126 Mountain Boy transcript (John Denver)

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Jennifer: [00:00:00] This is famous in gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. Now, here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 1997, age 53. He was born in Roswell, New Mexico. His father was an Air Force pilot, and later a leader, jet flying instructor who taught his son to fly

Friend: John Travolta.

Well, I know Chuck Yeager was way older than that when he passed.

Michael: Good guess though. Not Chuck Yeager. He enrolled in Texas Tech in Lubbock in 1961, majoring in architecture and performing at Coffee Houses. In 1964, he dropped out and moved to LA where he started to use a stage name.

Archival: The Airplane Clue has me thinking of the guy who played guitar for Buddy Holly.

Michael: 97.

Archival: Yeah,

Michael: I felt eight years old. I hope you were keeping up with the obituaries at a ha, didn't I? I a pretty curious kid. His first wife said quote, if you listen [00:01:00] to his songs, there's a lot of loneliness there. I don't think he ever really got how much people loved him.

Friend: John Pride was way older than what you're telling me.

I'm thinking country. When I think about sad songs starting to get there, I've got my guitar and I'm on the Prairie and I'm sad with my dog

Michael: in songs like. Take me home, country roads, sunshine on my shoulder and Rocky Mountain High. He portrayed a rural American paradise of natural beauty and unfailing true love.

Friend: John

Michael: Denver.

Friend: Thank God I'm a country boy. It's John Denver.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is John Denver.

Archival: John, you have always been a, uh, social activist, somebody socially and politically aware. Is, is that something that goes hand in hand with being John Denver? I mean, could John Denver, the entertainer exist without trying to say something?

I don't think that I could. You know, I think it's it's individual choice. Some people are involved. Some people are committed to different things, some people are not. [00:02:00] They fault me for being so populist. I guess I'm with all the right issues. I'm for the environment. I'm for endangered species, and I'm for peace, and I'm against hunger.

How can you miss?

Jennifer: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne, and my name is Jennifer Casian Armstrong.

Michael: And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century usually, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

John Denver died 1997. Age 54. This is like a big day on Famous and Gravy. Jennifer, we are for the very first time dipping into 20th century deaths. And I'll say why in a moment, but let me just say, first of all, thank you for coming back to the show. Of course, Jennifer joined us previously for [00:03:00] the Carrie Fisher, Fred Rogers, and John Hughes.

Episodes all must listens from the Back Catalog. All right, so John Denver died in 1997. Normally, the rule on this show is they have to have died in the 21st century. The reason we decided to go ahead and do a John Denver episode is that we've actually been in communication with the John Denver Estate.

They've been helping us on this episode, and the rule has always been about. 21st century deaths is that we're kind of looking for people who still sort of hover in the collective conscious, right? That they're still in sort of waking memory. I think John Denver qualifies.

Jennifer: Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if I'm just like overthinking this, but I also feel like he died so young.

Michael: Yes.

Jennifer: You know what I mean? Like he could have lived a few more years into the 20th century easily. You're right.

Michael: Right. It's and, and the rule has always been slightly arbitrary, right? That the calendar turns, you know, January 1st, 2000. But yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. He's still in memory of our generation too.

And then I think this whole thing about [00:04:00] working with his estate because they're excited to see this episode, I was like, okay, I need a rockstar for this episode. So I reached out to Jennifer because I want somebody who's a true student of pop culture history, not to mention a nature loving musician. Is that fair?

Jennifer: That's absolutely fair. And we'll get into this some more, but. When you mentioned him, it hadn't, like, I hadn't even thought of him in a long time, but when you said his name, I sort of lit up because I loved him as a kid. Yeah, and that's so it's interesting to me when kids love adult pop culture, like what are they honing in on?

Michael: Totally. Okay. I'm so glad he brought that up. I'm sure it'll come up. Let's get right into it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. John Denver, the singer and songwriter, who was the voice of wholesome sincerity and simple country pleasures in the 1970s, died on Sunday when a light plane he was piloting crashed into Monterey Bay in California.

He was 53. Jennifer initial reaction to [00:05:00] this.

Jennifer: You know, it's fine. Yeah. It's like that's how I feel.

Michael: That was my initial reaction actually on rereading it and rereading it just now. I saw a little bit more in here than what I first appreciated. It doesn't capture his iconic status. Right. You know, what a big deal he was wholesome sincerity.

Like that's very sweet. Simple country pleasures. It's kind of redundant. I don't know. Um, but I mean, those are very accurate words. I think that they capture what his music is about, what his persona is about, what we remember of him. It doesn't go a lot deeper than that though. It almost codes as a little bit, I don't know, superficial, maybe.

I don't know. It's lacking something.

Jennifer: Yeah, it is. It's just like lacking something to get me excited. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. I mean, we're gonna talk about it, but maybe that's. Maybe that's John Denver. Maybe that's how he, that's his whole deal. Maybe they're, they're like echoing his whole thing because I think this is a man who was very like lacking an edge.

But I mean, [00:06:00] this was him, like Yeah. Was genuinely him. And it's true. Maybe they've just like really nailed it. Maybe it's like wholesome sincerity and simple country pleasures. But then on the other hand, as we're gonna talk about, this man was a huge activist. Mm-hmm. In some ways he did have Edge.

Michael: As soon as you said that, I was like, I agree, but I also disagree.

Mm-hmm. I also think that there is more melancholy, a little bit more vulnerability, a little bit more darkness. When you scratch the surface, there's a little bit more depth going on, and this doesn't capture that. But maybe we didn't know that in 1997. You know, maybe we hadn't thought about it that much.

Yeah.

Jennifer: And I mean. I always wanna say like as the writer, like I don't know how much of a run on sentence I want here. I was actually kind of glad in a weird way that they didn't mention his kind of distinctive look of his most popular time. Like he the granite glasses. Yeah, like the branding glasses and stuff.

He didn't do that his whole life and I appreciate that and this is probably what he is be like at his imperial [00:07:00] phase. Right. Yeah. Yeah. This is who he was and so I'm sure they get into other stuff later and that's the obituaries have to work sometimes and I at least appreciate the, like, clarity of the sentence, so Yes.

Michael: Yes. And well, and I mean, obviously not pre-written, right? This was a sudden death.

Jennifer: That's a really good point.

Michael: I've factored that in more and more as famous Eng Gravy has gone on. The one other thing I wanted to talk about was they just say in the 1970s, he didn't die till 1997. I, his, his heyday. Uh, you know what, what was the U term you used a second ago?

The Imperial power, Imperial phase. I

Jennifer: don't know if he really had an imperial, that's like a A term music term. Music industry.

Michael: Actually, I think it is a good term. Yeah. 'cause I don't think this quite gets What a big deal he was in the 1970s that John Denver Greatest had sold over 10 million copies that album and was on the short list of like bestselling albums of all time.

For, for a period there. I mean, he was omnipresent. He was on tv, he was in movies, he was [00:08:00] on the Bob Hope show. He was on Mark Griffith. Like, I don't think this quite does justice to the iconic status he had, but I do think that it is fair to say in the 1970s and really not say much beyond that, even though there's a lot to talk about in his life after the 1970s.

So I kind of thought that was a good, you know, prepositional phrase to include here, even though it didn't look like it's doing too much work.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Michael: So what's your final score? What'd you go with here? I

Jennifer: think you may have talked me up a little. So I'm going eight.

Michael: Okay. I was actually at a six and I'm going seven.

