John Denver: Mother Nature's Son

Rating:
Summary: Rocky Mountain Legend
Review: As an avid John Denver "fan," and friend of his work, I believe it's about time someone did a profile on John Denver that delves deeper into the roots of his music and his love for the harmony he created. Along with others here who were cautious of this book, I found Collis' turn of attitude real and genuine. The relationship John Denver had with his family and friends were about love and devotion to all that is good. While this book has some glaring errors, it paints what appears to be a fair look at Denver's life. Collis admits in the beginning that he could not gel with Denver's music and serene portrayal of the world. Yet by the last page, he is obviously at least aware that John Denver made an honest place for himself in the one world we all call home. Anyone who has an appreciation for Denver should check this book out. Nice photos and a REAL effort in telling his story. Collis has written a keeper for JD faithful.

Rating:
Summary: John Denver-Mother Nature's Son
Review: For the most part, I found the book interesting. I enjoyed the author's entertwining the music of the different decades ... there were some things I didn't know. As for information on the subject of his book, don't expect anything in addition to Mr. Denver's own autobiography ... only a different perspective.

However, there is one glaring error the author made with regard to the space flight Mr. Denver was going to participate in with the Soviets. Mr. Denver did NOT OFFER TO PAY the 10 million dollars to participate in this mission ... that was the cost (or fee) for a year's extensive training he would have had to go through in order to go on the mission. That meant actually living in the Soviet Union for one year prior to the mission and going through extensive language training. One of the requirements is that he had to be fluent in Russian. Mr. Denver was unwilling to pay that fee and a waiver of that fee was in the works but he cancelled when it was known his second wife was expecting a baby.

I thank the author for referencing my review of the John Denver Tribute concert at the Berchmere Music Hall on January 16, 1998. These tribute concerts have continued every year since Mr. Denver's passing in his home town of Aspen, CO.

Rating:
Summary: Brought a smile to my face!
Review: I was recommended to bypass this book as it had very little information in it that those of us who have stayed with John all through his career don't already know - and that is true. However, I was curious so I got it anyway.

This book was not sentimental - it didn't bring tears to me eyes but once, that being at the end when the author states that John was cremated on Oct. 15th. I cried then for the loss of this amazing man. However, the book amused me as I watched a man who clearly started out not being an admirer of Johns, and who seemed to want to keep it that way, had to struggle in places to try and keep himself from falling over the precipice into the pit of John Denver admiration! I must thank Mr. Collis that at least the compliments that he paid to John, for the most part, did not come across as being given begrudgingly.

I would recommend reading this book if you would like to read some background information on John's family and musical comrades that you might not already have known. Some of this background added some depth to an already deep and complex man.

Rating:
Summary: John Denver's Amazing Life Deserves A Better Effort
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: All About Collis
Review: I was vastly disappointed in this book. It would only rate a C as a freshman term paper. Collis mostly writes his gut level reaction to Denver's songs and the cultural events of the fifties through nineties with absolutely no attempt to analyze or substantiate. Why on a book about Denver do we have a page and a half about Rosa Parks? Was Denver there with her on the bus? One would find more content on Denver's life in a People Magazine article.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time with this book!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Cut & Paste Job
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Cut & Paste Job
Review: This book is difficult to read; the writing style, often compared to a term paper is somewhat accurate. He is not completely accurate in statements and I often wondered if research was actually done for this book or if he mainly gleaned stories from rag magazines and decided to consider them as factual pieces of information to pass along.

Please read John's autobiography first before looking to other forms of information on John's life; John is brutally honest about himself, both good and bad, and his book reads as a truly factual account of his life (better yet, read the book and get the recorded copy read by John to get the true feelings that he had about his life, family & himself).

Collis' book reads and feels fake for the most part, and although this man clearly is NOT a John Denver fan, you don't really have to be to be aware of all that John had accomplished in his life. The next book I buy and read about John will have to be written by best friends and/or family members before I'm willing to trust content. This one for me was not on the mark because both of what I know factually and instinctively. This one is NOT going on my book shelf as a keeper, that's for sure.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading title and description
Review: Unlike many of the other reviewers, I am not such a dyed-in-the-wool Denver fan that I take this book's shortcomings personally. For what it is, it's fine. But this is NOT a biography. It's more like a college term paper. The author conducts a 175 page music review, focusing on quotes from others, articles in music magazines, and demographic data available to anyone. It is misrepresented as a biography. There is almost no information here about the man or his personal or inner life, his relationships with others, his struggles or victories. It was SO BORING and superficial; a 5 page magazine article could have done the same thing and done it more effectively. A total waste of paper.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful Treatment of John Denver's Music
Review: When I first heard of John Collis' "John Denver: Mother Nature's Son," I was tempted to ignore it, but I knew I'd not be able to do that. The dust jacket was very off-putting; what could the pub- lishers have been thinking of to put blatant lies where everyone would see them? Fortunately, the book itself was more accurate.

The author went into this project prepared to denigrate John's music. That he found it difficult to do so is clear, testifying to the fact that the music is much better than critics realized. I appreciated Mr. Collis' complimentary remarks about John's voice, which to me has always been the number one factor in his amazing career. The music, too, is given more respect than Collis obviously intended. I'm glad he was finally able to see the light.

I did find it a bit irritating that so much space in such a short book was devoted to marginally interesting material, such as Mr. Denver's family history and the musical timeline in which he oper-

ated. Such information would have been appropriate in a full-scope book but not in one that covers only 175 pages. It almost gave the impression that the material needed to be padded, never a good idea in any kind of writing. What is there, however, is fairly informative.

It should be pointed out that there are several errors: John Denver did NOT offer the Russians any amount of money to take part in their space program; as he pointed out many times, that was the price tag the Russians put on the project and Mr. Denver did not intend to pay that. The information in the first chapter about Mr. Denver's tragic plane crash and the investigation is also misleading, implying Mr. Denver did not perform a pre-flight check, when in fact, the NTSB report indicates clearly that he did.

Overall, I found the book mildly interesting. I am always happy to find my assessment of John Denver's voice and music supported.