Who Was Johnny Denver And What Was He Known For?

Johnny Denver was born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. in Roswell, N.M, on New Year's Eve, 1943. After high school he lived in Fort Worth, Texas and enrolled as a freshman architecture major at Texas Tech.

After two years of college his grades began to suffer. He quote, "decided to get the music thing out of my system, see what I could do with it."  He dropped out of college, loaded up his '55 Chevy and moved to California to pursue a music career. He loved Colorado, and changed his last name to Denver, which is the capital of that state. He thought of that as his favorite city.

In the summer of 1965 when Denver, then working professionally as Johnny Denver, was chosen over 250 other young hopefuls to replace group originator Chad Mitchell in Chad Mitchell Trio. For two years he stayed with that group singing the lead, and then he decided to go it alone!

He was signed by RCA Records in 1969 but never really clicked until "Leaving on a Jet Plane" - one of his own compositions on his debut album. I was a Johnny Denver fan and we took our children to his concerts many times. The song about leaving on the plane tears at my heart as he was killed when his private plane crashed at the age of 53.

Denver was known for his songs, "Annie's Song," "Rocky Mountain High," and my favorite, "Sunshine on My Shoulder."
He also was in the movie, "Oh, God" with George Burns.

In 1974, Denver sold more records than any other recording artist in the world did. He topped himself in 1975, and the trend continued in 1976 and 1977. Johnny Denver's Albums still sell today. He is a singer that will touch many hearts forever, including mine.