Okay. That's, that feels about right. I think that it's good. Not exceptional. Yep. Accurate but succinct and maybe has a little bit of subtlety. I would've liked a little hint at the darkness. Just a little bit. Agree, you know. Well, let's get right into it. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here, Jennifer and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who John Denver was and how he lived.

What do you have for number one, Jennifer?

Jennifer: He was so uncool that he might have just been cool.

Michael: Yes. All [00:09:00] right. I had this as well. Say more.

Jennifer: Yeah, I, I just think it's almost radical to be this uncool. Like it, it has to be genuine. It can't be a put on, especially I am thinking about the 1970s. Yes. Right. Like you're coming out of the sixties and really the seventies had a very similar vibe, right.

Which is like, yes, his music fit in with certain parts of what was going on. Then Uhhuh, that's why he was popular. But we're doing rock stars then. You know what I mean? Mean? Yeah. Like the real deal, the kind. Right. They made the form for rock stars in the sixties and seventies and this man had like. A bowl of haircut and granny glasses famously and kind of would wear these like, I don't know, these little like patterned shirts.

Like

Michael: very, a lot of flannel like, but also a lot of like flowery flannel. Yeah, flowery

Jennifer: flannel is exactly, he should have had an album called Flowery Flannel, like not just to me, when I, I see. Every time I was doing research and I would see his face again, I was just like. I [00:10:00] cannot believe that he was like, yep, this, this is what we're both about.

This is the

Michael: look I wanna run. Okay. Actually, I wanna talk about this for a second. 'cause part of the uncool thing here, I, let's start with uncool and let's get to, he might be cool. I was not aware of how lambasted and criticized he was by the rock critic, like intelligentsia. Right, that he had a tremendous amount of bad press was not accepted as a counterculture figure, was not accepted as rebellious or edgy enough in any way.

Archival: You wanna hear something really mean? This is from British rock critic Nick Kent. John's the stereotype of the neighborhood wimp who'd get his head constantly pushed down toilets in junior high school, who spent his teenage years learning how to play old Woody Guthrie songs in the TV room while the gang was out on the street stealing hubcaps and cruising for pu, and who'd turn up at folk clubs in a denim cap and promptly have beer cans thrown at him.

Michael: And that was with him for most of his life. And it really sounds like also got under his [00:11:00] skin. Is that where uncool is coming from for you or are you also talking about just the, just the look?

Jennifer: I think it's both. I had the exact same experience, by the way. I just haven't Were you surprised by it? I was surprised by it.

Yes. I, I mean, I didn't know this. It's only that I would've found out about it in this research, except that. A couple years ago I listened to a, I listened to tons of music podcasts.

Michael: Yeah.

Jennifer: One of them did sort of a deep dive on country of the 1970s, and they played that award ceremony where people were kind of almost angry at him.

Michael: Yeah. The one that, the, what's his name? I think there's a country music ceremony with Charlie Rich. That's right. Who, when he, when he wins the award, he lights the John Denver's ballot on fire like it's John Denver, and then he like takes a lighter Yeah. There's debate about if what was intended by that action.

Right. But I mean, it captures how, at least the. Critic community felt about him.

Jennifer: Yeah. And what's interesting is it's my impression that even the country establishment was like, no, we not, there's not one of us. We're not in like, 'cause there was this movement in the seventies [00:12:00] of, and kind of similar to today, where country started going a little pop.

Yeah. And he was considered part of that along with Olivia Newton John. Right, right. Who I was also a big fan of when I was like three and who

Michael: we've done on the show, I should say.

Jennifer: And these were both things, of course, because I was a baby then. Yeah. I didn't know. I just liked them. And later learned just a few years ago about this huge backlash to their rise in country because it's like there's a lot of debate both in country and rock.

And especially at this time, and I would say all the way up until fairly recently, there's always this debate about authenticity.

Michael: Yes, God, that's exactly where I wanted to go with this. I'm so glad you brought that up, because the counter argument to him, like actually being cool, like, okay, wait a second.

This guy dropped outta college. He marched against Vietnam. He took LSD, and then I thought I, I think this came up in the obituaries podcast. Mm-hmm. That when Tipper Gore in the 1980s was raising all kinds of noise about how bad and dangerous [00:13:00] music was, and all these musicians were coming out to say, stop censorship.

Nobody knew where John Denver stood, and he came out and said, I am against censorship.

Archival: I'm here to address the issue of a possible rating system in the recording industry, labeling records where excesses of explicit sex or graphic violence have occurred, and furthermore, references to drugs and alcohol or the occult are included in the lyrics.

These hearings have been called to determine whether or not the government should intervene to enforce this practice. Mr. Chairman, this would approach censorship. May I be very clear that I'm strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or anywhere else in the world? And Dee

Michael: Snyder of all people from Twisted Sister was like, I never got to shake his hand and say, thank you for that.

Uh, the thing is, there's nothing for me fake about John Denver. He is very true to himself. I think it's vulnerable. I think at times it can feel corny and maybe even challenge our notion of masculinity. And I think that's where some of this criticism is coming from [00:14:00] against him. But this is real. And I found myself having a real, like wanting to race to his defense as I learned all of this about the backlash against him, particularly in the seventies, but kind of followed him for.

Most of his life.

Jennifer: I feel bad that he would've had to live with that because it just seems in retrospect, so dumb. Like people judging who's authentic and who isn't just makes me crazy and they're almost always wrong.

Michael: I heard somebody say also that had he lived, he might've followed a similar trajectory to Dolly Parton.

Mm-hmm. I thought that was a really interesting comparison. 'cause Dolly Parton was also in movies, was also at one point perceived as superficial and vanilla and you know, not all that deep. And as time has gone on, she's become a lions, I mean, she's revered like all around now. I could have seen John Denver.

Following a similar trajectory in terms of having a second life. And I think we just didn't get that. 'cause he died at 53

Jennifer: in a lot of ways. He has a lot of aspects that we would really admire now, mainly his [00:15:00] outspokenness and activism throughout his life. Yeah. And yeah, I think this is just musical for these people in the end.

They just don't like how sort of, I, I keep saying smooth in my head. Like his, his songs were so sanded of all edges. Yeah,

Michael: yeah, yeah. But like that takes

Jennifer: talent too. It's like writing a good pop song. Like you're never gonna be startled listening to his songs. There's no big surprises.

Michael: He's not challenging you.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's

Jennifer: the real beef that people might have had in addition to, I would say, like you said, the fact that he was not presenting traditional, especially. Country masculine. Yes.

Michael: And I, and I think that there's also a just sort of like, he's so successful that we gotta criticize him that, I mean, it's, they're

Jennifer: just jealous.

And then, right, right. They're like, look at this guy with his glasses. Yeah. And that's kind of, they're just making fun of like the dork,

Michael: but some of it is very harsh and from some very prominent people. I'm glad that's not my memory of

Jennifer: him.

Michael: You know, I, I, like, I learned that, and now I would defend John [00:16:00] Denver and I'll get up in anybody's face in a bar fight to say, John Denver is a real man.

Damnit.

Jennifer: Hope I, I honestly hope you get in a bar fight about this.

Michael: I'm, I'm gonna go pick one tonight. Okay. Yeah. Great. No, it's, it's coming. All right. I'll lead with my thing number two. I wrote nature connectedness. I know we're gonna get into his activism and his environmentalism, but the reason I said nature connectedness.

