Denver, Boise & Johnson - The Bistro Inn, Columbus, OH, 6-1968

One can find such interesting music on YouTube these days. I was searching for more concerts from the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, and the use of the search term "Denver" helped me find this concert. I checked, and it wasn't available anywhere else. It's nearly two hours of the folk trio Denver, Boise and Johnson, with excellent sound quality. If you're a fan of John Denver then you'll want this, because he was the "Denver" in "Denver, Boise and Johnson."

I should start by explaining who this trio were. I've actually posted half an album of their music on this blog before. I say half, because I posted an album that contained a John Denver solo set he did at the Philadelphia Folk Festival as well as a Denver, Boise and Johnson set from that same festival. The latter set lasted about 25 minutes. Here's the link to that one, in case you're curious:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/01/john-denver-plus-denver-boise-johnson.html

Anyway, when I posted that, I explained the background of the trio. Here's that same explanation:

The group was originally a popular folk group called the "Chad Mitchell Trio." But in 1965, Chad Mitchell left for a solo career, and was replaced by John Denver. It was his first big break into the music industry. The group changed its name to just the "Mitchell Trio." Then, by 1968, the last original member had left, so they were legally required to change their name again, to "Denver, Boise and Johnson." At this point, they consisted of John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson. This version didn't last long, breaking up in 1969 without releasing any albums. 

Now, let me get back to how I found this concert on YouTube. It turns out that Michael Johnson posted it there in 2022. I mention that name, because this was the Michael Johnson who was a member of Denver, Boise and Johnson. Actually, it must be a family member who posted that, because Johnson died in 2017. But whoever posted it posted a handful of concert bootlegs from this trio, so if you're interested in more, go check out that person's YouTube page. I picked this one because it was the longest and most coherent, coming from a single concert.

Here's Johnson's website, if you want to see more pictures and other information about this trio: https://www.mjblue.com/mjdbj.html

At the time of this concert, this trio mostly performed cover songs. But occasionally they played John Denver originals. You can find a few sprinkled in here, like "Take Me to Tomorrow," "Like to Deal with the Ladies," "For Baby (For Bobbie)," "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Catch Another Butterfly," and "Sticky Summer Weather." I think those are all of his originals, but I might have missed one or two. A year after this concert, Peter, Paul and Mary would have a big hit single with "Leaving on a Jet Plane," turning it into a folk classic.

If you're wondering why Denver, Boise and Johnson didn't have a hit with "Leaving on a Jet Plane" before Peter, Paul and Mary did, it's because they basically couldn't get a record contract. By 1968, folk music was considered passe, especially if it was still acoustic and not folk-rock. The trio released a couple of singles that didn't make the charts. They broke up in 1969, having never released a studio album in the year or so that these three people made up the trio. John Denver, of course, went on to superstardom only a couple of years after that. Michael Johnson also went on to have a successful, long music career, including having a couple of Number One hits on the U.S. country singles chart in the 1980s.

This appears to be a soundboard recording. There were a few problems, mostly where songs got cut off. That happened three times. For "Let's Get Together," only the very end of the song was missing, literally the last sung note, plus the applause. So that was an easy fix. For "Coal Tattoo," nearly the entire song was missing. But Michael Johnson's YouTube page has some other Denver, Boise and Johnson live recordings, as I mentioned above, so I used one of those to fill in most of the song. It was a similar situation with "Both Sides Now" near the end of the concert. That was missing about the first minute, so I also filled that in with a different live version taken from that YouTube page.

It appears the band played three sets in this concert. I think this includes all of the first and second sets. But there may have been additional songs before "Coal Tattoo" at the start of the third set. There are very few repeats. Only the last three songs were played earlier. 

Oh, one last thing. I don't know the exact date of this concert, and I'm not even sure of the month. Michael Johnson's YouTube page merely says it took place in the summer of 1968. But I found another reference that said June 1968, so I'm going with that unless I hear something different. 

