ONE MAN, ONE GUITAR

By the very fact that you, the reader, have chosen to read about John Denver, suggests that there is an interest in the singer, long after his biggest hits have sadly come and gone.

Denver was given a classic Gibson guitar in the mid-1950's by his grandmother. His family had moved around the country, as his father was a US Air Force Colonel. The marriage of a lone guitar, and the lore inherited from the wealth of experience in seeing the nation first hand, made for a rich backbone of Denver's folk music development.

Thus, he was recruited to replace Chad Mitchell in the Chad Mitchell Trio, honing his songwriting skills, and hitting the pop charts through an original song of his ("Leaving On A Jet Plane") recorded by another folk group, Peter Paul & Mary. This led to his own recording contract with RCA, and a series of easy to comprehend country tinged good-time pop songs. Many of his songs evoked the great out-of-doors, the heartland of the USA, and the open hilltops awaiting one man and one guitar.

The climax of a career, can be a great recognition which makes everything else, anti-climatic. So, it was Newsweek's December 1976 statement that Denver was the most popular singer in America which may have made any other musical creation beyond that, a much greater challenge. In the very next year, Denver made his film debut in "Oh God."

In the years that followed, he carried the responsibility of being a spokesperson -- giving up royalties to UNICEF. writing a song for the 1984 Winter Olympics, traveling to Africa for a Hunger Project, and becoming the first American pop artist to perform for a Vietnamese audience. Of course, Denver continued with his spirit for nature with support for Wildlife Conservation. And in a little known request, Denver asked to be aboard the Russian MIR space station.

So, an irony is that mankind has been able to successfully return the cosmonauts from the MIR, while John Denver crashed to his own death in an experimental terrestrial airplane. The plane crashed into the Pacific by Monterey on Sunday, October 12, 1997.

COUSIN STEVE .