In a previous life, I was a climate scientist. I am very familiar with sort of environmental activism circles. One of the most interesting seam of research for me is nature connectedness and how it correlates with. Positive mental health. I feel like it in as much as we are trying to make a case for conservation or for trying to do things around climate or around, you know, species preservation or whatever it may be.

I feel like we need to talk about nature connectedness more that it, there is a very rich body of research that shows that people who feel emotionally connected in nature consistently report happiness, vitality, life satisfaction. [00:17:00] The research is robust, reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, boosted meaning and purpose.

People feel a part of something larger than themselves when they were report High nature connectedness. You could go on and on about this, but John Denver for me, does represent a kind of connectedness ideal, and I realized that. Some of it is, I'm infatuated with the Rocky Mountains too, and always have been.

And I feel like John Denver's kind of a staple of a certain kind of summer camp, uh, you know, music. But I think he captures it. He gets it, especially Rocky Mountain High. That song is tremendous, that it was inspired from a night of a meteor shower above treeline.

Archival: I remember to the moment starting that song in my head in mid-August, Annie and I and some friends went up to a lake in the high country to watch the meteor showers.

I went back and laid down next to Annie in front of our tent thinking everybody had gone to sleep. And thinking about how in nature, all [00:18:00] things large and small were interwoven. When swoosh, a meteor went smoking across the sky, it got bigger and bigger until the tail stretched out all the way across the sky and burned itself out.

Everybody was awake and it was raining fire in the sky and.

Michael: There's something about his music that expresses that ethos in a way that I think is really important. I do struggle with it sometimes, Jennifer, because I do think that there is a certain kind of revering of the wilderness that is rooted in privilege and, and I think it's something that the environmental community is still reckoning with, but I don't think there's any artist who better captures a certain sort of sense of bliss in paradise and you know, makes me want to be around a campfire looking at the stars than John Denver.

I guess this is an obvious point. This is how I would. Describe my fandom of him, but it's meaningful and it matters a lot. And it connects with how I understand my own mental health. The more nature connectedness [00:19:00] I have in my life, the better I am, and the more I am nurturing that for my community, the better my community.

Jennifer: Absolutely. And honestly, I'm sitting here wrecking my brain, trying to think of who else wrote songs like this about nature. All I can think of is more like America the Beautiful or something like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's very rare. And also I'll just, the one thing I'll add to this is simply that I moved to the country after the pandemic from New York City.

I'm literally sitting here looking at my window as you're talking and looking at the trees. Yeah. And it makes me appreciate him more because. We have that here, and I kind of get him more than I used to.

Michael: Among other things around this sort of idea of nature connectedness. It's not just looking up the stars, it's also looking back in time.

For me, it has always been rooted in the sense of earth history and the vastness and the incomprehensibility of geologic time. I don't know that all of that is in John Denver, but he reminds me. Of that emotion. [00:20:00] Right. And he expresses and puts words and melodies to that emotion.

Jennifer: And the only other thing I would add is that Take Me Home Country Road is my other favorite of his.

It's probably my

Michael: favorite song of his. Honestly. I know that's

Jennifer: like not unusual.

Michael: No. But the universality of that song is tremendous. Right, right. And the cross-cultural appeal, I mean, he's got stories about singing that in Japan and India and kids in Africa where he is like, I didn't even know they had access to radio.

Knowing that song, I'm recognized

Archival: everywhere. I, I have yet to walk down the street of any town, any city. And in fact, last December, I was in the largest slum in the world and Bombay, India, and people started following me around. John Denver. John Denver, same country road. So that's pretty remarkable. But it, it also signifies how small the world is today.

And if you have that kind of celebrity, then perhaps there's, there's some value in that and you ought to use it responsibly.

Michael: I mean, it's got an unbelievable amount of international currency.

Jennifer: And doesn't it just like [00:21:00] evoke a, an image in your head every single, like every time I hear just the title even I like imagine the Country road and I think the key line is to the place where I belong.

Michael: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's what nature of connectedness is about, right? It's about belonging. Right. And I think anybody I know who is spiritual in any sense has some element of that, even if they're not a tree hug and hippie. Right. All right. What do you got for number three?

Jennifer: I have Muppet appeal, which kind of encompasses, at first I was just writing down Kid Appeal.

Yeah. 'cause I think there's something really interesting about the certain pop artists that are, are able to connect with little kids who don't know why they're into it. Don't you know, I was little tiny kid when I loved him. Yeah. And I realized that, I think the first way I saw him was on The Muppets.

Michael: Yeah. I very possibly it is either that or, oh God. Yeah. I'm not sure the, the movie with George Burns. Yeah. I

Jennifer: was a huge Muppets fan. I actually still would say that I am

Michael: absolutely. His first wife even described [00:22:00] him as a Muppet. Did you see that?

Jennifer: Yeah. I mean that's, that's part of why I wrote it down this way.

He looks like a Muppet. It kind of fits right in and it makes sense that he worked well with them. We rewatched the Muppet show recently, and I will tell you there are only. Special people who can really blend on that show. Do you know like the ones who can read the Muppets? Like people,

Michael: yeah,

Jennifer: it's not everybody.

I do think there's something about appealing to kids and we did the Fred Rogers episode, which obviously his whole thing was appeal. Like he was trying Right. Kids. Right, right,

Michael: right. That's is his mission. There's

Jennifer: also this other thing, and I think of my early days when I was a fan of a number of things, like I was a fan of John Denver, Donnie and Marie, Sonny and Cher, and there was something about all of them that spoke to me as a kid, sort of cheesy, but it's like they're so sort of pure and like new.

Yeah. If you appeal to them, you've got something like the kid doesn't know why. It doesn't matter.

Michael: This relates to point number one [00:23:00] about being uncool. I think part of the reason the rock and roll establishment had such harsh words to say about him is that he does have a kind of pure spirit. Yeah, right.

There's more to him than that, but it's not rock and roll, it's not edgy, it's not dark, it's not, you know, challenging the man or whatever. E enough. Totally agree. It is amazing how much he, it looks like he's in community with the Muppets, you know? I know. I know. It's,

Jennifer: and they worked together multiple times.

It obviously was a good working relationship and

Michael: there's like a Miss Piggy John Denver romance in a couple of specials and stuff. I love a Miss

Jennifer: Piggy romance. Like I just Miss Piggy. John. John, John.

Archival: Dear John, I was told that you wanted to see me. Yes. Jonathan, I want to talk to you about. Us. Us. I see the way you would look at me when the others are not watching.

We looked at each other in the same way then, but I can't remember where, when we didn't really get a chance to [00:24:00] know each other, but. We become better acquainted this time.

Jennifer: What a feminist dot con.

Michael: There was some clip I saw in an interview where he was like, she said off microphone. Something about like, you didn't say that last night or something. I don't know. Like to make it like he's very aware of how well he fits with the Muppets and I just, I also of course love the proximity to Jim Henson if I were ever to do it again at Jennifer, where we would deviate from form and go back into the 20th century.

Jim Henson's on the short list of somebody I'd wanna do on Famous and Gravy, you know? Absolutely.

Jennifer: There's something, things might be talking myself

Michael: into it right now. Yeah. There's

Jennifer: something really, there's actually like a weird, I can't even totally get it yet, but there's like a weird spiritual connection between those two.

To me, Don Denver is trying to appeal mainly to adults, but turns out to appeal to children. And I think Henson maybe goes the opposite way of kind of knows he has to play mostly in the kid market that's he has puppets. That's just the way it was. Yeah. Really appealed to adults.