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 That's the Way It's Gonna Be (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
02 What This Country Really Needs Is Another Movie Star (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
03 We Didn't Know (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
04 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
05 Take Me to Tomorrow (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
06 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
07 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
08 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
09 Red Velvet (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
10 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
11 Like to Deal with the Ladies (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
12 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
13 Bending the Strings [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
14 Everybody's Talkin' (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
15 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
16 Draft Dodger Rag (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
17 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
18 Both Sides Now (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
19 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
20 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
21 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
22 If You Had Me in Shackles (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
23 The John Birch Society (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
24 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
25 For Baby [For Bobbie] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
26 You Certainly Have Got a Pretty Fantastic Bod (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
27 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
28 Victoria Dines Alone (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
29 Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood Ku Klux Klan (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
30 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
31 Leaving on a Jet Plane (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
32 Yellow Cat (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
33 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
34 The '68 Nixon [This Year's Model] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
35 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
36 Turning Point (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
37 Blowin' in the Wind (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
38 Let's Get Together [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
39 Coal Tattoo [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
40 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
41 Asturias [Leyenda] [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
42 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
43 Business Goes On as Usual (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
44 Catch Another Butterfly (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
45 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
46 Foggy Mountain Breakdown [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
47 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
48 Cripple Creek [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
49 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
50 Sticky Summer Weather (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
51 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
52 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
53 Both Sides Now [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
54 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
55 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uGr1HA5x

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/a75hEoNov5OCOmm/file

I found the photo of this trio at Michael Johnson's website. From left to right: Michael Johnson, David Boise, and John Denver.

John Denver (plus Denver, Boise & Johnson) - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-25-1968

Here's the fifth album I'm posting from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. Out of six albums I'm posting from the festival, this is the only one that I had posted already. So I've deleted that and I'm reposting it, to help people find all six albums together. I also found a better cover image (since it's from this exact concert). But the music is the same as before. The first part is a solo performance by John Denver on August 23, 1968, the first day of the festival. But he was still part of a folk trio, Denver, Boise and Johnson. So most of the rest is from a performance by that trio on August 25, 1968, the last day of the festival.

Since I posted this already, back in 2022, I'm just going to repost what I wrote there, with a few minor edits: 

I like to find music of famous musicians from the time before they were famous, provided it's worthy of their later career and the sound quality is excellent. There aren't a lot of cases like that, but I've posted three 1969 concerts of John Denver here, before he started to hit it big around 1971. He's a good candidate for that kind of thing, because he was singing in public and writing excellent songs well before becoming famous. For instance, his later classic "Leaving on a Jet Plane" was actually written in 1966.

The three 1969 concerts I've posted are all excellent sounding soundboard bootlegs. It turns out there's another excellent sounding soundboard bootleg of him from even earlier, 1968! Here it is.

It's actually two different recordings combined. The first nine tracks feature just Denver on solo acoustic guitar, at the Philadelphia Folk Festival on August 23, 1968. Then, two days later, he came back as part of the Denver, Boise and Johnson folk trio, at the same festival. That's here as tracks 10 to 22. 

I need to explain the history of Denver, Boise and Johnson. The group was originally a popular folk group called the "Chad Mitchell Trio." But in 1965, Chad Mitchell left for a solo career, and was replaced by John Denver. It was his first big break into the music industry. The group changed its name to just the "Mitchell Trio." Then, by 1968, the last original member had left, so they were legally required to change their name again, to "Denver, Boise and Johnson." This version didn't last long, breaking up in 1969 without releasing any albums. But that's the version that appears on this bootleg.

For the Denver, Boise and Johnson songs, Denver sang most of them, but David Boise or Michael did the lead vocals on some of them too.

This album is 42 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On April 30, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. I removed four songs at the end that weren't actually from the festival. Instead, they were from a Denver, Boise and Johnson concert in Columbus, Ohio, in 1968. I had included them because they were on the original bootleg I took this from. The reason I removed them is because I found the entire concert they came from, and I posted that. 

01 Good Ole Friends of Mine (John Denver)
02 talk (John Denver)
03 Deal with the Ladies (John Denver)
04 Catch Another Butterfly (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 Sticky Summer Weather (John Denver)
07 Farewell Party (John Denver)
08 talk (John Denver)
09 What's That I Hear Now (John Denver)
10 If You Had Me in Shackles (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
11 Yellow Cat (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
12 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
13 Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
14 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
15 Business Goes On as Usual (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
16 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
17 Everybody's Talkin' (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
18 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
19 '68 Nixon [This Year's Model] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
20 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
21 Leaving on a Jet Plane (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
22 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vwFEgZSi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5zi1O5vzGm6dcam/file

The cover image is different than the one I'd used the first time I posted this album. That's because I managed to find a photograph taken from this exact concert. It's the only photo from this festival I found that was already in color.

