Fun:John Denver
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John Denver (1943–1997) was a notorious practitioner of liberal deceit. Even his name was deceit: he was really John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt "Henry John Deutschendorf Jr".
His best and most popular hits were "Annie's Song", "Thank God I'm a Country Boy", and songs talking up West Virginia ("Take Me Home, Country Roads"), and Colorado ("Rocky Mountain High"). Both are state songs of their respective states, and this makes him one of only two people to have written two state songs (the other being Stephen Foster). He posed on album covers wearing granny classes and waffle stompers[note 1] with a piece of straw in his mouth, to look like a good ol' country boy.
Shortly thereafter he fell for Werner Erhard's snake oil and spent the rest of the 1970s creating a space for us to get where we're at and take responsibility to create the context to end world hunger hanging around with Buckminster Fuller and collaborating with the Muppets on television specials and Christmas albums.
He became a quintessential liberal celebrity figurehead in the 1980s and 1990s, promoting environmentalist causes, nuclear disarmament, gun control, opposing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, touring the Soviet Union in the pursuit of international goodwill and peace, and testifying to Congress against music censorship and the Parents Music Resource Center. He was a qualified pilot and died alone in a small plane crash (no, it wasn't a jet plane). Reportedly, however, he asked to participate in the recording of the USA For Africa "We Are the World" album but was turned down, on the grounds that his fundamentally wimpy image would hurt the image of the project (which didn't stop them from including far more eccentric people like Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper).
"Take Me Home, Country Roads" remains a popular song at certain sporting events, and the singing of it is inevitably followed by many couch burnings.
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External link[edit]
- John Denver roasting the KKK, as a member of the Mitchell Trio in the 1960s
Notes[edit]
- ↑ "Waffle stompers" were a low to medium top hiking boot with a big tread resembling a waffle iron (apparently), popular in the 1970s among those wanting a countryfied "instant hippie" look. They were pretty hideous.