Michael: I mean, I think [00:25:00] that's what's so interesting is when you come across those pop culture representations, that cut or bridge really between childhood and adulthood.

Yep. You realize how big that bridge is. And so when anybody can build that bridge, it's sort of a remarkable feat when anybody can create something that is appealing to both adults and kids. It feels like a magic trick to me. I feel like you've gotta be tapped into your inner child in order to get there.

You know

Jennifer: what I mean? I think it's a huge liability in terms of the cool factor. The, your peers do not like it. Right? When you are appealing to your life, they're like, Ugh, that's so stupid. But then on the other hand, I will just drop the statement here that I think this is why Taylor Swift is so huge right now is because Oh yeah.

Yeah. Um, she's gotten to the point where she appeals to both, and when you can enjoy something equally with your kids because you are both fans of it, it's really special.

Michael: Yeah. Alright, John Denver Muppets Nexus. I love that. Yes. All right. I'll give you my number four. This one's kind of small, but I wrote Space Nerd.

I did not [00:26:00] realize how close he was to being on the Challenger shuttle. He was actually in conversations with the folks at NASA and wanted to replace one of the teachers, and they were making a decision about whether or not it was going to be somebody who's in communication or somebody who's in education.

And the way John Denver tells this story, Ronald Reagan had a bad reputation with educators, so they went that route for PR reasons.

Archival: I thought initially that I was gonna be the first one to go up. There were a lot of things that led me to feel that and uh, and it was a real possibility until President Reagan said that he was gonna send a teacher first, and that was my flight.

What I wanted to do, most of all, which I think is what each of them wanted to do, was what I say in that song. I wanted to go for every man, every child, every mother's. I want every human being to feel

Michael: that they were flying for me. He wanted to go to space. He believed he might go into space and beyond that his music and his life are, and of course this is how he died, but are in the air [00:27:00] like this man wants to fly, you know, which is kind of both naive but also beautiful.

I wanna fly. I'm never gonna let go of the flying fantasy. My best dreams are the ones where I'm flying. There's something beautiful about that Daydream. It's also very much how he connected with his father. Right? So we'll talk more about that later. But yeah, I just want space nerd. I like to be his space nerd.

Yeah. His dad, his dad

Jennifer: was a pilot, so, you know, I'm sure there was, we all have these things, right? I'm sure there was a little bit of dad like trying to prove himself to dad kind of stuff. Yeah. Going on there too.

Michael: Well, uh, not just a pilot, but a pilot who like broke speed records, right? Yeah. And was in pilot circles, a famous pilot.

All right, so what'd you have for number five?

Jennifer: I wrote down maybe he really loved America question mark, because, um, why is this a question mark? It's not a que it's not, it's more like an interesting juxtaposition for our times. He was a country singer who was very sincere and wrote about, as the obit said, the simple country pleasures and all of that.

Mm-hmm. Which I really feel like if I had just read that someone [00:28:00] saying about snowfall country pleasures, I would honestly kind of, that would distance me from, that's not for me. Yeah. I'm not into it. That's not for me. Yeah. It just implies a lot of other like political baggage these days. Right. That maybe it didn't then, but thinking about, 'cause there's such

Michael: a rural urban divide in American politics.

Yeah, exactly. But thinking

Jennifer: about that, he genuinely just was like, no, the mountains are cool or whatever, you know? Yeah, yeah,

Michael: yeah, yeah. Nature's

Jennifer: great. It's cool to live in a small town. And also he was a huge lifelong activist whose list of causes. I mean, it seems like he had to have been picking up every single cause that touched his heart because there were a lot.

I

Michael: had this as well. Not just big activist, early activist. Yep. He's coming to projects way before other musicians are, it's hunger relief. Definitely a lot of environmental conservation. I mean, he moves to Aspen and becomes Mr. Colorado in a way, the Wind Star Foundation that he started in 1976 to promote sustainability and environmental education testifying before Congress around the Arctic National Wildlife [00:29:00] Refuge.

I mean, president Carter's commission on World and Domestic Hunger, he is very, very involved and is very American that way.

Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. That was why I wrote that down. 'cause we don't see this kind of juxtaposition as much anymore, that he really was a huge country singer who. Loved being from rural places and also really believed in old school bedrock American values.

And you as you mentioned, even talking about censorship. Like he Yeah. Right, right. He just was always there after a certain point he maybe made enough money or whatever that he could have a lot of time to do activism and a lot of money to do activism. And I appreciate, 'cause not everyone does it.

Michael: I thought the other thing that was interesting because I was like, wait, was he in the We are the World video and he was not invited.

Archival: The World Hunger issue has has meant a lot to you for years. I was very surprised that you were not included in that USA for Africa. How'd that happen? I don't know. It was a great disappointment to me. Yeah. And at the same time, my disappointment is very, very small. [00:30:00] I think compared to the value of, of what those people have done, they have my greatest respect and I stand up and cheer for, for what they've accomplished.

Michael: I think it's a real sign of how much his star had faded at that time. But in retrospect, John Denver, I mean, Sidney Lauper was there for Christ sake. John Denver should have been there as somebody early to the cause. It does feel like a real comment on who's invited and who's not at a very weird time in American pop culture history.

But I, I think not only was it a, like you're not in vogue, John Denver, I think it also is a deeper commentary of. People underestimating the durability of his music. We're in 2025. Take Me Home Country Roads is still a very popular song. Every year during the holiday season, people remember how great John Denver's music is, and that is because this season is about family and the season is about Thanksgiving tables and Christmas tables where we may not agree with our uncles and grandparents politics.[00:31:00]

Let's look for stuff that She'll brings us together. John Denver qualifies. It's almost your Muppet's point too.

Jennifer: Yeah, it is. I just think he's one of those, to your point about Dolly too is that the thing about Dolly is she's sort of universal. You can't say you hate her. It's like Betty White. And I think you're right that he would've had a similar trajectory if he had been able to just like occasionally put out more stuff.

He also just has, and I wanna say this like musically, it's like. He has a distinctive voice.

Michael: Yeah. And range. Like he goes for it. You hear it Like his vocal range is, I think impressive.

Jennifer: Yeah. And to me, I always think that hop music especially is about distinctive voices, not necessarily great voices.

Michael: Yeah.

Jennifer: Like will you know immediately who this is? The minute you hear it on the radio and I Right. Right. He had that and we are, the world made me think of it. 'cause I think a huge part of the appeal of that whole project was like the person comes in for like two lines and you're like, that is Cyndi Lauper.

Yeah. That you know. You know exactly who everyone is. Totally. And I think he could have fit in in that way.

Michael: I agree. And I do think, [00:32:00] just to your point number five, I mean there is something important in some ways about the. American ideal that he represents. That's a, I'd like to still believe above politics on some level about shared ideals that I hope we're fighting for.

Agreed. All right. Let's recap. So number one, you said, I said so uncool that he might just be cool. Number two, I said nature connectedness. Number three, you said Muppet appeal. Muppet appeal. I love the John Denver Muppet Nexus. Uh, number four, I went with space nerd and number five, really loved America.

Really loved America. Not, it's not even a question mark, not question mark. Really loved America. Let's say, let's put an exclamation point on it. Fantastic list. All right, let's take a break. Hey, famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. Our podcast is produced at 14th Street Studios. Over the course of this show, we have learned that the best podcasts don't necessarily require a large budget.