John Denver - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Sight and Sound, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 1-18-1973

Here's another BBC clean-up, with yet more renumbering. I had already posted two BBC concerts by John Denver. Then I discovered this one, from 1973. So those two are getting renamed to make room for this.

Actually, I may have come across this quite a while ago, but I dismissed it due to sound quality issues. But my audio editing skills have improved since then (mainly because the technology keeps getting better), so I decided to give this another shot. It still doesn't sound great, but I think it's a worthy listen.

As I've mentioned many times, the reason I keep focusing on posting BBC material is largely because of the typical high sound quality. I'm guessing this is a partial exception because the name "Sight and Sound" indicates this was an early episode of a BBC TV series, as opposed to a radio show. It's probable someone recorded this off their TV, which inevitably results in a loss of sound quality. However, I did some things to improve it. The most notable effect, I think, was from bringing up the volume of the lead vocals in relation to the instruments, using UVR5.

Note that, also in 1973, Denver hosted a six part TV series. I haven't gotten around to trying to find all the episodes of that, and doing something with it. If anyone has that and wants to send it to me, that would be a big help.

Oh, by the way, here are the links to the two renamed BBC concerts of his that come after this one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/07/john-denver-bbc-concert-john-denver-in.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/03/john-denver-his-guitar-and-his-music.html

This unreleased album is 46 minutes long.

01 Starwood in Aspen (John Denver)
02 talk (John Denver)
03 Carolina in My Mind (John Denver)
04 Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 The Eagle and the Hawk (John Denver)
07 Rocky Mountain High (John Denver)
08 Catch Another Butterfly (John Denver)
09 The Box (John Denver)
10 Jimmy Newman (John Denver)
11 talk (John Denver)
12 Goodbye Again (John Denver)
13 It's a Sin to Tell a Lie (John Denver)
14 talk (John Denver)
15 Poems, Prayers and Promises (John Denver)
16 Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EaNTFxW1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/pjZ2zvbV5An6ykm/file

The cover photo is from an episode of the 1973 John Denver BBC TV show series I mentioned above.

John Denver - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: John Denver in Person, Talk of the Town, London, Britain, 4-14-1976

Here's the second of three BBC concerts I've found by John Denver. This one is from 1976, which was probably the peak of his popularity.

Denver was extremely successful in the early to mid-1970s, but that dropped sharply after 1976. As an example, he had nine Top Twenty hits in the US from 1971 to 1976, but none after that. So this is an ideal time for a concert recording. It does a good job serving as a best of, missing only a couple of key hits like "Rocky Mountain High" and "Back Home Again."

This concert is mostly acoustic, but he had other instruments backing him up on some songs, including strings sometimes. The recording quality is excellent, and there's a lot of enthusiastic banter between songs.

Because this wasn't done for the half hour long "In Concert" TV show, it wasn't subject to that short time restriction. But I'd still bet it's only part of a full concert, because it's only 49 minutes long.

UPDATE: In February 2025, I renamed this to "BBC Sessions, Volume 2" after finding an earlier BBC concert by him that I'd missed.

01 talk (John Denver)
02 Starwood in Aspen (John Denver)
03 talk (John Denver)
04 Mother Nature's Son (John Denver)
05 Sunshine on My Shoulder (John Denver)
06 talk (John Denver)
07 Spirit (John Denver)
08 talk (John Denver)
09 Fly Away (John Denver)
10 talk (John Denver)
11 Grandma's Feather Bed (John Denver)
12 Thank God I'm a Country Boy (John Denver)
13 talk (John Denver)
14 Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
15 talk (John Denver)
16 Calypso (John Denver)
17 talk (John Denver)
18 Annie's Song (John Denver)
19 Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)
20 talk (John Denver)
21 This Old Guitar (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7FFvj6Gq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/o15YXCBZopdOomm/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from a YouTube video of this exact concert. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the use of the Krea AI program.

