The Essential

Performer: John Denver
Producer: Roger Nichols; John Denver; Larry Butler; Bob Irwin; Milton Okun; Barney Wyckoff; Placido Domingo; Nathan Sedlander (Compilation)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Issued by the RCA label in 2007, this two-disc John Denver retrospective features a well-selected collection of the late folk-pop performer's finest songs. Like the excellent though not as comprehensive DEFINITIVE ALL-TIME GREATEST HITS, the set presents many of the amiable Colorado-based singer-songwriter's most recognizable tunes, including the shimmering "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and the vibrant "Rocky Mountain High." However, ESSENTIAL digs further into Denver's catalogue, offering up lesser-known numbers such as the delicate "I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado" and the surprisingly energetic "I'd Rather Be a Cowboy (Lady's Chains)." Ideal for those wanting more than the DEFINITIVE compilation, but less than the weighty four-disc COUNTRY ROADS COLLECTION, ESSENTIAL easily stands as one of the best Denver anthologies available.

Dirty Linen (p.79) - "THE ESSENTIAL JOHN DENVER encapsulates some of the era's best qualities....[Listeners] will find it worth its weight in nostalgia."

As John Denver, the former John Henry Deutschendorf was a ubiquitous icon of the 1970s. Although he had been a musician and songwriter in the 1960s, penning "Leaving on a Jet Plane" for Peter, Paul & Mary, Denver hit his stride in the '70s with earnest folk songs celebrating the glories of the natural world and life's simple pleasures. Although he was sometimes savaged by critics for his overarching earnestness, his songs speak for themselves, and his records still sell in large numbers. In the wake of his premature death in a 1997 plane crash, a number of contemporary artists have recorded Denver's songs, without any hint of irony.

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