Famous and Gravy has been an incredible success story, and [00:33:00] we believe it's built on a foundation of strong ideas, smart editing, and knowing your audience. That's the approach we bring to every project at 14th Street Studios. So if you have an idea for a show that you want to develop or if you wanna sharpen an existing show, send me an email atMichael@famousandgravy.com.

Category three. One love. In this category, Jennifer and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes John Denver's loving relationships. First, we'll review what we know about the marriages and the kids. There's some more rock and roll in here. He's got, uh, two wives, wife number one, Annie. They were married, 1967, divorced, 1982.

John was 23 when they got married. 38 when they got divorced. Two adopted children, Zachary and and Kate. And then he got married again to Cassandra in 1988. They separated in 91, finally divorced in 93. John was 44 when they got married. They separated at 47, 49 when they got divorced. They had one child, Jesse Bell.

That's the [00:34:00] summary of the family life data. I got something. You mind if I leave here? No, go for it. I wrote Air Currents. This gets back to, I guess my thing number four, his love of flying, his love of space. This guy's a romantic. It feels to me like the pain of divorce from his first marriage kind of lingered for a while.

You know, I mean, especially in hearing Annie, his wife talk, and of course Annie's song is one of his biggest hits, the one that's played at all the weddings. I felt like he was never fully resolved, even though. It sounds like he and Annie both came to the agreement that this marriage needs to end. There was infidelity on the road and I mean, there's sort of like a lot of typical, honestly like rockstar lifestyle, right?

So I started thinking about air currents because I was thinking about mountain weather. I was imagining like cumulus clouds building over a mountain range, and that's what his love kind of looks like, and then it rains out and dissipates felt like the right metaphor to [00:35:00] me. I also did find it interesting that it sounds like he really struggled to connect with his father until he started flying, and it's almost like flying was his love language on some level.

Archival: During this period, I even found a space that I could occupy peacefully with dad, or maybe I should just say we found a kind of peace when we lived in Texas. It would bother him when I went off for the night to play with a band. For him, it was a waste of time. He had no sympathy for what I was trying to accomplish in music.

Then he and I started to fly together, and that put us on a different stage. If we didn't come to it on the most equal of terms, we at least came to it on terms that both of us can understand. We found our way to a relationship between father and son that seemed to work. For the first time.

Michael: So Eric Ence for me, captured the romanticism and a little bit of the transient of his love life because I do think he struggled in this area to have a lasting relationship.

I also think, and this is sort of my last point, it looked to me like a [00:36:00] kind of typical corrupted by celebrity life. While I do think he remains an authentic artist, I don't know that he had the emotional wherewithal to weather celebrity, you know? So that's what I,

Jennifer: yeah, I agree. I mean, most people don't, honestly, and like you said, it's so funny when I was like chuckling a little bit when you were reading.

Love life history simply 'cause I think you probably even know this better than I do. It's just like, yep, that all sounds right. All sounds typical. They always leave the first wife. Actually, I'm surprised they stayed, stayed together as long as they did. I

Michael: mean, I think that I was actually comparing him in my mind a little bit to Jimmy Buffet who also found a home in Aspen who like separated from his wife but ended up reconciling, but sounds like went through similar sorts of trials and tribulations.

I don't think we'll ever get to it because I will never know the reality of fame. But I do think that one of the questions that hovers over the Fame and Gravy podcast is, do people ever make peace with celebrity? And once [00:37:00] you cross that threshold to where you lose your privacy and you lose your story, you lose your narrative, you lose your sense of self.

The psychological challenge that must be is tremendous. I also feel like because of the young death, he didn't get the opportunity to make more peace. There are people who will talk about where he was at the end of his life. In terms of turning a corner and coming out of depression. I mean, at one point there was like real, even suicidal ideation

Archival: once during this period while cutting a Christmas album in London.

I got so angry with Annie over the phone that I thought I'd kill myself. When Annie hung up, the anger just rolled out over me. I grabbed my guitar and headed out to the balcony. 10 stories above the square. I was gonna jump. I was gonna take my guitar with me. But then I noticed that it was a beautiful day.

I came back in. What was this madness for? I sat down and holding onto myself. The only way I knew how I wrote a song called In My Heart, it was meant as a Gift, but [00:38:00] I don't think Annie ever unpacked it.

Michael: And they say he was doing better, arrow pointed upwards. Uh, so I feel like he was beginning what I hope would be the process of making peace with his celebrity.

Right. But just didn't get there.

Jennifer: Yeah, it's true. It ta I always think it just takes a really special person to, and, and people have clearly have different. Modes of doing it. I think of, do I keep thinking of Dolly now that we brought her up and like

Michael: Yeah,

Jennifer: for whatever, she's just one of those incredibly strong people.

I think Taylor Swift is gonna be this way.

Michael: I agree. I, I like those points of comparison. Another theme of Famous and Gravy is people who get famous in their forties or later seem to handle it better, which makes so much more sense. You have more of a inner rock of your own identity, an inner sense of self-assuredness at that point.

We're just coming off the Tony Morrison episode. Great example of somebody who like. Was ready for fame when it came. I mean, know she is also

Jennifer: just like unbelievably strong. Do you know indeed there's just indeeds, this strength that you can feel in certain people

Michael: Yeah.

Jennifer: Who are like, I'm gonna do this and it's gonna be okay.

And I just think he was pretty young [00:39:00] when you think about it. John Denver's on TV in his mid twenties, you know? And like people are telling him he is uncool and the rocket

Michael: ship of celebrity is just tremendous. So it reminded me of the way clouds build. And have you ever had the experience of laying and watching clouds build in the sky?

I remember when I was, I'm a teenager and I was camping in the Rockies and I saw this like little wisp and then I like, I felt like I blinked and I was like, oh, there's a little cloud there. And I sat there for like an hour and just watched the sky transform in front of me. Yeah, that felt like the right metaphor for John Denver.

All right. What, what did you have for this

Jennifer: camera? I completely agree, and I just actually wrote down Annie's song and I actually think it goes perfectly with think about how that song goes.

Michael: Yeah.

Jennifer: You feel that my sense, like it's this build and release over and over. Mm-hmm. Which is what makes it so satisfying and it is so swoony.

Oh my god. Yeah. And so I think it reflects his romanticism that you were talking about.

Michael: Yeah. And [00:40:00] I feel like even ties in with his nature connectedness that fills up my senses is such an environmental way of describing love. You know what I mean?

Jennifer: I mean, honestly I never thought of, I like that's that song is seen as so cheesy.

Sure. But like when we were just revisiting it for this, that's what struck me. I was suddenly like, holy crap. That's a great lyric. It is. Have you ever heard anyone else say, you fill up my senses.

Michael: Yeah. And I love that it came to him while on a ski lift. It's so perfect.

Jennifer: It's

Archival: very hym. I wrote Annie's song riding up in a ski lift one day early in 1974.

I was riding up again, sitting there catching my breath, looking down at where I'd just been a few moments ago, when suddenly I was hypersensitive to how beautiful everything was. All of these things filled up my senses, and when I said this to myself, unbidden images came one after the other, the night in the forest, a walk in the rain, the mountains in springtime.

All of the [00:41:00] pictures merged, and then what I was left with was Annie. That song was the embodiment of the love that I felt at the time.

Michael: That's very John Denver. Like he's writing his ski lip off and that line occurs to him and then he like, you know, bombs down the mountain and goes to his office and writes that song.

But, and again,

Jennifer: like it also mimics. Like a ski, like it, it yes. Makes like going up the mountain and going down the mountain. Going up totally mountain and going down the mountain. So

Michael: yeah. Awesome. Okay. Category four net worth. In this category, we will each write down our numbers ahead of time. We're talk a little bit about our reasoning.