John Denver - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: His Guitar and His Music, Apollo Theatre, London, Britain, 10-26-1982

If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed I've been putting an emphasis on posting BBC material recently. This is a BBC performance too.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm not a huge John Denver fan. Most of his songs don't cut the mustard for me, but he's written some true classics too. One issue I have with him is production. In my opinion, his music tended to be overproduced, especially with the use of strings, whereas I think he shines best in the solo acoustic format. So I went looking for the best solo acoustic concert he did, and came up with this bootleg. It contains pretty much all of his big hits, some nice covers, and some choice lesser known songs. If you're like me and enjoy the solo acoustic format, I suspect this is the best live recording of him out there.

Unfortunately, Denver didn't perform concerts in the solo acoustic format very much. As far as I could tell, he did shows in that format prior to hitting it big in 1971, probably because he didn't have the money to pay for a band. Then he tended to play with a band all the time, sometimes with an orchestra, except for some semi-acoustic concerts in the late 1990s. One exception I found to this is a series of solo acoustic shows he did in 1982. Unfortunately, none of them were recorded for a live album. 

But he did one of the shows in Britain which was recorded by the BBC and played as a TV special there with the name "His Guitar and His Music." I didn't find any audio bootlegs of this concert, just the video footage. So I converted the video to audio and broke it up into mp3 tracks. The sound quality is great, as it usually is with BBC recordings. This sounds just as good as you'd expect from an official live album, with no flaws.

Denver was a chatty performer. He liked to tell interesting and often humorous anecdotes between songs. This concert has plenty of that. The total length of the concert is an hour and 32 minutes. Twenty minutes of that consists of banter between songs.

UPDATE: In February 2025, after finding an earlier BBC concert by Denver, I renamed this to "BBC Sessions, Volume 3."

01 Rocky Mountain High (John Denver)
02 Sunshine on My Shoulders (John Denver)
03 talk (John Denver)
04 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 It's a Sin to Tell a Lie (John Denver)
07 talk (John Denver)
08 The Bells of Rhymney (John Denver)
09 talk (John Denver)
10 Durango Mountain Caballero (John Denver)
11 talk (John Denver)
12 The Thought of You (John Denver)
13 talk (John Denver)
14 Rhymes and Reasons (John Denver)
15 talk (John Denver)
16 The Eagle and the Hawk (John Denver)
17 Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)
18 Grandma's Feather Bed (John Denver)
19 talk (John Denver)
20 Seasons of the Heart (John Denver)
21 talk (John Denver)
22 The Ambulance Down in the Valley (John Denver)
23 Jimmy Newman (John Denver)
24 The Peace Poem (John Denver)
25 Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (John Denver)
26 talk (John Denver)
27 I Want to Live (John Denver)
28 talk (John Denver)
29 Heart to Heart (John Denver)
30 Annie's Song (John Denver)
31 Calypso (John Denver)
32 talk (John Denver)
33 Perhaps Love (John Denver)
34 talk (John Denver)
35 This Old Guitar (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PcV72Vvo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/D9i6EqvAno50S6Z/file

I could have used a screenshot from the video of this concert for the cover art. But the video wasn't that sharp. So instead I chose a photo of him in concert in Chicago in 1982. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the use of the Krea AI program.

John Denver - The Wise Owl Coffeehouse, Cincinnati, OH, 5-10-1969

This is the third and final of the 1969 solo acoustic concerts I'm posting. If you're going to listen to just one, you might want to check out this one, because at an hour and forty minutes it's the longest of the bunch by half an hour.

I'm already written what these are about in the blog posts for the two previous concerts in this series. I'm summarize very briefly here: these concerts stand out for their remarkable sound quality, since they're excellent soundboard bootlegs. All but three of the songs are covers.

I find this to be an interesting peek at someone who was just another little known folk singer at the time, but who would soon become a household name. When this concert took place he'd just signed the record contract for his first solo album. It wouldn't be until 1971 when he had his first hit with the number one hit "Take Me Home, Country Roads." However, one could already hear his exceptional talent and charisma in this concert. And although there are only three original songs here, one of them is "Leaving on a Jet Plane," which would be a number one hit for Peter, Paul and Mary later in 1969.

Even though this concert is an hour and forty minutes long, it's not the whole thing. As with the other two 1969 concert recordings, the person who recorded it has only made some of the songs available to the public. There are 24 songs here, but setlist.fm lists 12 more songs played that evening.

