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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.10.15 15:21l 59 Lines 2834 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 69755_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Oct 12
Path: IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<I0OJJ<GB7CIP<N0KFQ
Sent: 151012/1418Z 69755@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.64
1997
John Denver dies in an aircraft accident
To those who bought records like "Rocky Mountain High" and "Take
Me Home, Country Roads" by the millions in the 1970s, John Denver
was much more than just a great songwriter and performer. With
his oversized glasses, bowl haircut and down vest, he was an
unlikely fashion icon, and with his vocal environmentalism, he
was the living embodiment of an outdoorsy lifestyle that many
20-something baby boomers would adopt as their own during the
"Me" decade. There never was and there probably never will be a
star quite like John Denver, who died on this day in 1997 when
his experimental amateur aircraft crashed into Monterey Bay on
the California coast.
Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., in 1943, not in the mountains
of Colorado but in Roswell, New Mexico, John Denver rose to fame
as a recording artist in 1971, when "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
rose all the way to #2 on the Billboard pop chart. In fact,
Denver already had a share in a #1 hit as the writer of "Leaving
On A Jet Plane," a chart-topper for Peter, Paul and Mary in 1969.
But it was his 1971 breakout as a performer of his own material
that made him a household name. Over the course of the 1970s,
John Denver earned five more top-10 singles, including the #1
hits "Sunshine On My Shoulders" (1974), "Annie's Song" (1974),
"Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (1975) and "I'm Sorry" (1975). Even
more impressive, he released an astonishing 11 albums that were
certified Platinum by the RIAA, making him one of the most
successful recording artists of the 70s, and launching him into a
successful career in film and television as well.
By the 1990s, Denver was still a popular touring musician, though
he was no longer recording new material with significant
commercial success. Over the course of his career, he had become
an accomplished private pilot with more than 2,700 hours on
various single- and multi-engine aircraft, with both an
instrument and a Lear Jet rating. On October 12, 1997, however,
he was flying an aircraft with which he was relatively
unfamiliar, and with which he had previously experienced control
problems, according to a later investigation by the National
Transportation Safety Board. At approximately 5:30 pm local time,
after a smooth takeoff from a Pacific Grove airfield and under
ideal flying conditions, Denver apparently lost control of his
Long-EZ aircraft several hundred feet over Monterey Bay, leading
to the fatal crash.
A movie star and political activist as well as a musician, John
Denver was one of the biggest stars of his generation, and is
credited by the Recording Industry Association of America with
selling more than 32 million albums in the United States alone.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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