We'll then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. And finally, we will place John Denver on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. I struggled on this. I'll tell you my thinking. I, it wasn't too complex with it. I didn't look up comps felt like I should have. I feel like the backlash is a result of success.

And he was very successful in the seventies, and I think he had a strong manager in Jerry Weintraub. Mm-hmm. Who, this was something else that came up [00:42:00] that, uh, Jerry, like they break up around Karate kid. 'cause Jerry Weintraub was to totally like into the Karate kid and not paying attention to John Denver.

Um, anyway, fair. Honestly, I, I guess I never thought of Karate Kid as a breakup movie anyway. You just described as a very, very smart manager who not only got. John Denver's music in front of millions of people, but also got him on TV and also got him into movies. Truly managing his career. That had me leaning towards a higher number, the young death.

I didn't know what to make of, so I, I don't think we crossed the a hundred million mark here, but it is pretty high. So I got my number. Let's go ahead and reveal. So Jennifer wrote down 30 million and Michael wrote

Jennifer: down 30 million.

Michael: 30 million as well. All right. The actual net worth for John Denver. 60 million at the time of his death in 1997.

All right, so together we're right and we're, I love that we came up with the same number. All right. You know what? [00:43:00] I think actually this to me is really strong evidence for why he was getting so lambasted by the rock critics. This is what we kind of theorized. This, kind of confirms that in a big way.

'cause this is a lot of money. Uh, bandit also, I think, speaks to the shrewdness of his manager, who he does have a falling out with in the eighties. All right, at 60 million. Oh, I'd love this dinner table. That places him in the 35th percentile. Also at the $60 million net worth dinner table is Gregory Peck, Jerry Springer, Mary Tyler Moore, Olivia Newton John, and Johnny Cash.

Wow. Wow. It's kind of a, yeah. It's sort of interesting that Johnny Cash, John Denver, and Olivia Newton John all landed here that interesting. And then they all have to reckon with Jerry Springer, which I guess,

Jennifer: damn this conversation would be something. And I'm a little struck by him having the same net worth as Mary Tyler Moore.

I would've expected her to have more [00:44:00] than him.

Michael: I would've too, I, I will say this. Gregory Peck also quite the activist. I don't know. I'm developing theories about this net worth leaderboard that we've been working on. But I do feel like there is a certain tipping point of not just being at the fringes of activism, but being committed to it.

Sure. That feels like it happens around the 50 million mark. I feel like if you're a celeb with 50 million. Or more, and you're not throwing your money into causes, you know you're not doing your job.

Jennifer: I will just say recently Billie Eilish gave a speech at, she got some award, and she said like, there's a lot of billionaires in this audience.

Why are you billionaires? Give your money away.

Michael: There you go. I love it. Okay. 60 million. Well done, John Denver. All right. Category Five Little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski. Urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud. We are of all of them

Michael: in this category, Jennifer and I will each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo and impersonation or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

I gotta get this one out because it's been on my mind since we started The [00:45:00] Lion and Dumb and Dumber, where they take the wrong turn from towards the Rocky Mountains and they're back on the Great Plains and they don't see any mountains. And he says,

Archival: huh? Expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this.

I was thinking the same thing that John Denver's full of shit, man.

Michael: Uh, I, that, that, I say that every time. We drive into the Rocky Mountains. It's one of those lines that lives room free in my head, but that's not gonna be my Lebowski. I'm gonna go with the fact that he is credited with two official state songs, Rocky Mountain High for Colorado, and take Me Home Country Roads for West Virginia.

Those are both official state songs. So as they should be. As they should be. Right. And I think, you know, it kind of speaks to your point number five about what a true American he is in many ways. So what'd you have

Jennifer: for Leki? I discovered a weird little factoid that I thought was really interesting. In 1992, he did a concert with Liza Minnelli and [00:46:00] John o.

Everyone dream cheap of all people. Yeah. Denver, Minnelli and Oats one night only. Right? Um, for a benefit to fight the passage of Colorado Amendment two, which was an anti-gay ballot measure

Michael: in 1992.

Jennifer: 1992. I just think that's extraordinary. I mean, given when he died, he always would've been a little early on this, right?

Yeah. If he was alive, he was early. But 92 is a real early

Michael: and real early for Colorado too. Pretty Red state at this point in time, right? Mm-hmm. Wow. That's incredible. John os, Liza Minelli and John Denver go out and fight this amendment up the damn scream

Jennifer: team. I really, I don't know anything about this.

Um. Concert. Yeah, I would love to find some footage of it. Yeah, I would love to know if they like did any collabs. I can't, I'm trying to imagine like Liza Minnelli chiming in on Rocky Mountain High or something.

Michael: I mean I don't know that this speaks to that, but I do think that there is a certain [00:47:00] gravitational poll of celebrities to Aspen in the early seventies.

He is very early on in that and I do wonder if that's where he's not hobnobbing around. I tried to dig into this a little bit 'cause we've done episodes on Jimmy Buffett and Hunter s Thompson, also early Aspen celebs and, and phenoms. It sounds like actually John Diner got along well with both those guys.

All of the kind of bad press around him is coming from the press. Yeah. It's not actually coming from the creative community and there are tribute albums. There are artists to this day who will point to him as key sources of inspiration. So not exactly your point, but I, I keep, I, I feel like that's impulse to defend him.

You know? I, which I know, I know. And I don't know,

Jennifer: actually would love to see a tribute album. Now. I think you could make like a really interest, you could get your like Sabrina carpenters on there. Yeah. And like that. I bet, I would bet you I have just a crazy theory. I bet. Like Sabrina Carpenter knows who he is and likes him.

Michael: I bet. You're right. I love that. Uh, okay, let's take one more [00:48:00] break. All right. Category six words to live by in this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of John Denver's mouth or was said about him. What'd you come up with?

Jennifer: This is like so basic, but this is what popped in my head, which is just, thank God I'm a country boy.

Yeah. I feel like that just encompasses. His whole deal. And it's again said with such like, you believe him. And I think it's such a great concept of a song.

Michael: I do too. And it frustrates me that the divide in America is rural, urban. I feel like that song captures a time where it was a little easier to move between the city and the country.

Yep. You know what I mean? Okay. Here's what I, I found this, this was, at first, this is gonna sound maybe a little, I don't know, not profound, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it.

Archival: See, I think the biggest problem we have in the world, Ray, is that there's, there's a whole generation of young people that doesn't think it's gonna get any better.

And that's the first time that's ever happened in history. 'cause we've always, I mean, especially here in this country, you grew up and your parents worked to provide a [00:49:00] better life for you. And you always thought, you know, here in this country I can be president of the United States. That's what you think when you, when you grow up.

I don't think people think that anymore.

Michael: One, I found that interesting because that's the sort of statement that somebody makes today. Yeah. This is a sentiment that is actually very, very relevant in 2025, and I think he said this somewhere in the eighties or nineties. Okay. I think that is a really important observation that we have lost optimism in some ways, and it's something that I've become kind of obsessed with.

I think part of it is that. Austin as a city, the currency of this city is nostalgia. The joke I make sometimes is you only have to live here six months before you start bitching about how great it used to be. Yep. And, and I get that. It was awesome once upon a time, but it's actually still awesome and there's a lot of things that are still awesome.