One interesting aspect of the concert is how much he was into the Beatles. Of course, it probably was hard to find someone who didn't enjoy the Beatles in 1969. But in addition to the three Beatles songs on this recording, he played four more: "Blackbird," "Hey Jude," "Here, There and Everywhere," and "Lady Madonna." I'm sure that was unusual for a folk singer in that era, or any era. Perhaps his love of the Beatles helps explain his own later success as a songwriter.

This is a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Ann - Billy Ed Wheeler / Kingston Trio
02 It's a Sin to Tell a Lie - Billy Mayhew
03 Today - New Christy Minstrels
04 The Wherefore and the Why - Gordon Lightfoot
05 Everybody's Talkin' - Fred Neil
06 The Bells of Rhymney - Pete Seeger
07 [You Dun Stomped] My Heart - Mason Williams
08 Catch Another Butterfly - Mike Williams
09 Rhymes and Reasons - John Denver
10 What's That I Hear - Phil Ochs
11 Leaving on a Jet Plane - John Denver
12 You Certainly Have Got a Pretty Fantastic Bod - Michael Peter Smith
13 When I'm 64 - Beatles
14 Civil War Trilogy- First Battalion - Yes I See - Two Brothers - Bob Gibson
15 Business Goes on as Usual - Chad Mitchell Trio
16 What a Friend We Have in Congress - Pete Seeger
17 Games People Play - Joe South
18 Eleanor Rigby - Beatles
19 But You Know I Love You - Mike Settle and Pierre Delanoe
20 Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
21 Old Folks - Jacques Brel
22 Amsterdam - Jacques Brel
23 In My Life - Beatles
24 Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life - John Denver

Here's the usual song list:

01 talk (John Denver)
02 Ann (John Denver)
03 It's a Sin to Tell a Lie (John Denver)
04 Today (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 The Wherefore and the Why (John Denver)
07 Everybody's Talkin' (John Denver)
08 The Bells of Rhymney (John Denver)
09 [You Dun Stomped] My Heart (John Denver)
10 talk (John Denver)
11 Catch Another Butterfly (John Denver)
12 talk (John Denver)
13 Rhymes and Reasons (John Denver)
14 What's That I Hear (John Denver)
15 Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
16 You Certainly Have Got a Pretty Fantastic Bod (John Denver)
17 talk (John Denver)
18 When I'm 64 (John Denver)
19 talk (John Denver)
20 Civil War Trilogy- First Battalion - Yes I See - Two Brothers (John Denver)
21 Business Goes on as Usual (John Denver)
22 talk (John Denver)
23 What a Friend We Have in Congress (John Denver)
24 Games People Play (John Denver)
25 Eleanor Rigby (John Denver)
26 talk (John Denver)
27 But You Know I Love You (John Denver)
28 Bookends (John Denver)
29 talk (John Denver)
30 Old Folks (John Denver)
31 talk (John Denver)
32 Amsterdam (John Denver)
33 talk (John Denver)
34 In My Life (John Denver)
35 talk (John Denver)
36 Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life (John Denver)
37 talk (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Q2QsvxTH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/y3SkVXt87ewKcfc/file

PJ of the "Albums I Wish Existed" blog helped me with the album cover yet again. Like the other two in this series, there don't seem to be any good color photos of him in concert in 1969, so this one dates to 1970. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the use of the Krea AI program.

John Denver - The Nowhere Coffeehouse, Cincinnati, OH, 5-9-1969

A couple of days ago, I posted a 1969 John Denver concert, recorded at the Bandersnatch Coffeehouse near Cincinnati, Ohio. It's the first of three such concerts from him that I'm posting. All three are similar in that he plays solo acoustic, he mostly plays cover songs, and the recordings are soundboard bootlegs from the Cincinnati area that have awesome sound quality for their era. As I said with that previous post, this is for anyone who enjoys 1960s folk music and not just John Denver fans, since virtually none of his well-known songs are played here.

That's just as much the case for this concert. Only five of the 16 songs here are Denver originals. Of those, only one, "For Baby (For Bobbie)" is a well known song that appears on some of his "best of" albums. Read the write up for the previous concert for a full explanation about all three of these concerts and how they came to be recorded so well. But suffice to say that all three took place before he even released his first solo album, so he was a virtual musical unknown at the time.

