John Denver
"The Complete Collection: Beginnings as a Folksinger"
Compilation of Live Recordings from 1969

Lineage: Soundboard > Cassette Tapes > WAV > Speed Correction > Track Edits > WAV > SBE Fix > TLH > FLAC Level 8

Disc 1

01. Introduction
02. For Baby (John Denver)
03. It's a Sin to Tell a Lie (Billy Mayhew)
04. The New Frankie and Johnny Song (Bob Gibson; Shel Silverstein)
05. Deal With the Ladies (John Denver)
06. My God, I Appreciate Your Bod (Michael Peter Smith)
07. All the While (Myles Rudge; Ted Dicks)
08. Blackbird (Paul McCartney)
09. Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
10. Catch Another Butterfly (Mike Williams)
11. Rhymes and Reasons (John Denver)
12. Two Little Boys (Theodore F. Morse; Edward Madden)
13. Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (Ed McCurdy)
14. Today (Randy Sparks)
15. Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
16. Mr. Bojangles (Jerry Jeff Walker)
17. Wherefore and Why (Gordon Lightfoot)
18. California Dreamin' (John Phillips; Michelle Phillips)
19. Cindy's Cryin' (Tom Paxton)
20. San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller)
21. For Lovin' Me (Gordon Lightfoot)
22. Games People Play (Joe South)
23. That's the Way It's Gonna Be (Bob Gibson; Phil Ochs)

Disc 2

01. Introduction
02. The Bells of Rhymney (Pete Seeger; Idris Davies)
03. The Weight (Robbie Robertson)
04. Everybody's Talkin' (Fred Neil)
05. Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (Randy Sparks)
06. Bottle of Wine (Tom Paxton)
07. When I'm 64 (Paul McCartney)
08. In My Life (John Lennon)
09. Reason to Believe (Tim Hardin)
10. Circus (Michael Johnson; Laurie Kuehn; John Denver)
11. Daydream (John Denver)
12. Sticky Summer Weather (John Denver)
13. John's Thoughts on Bob Gibson
14. Civil War Suite (Shel Silverstein; Bob Gibson; Hamilton Camp; Irving Gordon)
15. Business Goes on as Usual (Fred Hellerman; Fran Minkoff)
16. What a Friend We Have in Congress (Traditional; Pete Seeger)
17. Abraham, Martin and John (Dick Holler)
18. What's That I Hear? (Phil Ochs)
19. Farewell Party (Bob Gibson; Bob Connelly)
20. I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Billy Taylor; Dick Dallas)

Disc 3

01. Introduction
02. Ann (Billy Edd Wheeler)
03. Marcie (Joni Mitchell)
04. Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
05. Darcy Farrow (Tom Campbell; Steve Gillette)
06. Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney)
07. Lady Madonna (Paul McCartney)
08. Bookends (Paul Simon) > John's Thoughts on Old Folks
09. Old Folks (Jacques Brel; Eric Blau; Mort Shuman)
10. Amsterdam (Jacques Brel; Mort Shuman)
11. You Done Stomped on My Heart (Mason Williams)
12. The Game Is Over (Pierre Bourtayre; Jean Bouchety; John Denver)
13. Yellow Cat (Steven Fromholz)
14. The Last Thing on My Mind (Tom Paxton)
15. John's Thoughts on Tom Paxton
16. Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
17. Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life (Pat Garvey; Victoria Garvey)

Total Duration: 205 minutes and 37 seconds

John Denver - acoustic guitar, vocals
Erich Zwertschek - dobro, harmony vocals on "You Done Stomped on My Heart"
John Marlowe - acoustic guitar, harmony vocals on "You Done Stomped on My Heart"
The Queen City Balladeers - background vocals on "Today" and "I Appreciate Your Bod"

Notes:

This is a "complete" collection of John Denver's days as a folksinger. It's a 60-song compilation of the three following concerts:

1969-03-15 - The Bandersnatch Coffeehouse, Granville, OH
1969-05-09 - The Nowhere Coffeehouse, Cincinnati, OH
1969-05-10 - The Wise Owl Coffeehouse, Cincinnati, OH

John Denver was widely known as a country pop singer-songwriter with the somehow silly "country boy" image, but he actually began his career as a left-wing folksinger. In 1965, he joined folk group The Mitchell Trio, which was the most political and topical folk group at the time. He remained a member for 4 years until the trio broke up in November 1968. His first several albums were still pretty folk-ish, until in the mid-1970's when he switched to the more commercial, "country boy" side, as suggested by his then manager Jerry Weintraub. Was the change of John's image a good thing or not? Hard to tell. To be honest, though the mid-70's saw John Denver's career peak, it's not my favorite period of his music.

Bandersnatch, Nowhere and Wise Owl - These soundboard recordings were made by John Marlowe in the spring of 1969, after The Mitchell Trio broke up, but before John's first solo album came out. They are some of my favorite concert recordings. When I first had the idea of a compilation from this era of John Denver, I was initially going to make it a "Best Of" kind of thing which would fit onto one single CD. However, it eventually became a "Complete Collection", because it's really hard to pick the "best" 80 minutes from over 8 hours of wonderful live music!

Though John Denver had already begun writing quite a few songs, he was still mostly singing other people's songs as of this time. These three early John Denver recordings would cover the works of almost every major folk songwriter at the time: Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Bob Gibson, Phil Ochs, Randy Sparks, Shel Silverstein, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Fred Neil, Leonard Cohen, just to mention a few. He also brought a handful of Mitchell Trio songs into his solo career. On the other hand, among all these 1969 tapes that would run over 8 hours, only 6 songs were written by John Denver himself! So I would say, these coffeehouse tapes are not recordings of John Denver the singer-songwriter, but of John Denver the folksinger.

For more information on the songs and the early years of John Denver, please visit the taper's website at http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/SongNotes.html. If you want to see the full setlists of those three concerts and a bunch of other John Denver shows, please visit my John Denver setlist page at http://ddpro.ucoz.com/setlists/johndenver/.

Do not sell this recording.
Enjoy and feel free to share it anywhere.
Support the artists by purchasing their official releases and going to their live shows.
You can purchase some officially released soundboard recordings on John's official webstore at https://johndenver.bandcamp.com/.

P.S. I hate to say this, but never will I upload the complete recording of those three concerts to any public torrent website. They're "for trade only" items. It's not that I'm not willing to share, but I'm afraid that if I uploaded the full shows, they would soon be sold by some nasty bootleg companies. EU copyright loopholes would allow people to "release" music they don't own, and a lot of so-called "music labels" are only doing such things. No matter how many times you emphasize "do not sell this recording", they just won't listen. I won't blame them too much if they recorded the bootleg tapes themselves like the 70's bootleggers did, but sadly, most of those new bootleg recordings originated from the soundboard recordings on sites like TTD, Dime and Lossless Legs. Those people are just a bunch of thieves who steal free music. Actually, three of my earlier uploads were already made onto "legal" bootleg CDs, and are still being sold on Amazon - one by John Denver, two by John Prine. I don't want such things to happen on my friend's recordings. Sorry.