Colorado's still awesome. Upstate New York. Where you're at now is still awesome. [00:50:00] We doom scroll too much. We tell too many stories about how the future is just totally screwed. And I love John Denver's optimism and I love that he says this is the big problem is that we have a generation of young people who don't think it's gonna get any better.

It is important for us to tell stories about how it's going to get better, even if there are big, major and troubling. And so sometimes what feels like insurmountable issues confronting us, I love this because what it was was a, a fight for a better story. And I personally cannot be reminded of that.

Enough that I need to police myself when I, to use a Tony Morrison term, fall into a master narrative of tragedy, uh, of it all going to hell of the world, just like ending in some godawful place. Yeah. More than anything, I just love his optimism and I think it speaks to his Muppet quality on some level.

Jennifer: It does. I think this all goes together. It's true.

Michael: I'd imagine this is something you reckon with too, though, Jennifer. Yeah. I mean,

Jennifer: for sure. Oh my God, yes. I mean, [00:51:00] you're totally right. We have this conversation, honestly, in my household a lot because mm-hmm. Jesse, my partner, is always like presenting the evidence that like everything's getting better.

Yeah. Um, overall,

Michael: and I mean, I don't think you wanna be Pollyannish about that, but I do think that. It is just sometimes too tempting to fall into a narrative around catastrophism, and this is something that comes up a lot in common conversations. I think apocalyptic narratives are very, very tempting, and I think that they certainly are pervasive in environmental discourse, and I think to hear John Denver saying, we gotta fight for a better story in this generation, I mean, that's what I read into this quote.

Anybody who's intelligent and informed is gonna war with themselves around this question. I just, I think I need to be reminded of it, you know?

Jennifer: Yeah, it, there's actually what I think is the broader point, and I think this is what Jesse's point is, there's kind of no upside to. Pessimism. That's such like cliche or whatever kind of thing to say, but you know what I mean.

Like it doesn't get us [00:52:00] anywhere. Um, yeah. If we believe that nothing's gonna get better, we're not gonna fight for anything anymore. And so believe me, I am there. I have my own private text conversations where we're extremely pessimistic.

Michael: Sure.

Jennifer: But especially, well, if you're

Michael: not pissed off, you're not paying attention.

Right? That's right. I think on some level it's also even the idea that history is a story. History has stories, but history is not a story. It does not end. And I think that the reason I say it that way, stories are fundamentally emotional engines. Right? They tell us how to feel at different moments along the way, and we should feel awful and in despair at times.

We should also. Fight to feel good and connected and hopeful and optimistic. And I know I'm way over interpreting this words to live by, but you know, I, I think it's important and I think he's a good ambassador for that message. So, okay, category seven, man in the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question.

Did this person like their reflection in the mirror? Yes or no? This is [00:53:00] not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. I think you have to go. No, here. Mm. I think, uh, I don't, I, I, I don't know. I struggle with this one, Jennifer, and I think it's a consequence of celebrity. I think that like the man confidently wore granny glasses and a mop top for many years there.

I think he's a handsome fella. Yeah. Uh, and I think he's, he's great on tv. Right. But I think the struggles he has with his marriages and, and his interpersonal relationships, I think that the wonderlust and the romanticism, I do think that there's some self-doubt I see in him that I would have liked to believe that he would have battled back to a more confident place if given time.

But this was a case where. My honest reaction is I wonder if he looks in the mirror and wrestles with himself. Yeah,

Jennifer: I wasn't sure either. And it, I do feel like those early years are almost an indicator of like Yes. Like 'cause Yeah. 'cause if you can like [00:54:00] rock that look then, right.

Michael: You, you, there's this self-assuredness and then ambition and confidence.

Yes. I mean,

Jennifer: we'll never know. I think even just the folk scene too, that he's kind of, yeah. Shortly coming out of, they were all like a little bit dorky, which I think was almost by design like they're trying to be, yeah. I don't know, pleasing and palatable and just kind of like calming. I think it's a huge reason why he was appealing to little girls or little children.

Yeah. Is that, I'm not gonna get it quite right, but there's, it's stuck in my head so hard. There's like a, a bit on the Simpsons where Lisa Simpson talks about like non-threatening, like this, like he's non-threatening. He is non-threatening boy. Like he's, you know, like that's, that, that's what like Popstar hop idols are like, they're like, yeah.

The whole point of them is that you understand they're male as a girl, but as a straight girl growing up, but they don't scare you. Yeah know with their masculinity and I think that that's a fine line to walk,

Michael: but I get that. I get that. Well, all right. I'm gonna make you answer the question, did you go yes or no?

I mean, I

Jennifer: think I agree with you still [00:55:00] though. Yeah. That like probably especially over time, I think he was probably pushed even to change up the image a little. And how can you not be constantly aware of your image once you're famous like

Michael: that and, and I mean you just kind of can't overstate what a truncated life it was and that, that just is factoring into this question.

Right. Alright. Category eight coffee cocktail cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. Boy, I didn't have to think hard about this one. I want to smoke a joint. I want to go for a hike. Yeah. Uh, there is actually a trail in Golden Gate Canyon State Park that was officially named the Rocky Mountain High Trail.

Oh. Used to be called Mountain Lion. Lion Trail. I mean, it's the nature connectedness stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, sometimes we use this category to sort of address lingering questions. If I did have a question. That I'd like to sort out with him. I think that there is a inner confidence and a self-worth curiosity that I have because I do see him struggling, you know, with some of his relationships.

I certainly see him struggling with his [00:56:00] own public narrative. I'm very, very sympathetic to all of that. I also see a tremendous amount of creative output, and I think it's coming from deep within, and that it does have melancholy, an edge to it, even if it first presents as simple and optimistic and wholesome.

Those are the things I would wanna weigh out in a. In a conversation while high in the mountains of what's it going to take for you to rediscover some of that creativity. It's not like he stopped making music, but he stopped having hits. Right. I would have wanted to see another chapter, obviously, but I think that's what I wanna talk about, because I think a lot, it's something that is a recurring theme of famous and gravy for me, is how much creative output does the job of self-love and self-affirmation.

And I see that building and dissipating in different chapters of his life. Obviously. I think he's also getting a tremendous amount of meaning out of his activism, and I applaud him for that. But I, I wonder too, how much that does, you know, internally. So I just want, I wanna talk about that and, and be high and look at the clouds.

So [00:57:00] I just,

Jennifer: it it didn't even, it's, I was like, I, there's no question here. Yeah. Just like, looked at it for two seconds and I was like, why would I, why would it not be cannabis? Obviously cannabis, and to many of your points, it's like, I wanna just like go, I don't know, on a camping trip. And look at the stars or watch the clouds form.

And he kind of maybe always has, I mean, I don't know how much he got high, but there's quality to what he writes about. Right? He's so poetic. He sees what's the right term. There's a term for this that's like animus, where you see life in everything. It comes up a lot. If you do like psychedelics, if you like, there's a, there's a point at which you will often, like, you might even be like this chair, right?

But a,

Michael: but a spiritedness in, in inanimate object, especially the output especially is like, you

Jennifer: will often feel like the tree has something to tell you. Yeah. Or you know, like that kind of thing. And I feel like he would be very tapped into that.

Michael: Uh, a thousand percent. He did say Rocky Mountain High was not about smoking pot, even though.

He was smoking pot and had, you know, [00:58:00] some experiences with LSD. Yeah. Anyway, okay, I think we have arrived. The final category, the Vander Beak, named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity Blues, I don't want your life in that varsity blues scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.