Again, my write-up for the previous (Bandersnatch Coffeehouse) concert explains it in detail, but the songs here mostly come from a high quality bootleg, while further songs and banter come from a YouTube video that is also high quality though a bit lower due to YouTube sound quality limitations. I used an accurate set list from setlist.fm to put the banter and songs in their correct order as much as possible. 

It was a long concert, and the hour and one minute recording here is less than half of the total performance that night. But don't worry too much about the missing songs, because virtually all the ones that didn't get included here got included on one of the other two 1969 concert bootlegs. The person who released selected songs generally only released one performance of each song, though there are a few duplicates, but very few. For instance, I believe "Circus" is the only song to appear here and at the previously posted concert at the Bandersnatch.

Unfortunately, I surmise Denver talked between most every song, but some of that is missing too. However, most of the songs here do have banter before them. Tracks 8 and 9 are two talking tracks in a row, because one comes from one source (the YouTube one) and is commentary about the previous song, and the next is from a different source and is commentary about the next song. You can probably notice the difference in quality with the two of them juxtaposed like that.

The third concert in this series will be posted here soon. Although the two different sources have appeared here and there on the Internet, I believe this is the first time they've been combined together and put in the proper song order for each concert.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 That's the Way It's Gonna Be - Phil Ochs
02 Deal with the Ladies - John Denver
03 Two Little Boys - Theodore Morse & Edward Madden / Rolf Harris
04 Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream - Ed McCurdy
05 Circus - John Denver
06 Mr. Bojangles - Jerry Jeff Walker / Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
07 Farewell Party - Bob Gibson
08 Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
09 My God, I Appreciate Your Bod - Michael Peter Smith
10 Yellow Cat - Steve Fromholz
11 California Dreamin' - Mamas & the Papas
12 Lady Madonna - Beatles
13 For Baby [For Bobbie] - John Denver
14 Daydream - John Denver
15 The Last Thing on My Mind - Tom Paxton
16 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free - John Denver

Here's the usual song list:

01 talk (John Denver)
02 That's the Way It's Gonna Be (John Denver)
03 talk (John Denver)
04 Deal with the Ladies (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 Two Little Boys (John Denver)
07 Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (John Denver)
08 talk (John Denver)
09 talk (John Denver)
10 Circus (John Denver)
11 talk (John Denver)
12 Mr. Bojangles (John Denver)
13 Farewell Party (John Denver)
14 Both Sides Now (John Denver)
15 My God, I Appreciate Your Bod (John Denver)
16 talk (John Denver)
17 My God, I Appreciate Your Bod [Reprise] (John Denver) (John Denver)
18 talk (John Denver)
19 Yellow Cat (John Denver)
20 California Dreamin' (John Denver)
21 Lady Madonna (John Denver)
22 talk (John Denver)
23 For Baby [For Bobbie] (John Denver)
24 talk (John Denver)
25 Daydream (John Denver)
26 talk (John Denver)
27 The Last Thing on My Mind (John Denver)
28 talk (John Denver)
29 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PPmnedSy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/W6hz1vLdUEGd3of/file

Once again, PJ from his "Albums I Wish Existed" blog was kind enough to make the album cover. Also like the previous John Denver concert posted here, no good photos from 1969 were found, so one presumably from 1970 was used instead. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the use of the Krea AI program.

John Denver - The Bandersnatch Coffeehouse, Granville, OH, 3-15-1969

First off, I have to say I'm not that big of a John Denver fan - I generally like him at about a greatest hits level - and you don't have to be a big fan of his either to enjoy this concert. (Though of course you'll probably like it even more if you are.)

This is atypical of Denver's usual stuff for a few reasons. The first and most important is this concert dates from before his first official studio album, which was released later in 1969. So you get almost none of the songs on his typical "best of "albums, with the exception of "Rhymes and Reasons." 

Instead, what you get is basically a covers concert, with only four originals out of the 18 songs here. Denver started out as a folk singer in the early 1960s, and was a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio (a folkie group in the mold of the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary) from 1965 to late 1968. This concert caught Denver during a pivotal change in his music career. His solo career was only a few months old. He'd written "Leaving on a Jet Plane" a few years earlier, and Peter, Paul and Mary would have a number one hit with it, but not until late 1969. He wouldn't have any hits of his own until "Take Me Home, Country Roads" was a number one hit in 1971. As a result, at the time of this concert, Denver was a virtual unknown outside of a limited folkie crowd, and he was playing in small clubs.

