and mentioned that his dad had been stationed in San Antonio. There was no cover charge (important when you only got $120 a month salary!), and you could catch the bus from Lackland. A small group of us went. We thoroughly enjoyed the music, all of us being the children of the 60's and loving Peter, Paul, and Mary, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, etc. Three weeks later, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" hit the radio, but we couldn't figure out who this "John Denver" was until he actually did a gig on "Johnny Carson" (I think), and mentioned his real name. We all remembered that night. He was such a nice guy when he came around to all the tables during his breaks. From then on, I collected every album -- and still have them on vinyl. This gives me the opportunity to have some of my favorite songs of the 70s in my CD collection!

Essentially I'm comparing this new remastered version of this wonderful album with 2 previous cd releases. First off, this version is miles ahead of the original US release. I always did think the original was poorly mastered, or used a poor master tape, or both. Anyway, tape hiss abounds on the original and the music is rather tinny sounding, but in the remastered version hiss is almost inaudible and the tinny sound is gone, replaced with a much fuller, richer sound. There was a second cd release, however, only in Japan. They remastered it using 20 bit mapping and it, too, is miles ahead of the first US release. I'll still give the edge to this new remastered version, although if you already have the Japanese reissue I don't think you'll find the new US remaster that much of an improvement to warrant purchasing. The 3 bonus tracks on this US remaster aren't anything to write home about since they're readily available on other releases. They're fine songs, particularly "I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado," but since John re-recorded some of the songs for this compilation I would have thought adding the original album versions of those songs, or at least some of them, would have been a more interesting move, since the new arrangements are significantly different, but they didn't consult me. Or why not add some previously unreleased material as bonus tracks?

This album still holds a place on RCA's top selling albums of all time list, and deservedly so. I prefer the new arrangements to the old for the most part, and it's a wonderful compilation of some of the best songs from his first six albums. If you're buying this album for the first time, get this remastered version. You won't regret it.

I really missed it after my turntable broke down. Now I have the CD and I just love listening to it. Eagle and Hawk was always my favorite, but loved the others as well.