An Evening with John Denver ROCKS!

I love this c.d. It's great because it feels
like you are at the concert with them. John is
a great performer and funny too. I love all of
his stuff,but this is one of my favorite c.d.'s.
Everyone should listen to it.

Far Out? You Bet!

I can think of very, very few performers today who can convey a true love of performing in front of an audience. For those who can't, audiences can see right through it. So many performers today simply go through the motions, and so many audiences put up with it. Anyone who saw John Denver perform live know that he enjoyed giving of himself. I can almost hear Denver saying to himself after the final song, "What? It's over? Where did the time go?"

You'll wonder where the time went after listening to this disc. Every song, from "The Music is You" to the touching "This Old Guitar," come across as a heart-felt treasure. Denver had talent, desire, and showmanship. He can deliver hits ("Annie's Song," "Take Me Home, Country Roads," "Rocky Mountain High"), humor ("Toledo," "Forest Lawn"), and songs of beauty and depth ("The Eagle and the Hawk," "Poems, Prayers and Promises"). After hearing Denver's comments in between numbers, you'll understand why so many people loved him and continue to love his music.

One moment stands out for me and has ever since I first heard the song nearly 30 years ago. You can't miss the pure joy that exudes from Denver in "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." His excitement is addictive and the audience picks up on it immediately. I've never been able to hear the crowd's jubilation at the end of the song without smiling and thinking, "I wish I'd been there." I wasn't, but I'm grateful that RCA was. This is a wonderful concert by wonderful entertainer.

TOTAL TIME: 74:27

The quintessential John Denver concert , circa 1974

The first concert I ever went to happened to be a John Denver concert, where he performed in front of giant screens that showed pictures of nature and my girlfriend had to explain to me what that strange smoky smell in the air happened to be. This 1975 "double-album" show cases Denver at his best, with live performances of basically every hit he had up to that time, from "Take Me Home, Country Roads" to "Farewell Andromeda (Welcome to My Morning)" and "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." The concert was recorded at the California Universal Amphitheater in August-September of 1974 and is actually a typical performance because Denver is being backed by an orchestra this time around. The boys in the band are Steve Weisberg on guitars, Dick Kniss of bass, Herb Lovell on drums, Hal Blaine doing percussions, and John Sommers filling in on everything from guitar and banjo to fiddle and mandolin.

There is a sort of thematic arrangement to the songs, which clearly show the various strengths of Denver's music. Beginning the concert with "Farewell Andromeda" seems an obvious choice ("Welcome to my morning, Welcome to my Happiness"), but notice how he uses humorous songs like "Toldeo" and "Grandma's Feather Bed" to set up the pathos of the beautiful "Annie's Song." Ballads are used to set up the more powerful songs, such as "The Eagle and the Hawk." The only thing this live album reaffirms for me is that John Denver's best songs were never his big hits from the pop charts but songs like "Poems, Prayers, and Promises." Two songs, "Today" and "Boy from the Country," are omitted from the CD reissue for time reasons, but since they are a pair of minor covers it is not a painful loss. Even with those losses "An Evening with John Denver" is a superb live album, one of the best of the Seventies and a good addition to your music library regardless of how many John Denver albums you currently have in your possession. For me, there is the added advantage of this being pretty much the concert I remember hearing back then (probably Fall of 1973, maybe the spring of 1974).