On Oct. 12, 1997, at the age of 53, singer, songwriter, humanitarian and environmentalist John Denver died when the plane he was flying crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Wednesday marked the 25th anniversary of his death.

Denver recorded over 300 songs, 200 of which he composed. His music spanned the decades from the 1970s to the 1990s. He earned 12 gold and four platinum albums for his songs, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “Rocky Mountain High,” “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and “Annie’s Song,” among many others.

Acclaimed composer Lee Holdridge — who has been nominated for 18 Emmy Awards, with seven wins, and who has also worked with Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston — collaborated with Denver in 1974 on his album “Back Home Again.”

He recalls telling the singer that his music would become part of American culture.

“I said to [John], “You have songs that will become part of Americana. They’ll just be part of folk literature. People [will] just think they were around forever,” Holdridge said. “And that’s exactly what’s happened to certain songs. It’s part of the fabric — you hear ‘Country Roads’ all over the place and ‘Rocky Mountain High’ — you hear many of those songs everywhere. He was amazed that I told him that, but I said, you watch, it’s going to happen.”

Holdridge notes that people of all ages from around the world are listening to Denver’s music.

“There are a lot of kids that know the songs. They don’t know what that is, but they love the song … and they can sing them,” Holdridge said. “It fascinates me that it’s timeless — I think that’s the best part of it all.”

Holdridge feels that music has “gotten away from the art of songwriting.”

“I worked with many great artists in the ’70s and ’80s and ’90s who were driven to have a great song. They could be great artists, but they had these great songs,” he said.

“And now it’s more about production and it’s very hard to find a great song. You know, some of the songs are fun, they’re catchy, or very gimmicky and everything but you don’t exactly walk away saying, ‘that’s a great song.’ You just sort of say, ‘Yeah, okay, that’s a nice record. I like that record,’ but you don’t think about it,” Holdridge stated.

Milton Okun, a legendary record producer and classically-trained arranger as well as a 16-time Grammy Award nominee, helped turn John Denver into a pop star. His love of opera was apparent when he brought Denver’s down-home singing together with the soaring voice of Placido Domingo.

The duet recorded “Perhaps Love,” which was the title song on Domingo’s best-selling album. This opened the door for other crossover successes, including collaborations with the Three Tenors, Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli.

“In a strange way, matching that great operatic voice with the beautiful crystalline folk singer gave birth to that whole era,” Holdridge stated.

After Denver’s death, it was Okun’s idea to bring together Domingo and other opera singers to create a tribute to Denver.

“Great Voices Sing John Denver” is an award-winning documentary about the making of a new CD of Denver songs reimagined by 15 singers from a completely different genre — opera.

The documentary was organized by Okun, his wife Rosemary, Holdridge and his wife, Elisa, who helped select the opera singers.
Kenneth Shapiro, known for his role as director of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” along with a multitude of award-winning shows that have garnered Primetime Emmys, Grammys, and Academy Awards, is also a 22-time Emmy award winner and nominee. He was brought on board to direct the Denver project.

“Milt Okun and I actually met at the Los Angeles opera,” Shapiro said. “I was there directing an opera video and Milt was a board member for the LA Opera and liked the work I was doing, had some ideas of some projects that he was thinking of, one of which was doing this John Denver documentary. He wanted to put together an album and CD basically, for the family after John’s death and so that’s how I got involved.”

“Great Voices Sing John Denver” is a compilation of 15 opera singers performing Denver’s music with an orchestra and was screened Wednesday, Oct. 12, at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre.

“Lee [Holdridge] always felt that John’s music could hold up so well to orchestration and so this was a way of connecting two of Milt’s favorite things, which was love of opera and love of orchestra,” Shapiro said.

“There’s so much information about John’s life because I was one of the only people that really had never known John, and worked with him,” Shapiro said. “I had worked on other productions that he performed over the years, but I never worked one-on-one with him. For me, it was learning about the whole story beyond what I heard and just the history of his life. I’m still learning about his life. I’m still investigating and still researching pieces. It’s like this film still has a life and I’m trying to add another chapter to it.”

Shapiro alluded that there may be an addendum coming to the film in the future. He said that the more he is involved in this project, the more information comes his way.

“With some of the knowledge I’m gaining, especially when we do these screenings, I get a lot of questions that people ask about John’s life and certain parts of his performances that we don’t include in the film. So, we’re considering adding a new chapter that will include some of those features,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro said that he is an adrenaline junkie, living on the edge of producing live television.

“I think [that’s] the whole reality of working in live television,” he said. “We’re adrenaline junkies, we love living on the edge. We love having one chance to do it right. We have one chance to perfect it,” Shapiro said. “We’ve rehearsed and performed it correctly. It’s like an artist on stage in some regards. You have that one chance to do what you do. For me, it’s always been a thrill doing live television and you adjust as quickly as you can to what happens. But it says the thrill, thrill seekers, kind of fun but yeah, I love what I do in that regard.”

Both Shapiro and Holdridge shared their disdain for “We Are the World,” which was performed on March 7, 1985, and featured a choir of 46 of the biggest names in music across other genres, all united to sing one song to help support those suffering from poverty and hunger in Africa. Denver was not asked to participate.

“I know John was very hurt when he wasn’t included in ‘We Are the World,’” Holdridge stated. “I was so irritated and angry at the producers for not including John. Of all people in the world. I never quite forgave them for that because I thought that was an absolute insult. They had a few people, but they didn’t have John Denver. Come on. Let’s get real here,” Holdridge said.

After Denver’s death, Holdridge found out that all his arrangements were thrown away by Denver’s manager. All that was left were Holdridge’s hand-written Xerox copies and notes. Holdridge and Jim Curry, who is a tribute performer of Denver’s songs, helped recreate the orchestrations.

“We had a library. We had everything in there, all the paper — everything printed up. And when John died, his manager decided that the $300 a month that it was costing to keep the music library was too much so he threw everything out,” Holdridge said. Curry and a friend were able to reconstruct everything digitally on the computer.

As a tribute to the iconic music of Denver, Curry has been performing his music for the past 23 years. Curry said that he was a fan of Denver’s music in the early 70s and taught himself guitar by playing the music he loved.

“I’ve always sounded like John, even back in the high school and college days, so it was just a natural thing to pursue that when he was gone,” Curry said. “When we made the decision to do a tribute show, we wanted to make sure it wasn’t corny. It wasn’t Vegas, you know, it wasn’t an impersonator. I sound like one person, and it just happens to be my own voice.”

Curry talks about the collaborations he has done with band members, Holdridge, and many others who have known and performed with Denver.

“Floating in my head as to what it is that makes all these people feel comfortable collaborating with me? You know, I’ve not done anything to encourage it,” Curry stated. “It just has come together.”

While Shapiro feels that Denver needs one more chapter added to his life’s story, Holdridge indicated that he feels he and his cohort are still working together, in spirit, after all these years.

“Each time I am working on a concert or symphony like one that I did recently in Canada, I was walking back to the hotel, and I looked up and said, ‘Hey, John, I’m still working for you.’ So that kind of tells it all.”

Curry, Holdridge and Shapiro are all in Sedona for the 25th anniversary tribute to John Denver. Curry performed on Tuesday, Oct. 11, for a benefit for the Sedona International Film Festival at the Chuck Mabery Pavilion at Yavapai College in Clarkdale.

Carol Kahn can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 126, or by email to ckahn@larsonnewspapers.com