So here Jennifer and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how John Denver lived. I think we can go through the counter argument points pretty quickly. I'll start with Young Death. Dying at 53. I've been thinking about this a lot. So I'm 47. I don't want to die. I don't feel ready to die. And I try not to think too much about death, but I'm, I'm in the same sort of category of denial as a lot of other, you know, Americans.

But I do think that's something that happens around the age I'm at now around 50 is, and I heard somebody say this, well, is that you are doing less writing of your life and you start editing your story more, you know? And I [00:59:00] kind of like that. Yeah. And I do think that it's interesting that John Denver actually has an autobiography that comes out shortly before his death.

I think that is actually a statement that he has begun, that process of editing his story and his own story.

Archival: So what is all of this amounted to these past 50 years? I find myself thinking so often of the words to on the wings of a dream, which I wrote shortly after my father died yesterday. I had a dream about dying, about laying to rest and then flying.

And I lay in my bed and I wonder, after all has been said and is done for, why is it thus we are here and so soon we are gone. Is this life just a path to the place that we all have come from? Does the heart know the way? And if not, can it ever be found? And if so, then I sing from my father. And in truth, you must know, I would rather he were here by my side.

We could fly on the wings of a dream,

Michael: which is not to say his life was complete, but we don't get to [01:00:00] decide on our deaths. We also, I mean, I, and this feels so almost dangerous to say. But I think it was fast. I think it was alone. Nobody else was hurt. When he died, he was doing something. He loved all other things being equal.

If we were to say in a, you know, in the ether somewhere, John, how do you want to go? I wonder if he wouldn't be kind of okay with the fact that he was in a single plane that crashed over the Pacific Ocean. And, and that it was quick and painless, you know? Yeah. So, I don't know. That's how I thought through that part of it.

I think the troubles at home were uh mm-hmm. You know, pretty normal. But I think that that goes into the counter argument. And then I think absolutely not having control of your own story. Mm-hmm. And not getting the kind of recognition and credit. Maybe you had the financial windfall, but you didn't have the critical windfall.

And I think that that mattered. I think we care about validation from our peers for sure. And maybe he got that from other musicians. I don't think he got that from the press. And yes, maybe we're overstating just how [01:01:00] negative it was, but it's not hard to find that this is not like one or two rock critics who were for his work.

So those are pretty strong reasons. So. All right. What are the reasons why you want this life, Jennifer? I mean, or is there anything else you'd put in the counter argument?

Jennifer: No, I think those are, those are it. And I mean, he, most people can't have one hit. Yeah. And I like to really emphasize that. Yeah. People underestimate when they watch other people have hits.

Yeah. How hard it is to have and any category.

Michael: I agree. I actually thought about this too, that to have two or more is significant and actually spread out over several years. I think the last big hit was Calypso and the first big hit was Jet Plane. And that's like a 15 year span

Jennifer: or Yeah. Or more. And Jet Plane is like, I just think that's an iconic song too.

Like that's totally in addition. I love, in addition to his own stuff. And it does, it's funny how like his stuff is in this category of like country, roads, mountains, all like, right. He has his own thing and then this, this whole thing, which leaving on a jet plane does have the flying. Um, yeah, it does. It,

Michael: [01:02:00] it's a recurrent, I mean it, the Wonderlust is a real recurrent theme.

The Jimmy Buffett nearest neighbor thing isn't totally farfetched in a way, although 'cause well beyond the Caribbean here.

Jennifer: But he wrote many hits. That I think seemed to have reflected his genuine self. I don't think he was doing something. They're coming from deep

Michael: within.

Jennifer: Yeah. It doesn't feel like, you know when somebody maybe like you can kind of feel like, oh, they were just trying to write hits or whatever.

No, these

Michael: are inspired.

Jennifer: He was doing what he wanted to do in this genuine way no matter what. People said, right? Mm-hmm. That's the counter argument to that. He was so successful that there was a backlash to him, which I know didn't probably feel good, but man, have you made it If you get a backlash?

Michael: Oh yeah.

So the creative output is awesome. Yeah. I mean, for me, the big thing. And it's actually sort of a two A and two B is I do see an upward staircase spiritual journey here. One is in the nature connectedness and the way he captured that. I think that if you have that as [01:03:00] part of your DNA, and if you have expressed that for people that that's real, and I think Aspen and Colorado and to some extent the ocean.

I mean, I think in Alaska, I think the wilderness for him was a place he could go back to and feel a sense of belonging and be connected with something greater than himself. I think that is also present in his activism. Yeah. I think that the way he goes out there to fight for conservation, to fight for against world hunger to, I mean, your point about killing an anti-gay legislation in the early nineties, I mean, I think that there is real meaning and real being of service that those two together are, I know 90% of what is involved in a spiritual journey, regardless of what you believe.

Jennifer: Right, right. I just keep thinking like. What are the main things I want in life is like, I wanna feel like I had good creative output and that I made a difference. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And he kind of did those and then on top of it, he starts flying and that loves that. And also he reconciles with his father, [01:04:00] who he had a very bad relationship with early on.

Michael: Totally. And I think that there's even a, a partial reconciliation with his first wife, you know? Yes. And just the way she talks about him Yes. And their relationship. I see some at at least partial resolution there. I agree. I would say the last thing though, I'm really sort of struck by your point about what he represents as an American ideal.

Yeah. And as an American icon. I think that that is still with us, even though he died almost 30 years ago now. Right. That's a real statement of values and of ideals. Those don't combine in a single individual very often. And. That that is a little bit separate, although part of the creative output as well as the being of service and so forth.

So yeah. All right. With that, James VanDerBeek, I'm John Denver and you want my life.

Before we close, if you enjoy this episode and you're enjoying our show, and if you've [01:05:00] got your phone in your hand, please take a moment to share it with a friend. We wanna grow our podcast one listener at a time. All right. Speed round plugs for past shows. Jennifer, if people enjoyed the John Denver episode, what else might they like from the Famous and Gravy archives?

Jennifer: I'm just gonna go, so this is such a boring choice, but I just feel like it's true, which is I, I, I'm going Fred Rogers. I just think yes, not because I was on it. But I guess if you lived through this episode with me on it, you'll also live through that.

Michael: I actually, yes. And I still tell people that's, that's one of my top three go toss from the James of Great.

I just think they have like a

Jennifer: weird similarity as we were talking about the appeals of children, the sort of like spiritual core to what they did without being like outwardly, hugely spiritual in the content. Like I just, I don't even know what do John Denver's spiritual beliefs were, but you can feel a soulfulness Yeah.

To everything he did, which I'm is what I'm always looking for. Yeah. And I just think both with doing what you love for a living and also. [01:06:00] Doing good in the world in different ways. They both did that.

Michael: I love that and I'm totally good with it. Episode 100, divine Neighbor, Fred Rogers. All right. I thought very hard about Jimmy Buffett.

I thought about John Prine. I thought about Johnny Cash. I'm gonna go a little left field here and go episode 99. Crikey Inner child, Steve Irwin. I think it's the nature connectedness thing. Also, that episode is just so fun. Very different relationship with nature, but expresses that ideal in an important way, and I think it's a fun episode.

So episode 99, crikey. Inner child, Steve Irwin. Finally Famous and Gravy Listeners, we'd love hearing from you. Do you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz? Email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.

Famous and Gravy is created by AM Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to the impeccable Fication Armstrong for guest hosting on this episode. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with assistance from [01:07:00] Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks. See you next.