So, in my opinion, this is less of a typical John Denver concert and more of a snapshot of the folk music scene in 1969. Folk music was huge in the early 1960s, but that morphed into folk-rock around 1965,. True folk music plummeted in popularity in the late 1960s, with garage rock, psychedelia, country rock, and all sorts of other musical trends dominating instead. But the folkie types would have a big comeback in the early 1970s, with the rise of the singer-songwriter movement, led by the likes of James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and many more. Denver covered most of the big names as of 1969, like Tim Hardin, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, and Leonard Cohen.

Another unique aspect of this concert is that it's just Denver and his acoustic guitar. After he hit it big with "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in 1971, he almost always played with a full band. It wouldn't be until the 1980s and after when he occasionally played in the solo acoustic format again. But by then, of course, the set list would be almost entirely different. Plus, he would never play as a relative unknown for such a small crowd again. This almost has a "John Denver playing on a front porch for a group of friends" feeling.

But what really makes this concert stick out for me is the fantastic sound. It's incredible to me that Denver was a minor musical figure at the time who didn't even have a record contract, and yet three of his 1969 concerts were recorded as pristine soundboard bootlegs. I plan on posting all three, because they're all excellent and they have very different set lists. You can learn more about how the recordings came to be, and the songs on it, here:

http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/SongNotes.html

Apparently, members of a different folk group in the Cincinnati area recorded the concerts on a reel-to-reel, with Denver's permission, so they could learn to cover some of the songs he was performing.

Unfortunately for the listener, only selected songs from these three concerts have been made public. I found many of the songs as high quality FLAC files. But then I found a similar, but sometimes different, selection of songs from the concert on YouTube. Last.fm appears to have an accurate set list of the concert, here:

John Denver Concert Setlist at Bandersnatch Coffee House, Granville on March 15, 1969 | setlist.fm

So I've used that to reconstruct as much of the concert as I could. As you can see from that list, only 18 out of the 38 songs played that night have been made publicly available. But that's not such a big loss, because the vast majority of the missed songs got played in the other two recorded concerts that I also plan on posting.

But there were some problems with this concert recording. While the sound quality is excellent, the audience applause was often quickly faded out. So I've tried my best to fix that. On some of the songs, there were slow fade-outs of the applause. I boosted the volume bit by bit, essentially undoing the fade out. In other cases, there wasn't much to work with, so I patched in applause from other songs in the concert that had complete audience reactions.

A more troublesome problem was that I'm guessing much of the talking between songs was also edited out. The high quality FLAC versions of the songs almost always had the banter cut out. Luckily, the slightly lower quality YouTube versions often did have the banter. Thus, often, I used the music from the FLAC files and the banter from the YouTube versions. Even so, Denver is a talkative guy, and I'd surmise that he said at least something before virtually every song. I'd guess that maybe half of those are missing. 

It seems Denver played long concerts in that era. Although we're missing more than half of the concert, what we have is still an hour and 11 minutes long. This sounds just like a full concert. There's enough surviving banter to get a good feeling for his personality and charisma.

Note that the final songs, "Sticky Summer Weather," might or might not have been from this concert. According to the above link, it is from this concert. But it's the one song that doesn't appear on the seemingly very accurate set list at setlist.fm, nor does it appear on the set list there for the two other recorded 1969 concerts. I stuck it as the last song because I otherwise would have had two tracks of banter in a row.

Here's the list of the original artists for each song:

01 Blackbird - Beatles
02 Yesterday - Beatles
03 Rhymes and Reasons - John Denver
04 The New Frankie and Johnny Song - Bob Gibson
05 The Weight - Band
06 Reason to Believe - Tim Hardin
07 Marcie - Joni Mitchell
08 Upon a Monday Morning - Bernard Cribbins
09 Circus - John Denver
10 For Lovin' Me - Gordon Lightfoot
11 Cindy's Crying - Tom Paxton
12 San Francisco Bay Blues - Jesse Fuller
13 Abraham, Martin and John - Dion
14 [You Dun Stomped] My Heart - Mason Williams
15 Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
16 The Game Is Over - John Denver
17 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio - Randy Sparks
18 Sticky Summer Weather - John Denver

Here's the usual song list:

01 talk (John Denver)
02 Blackbird (John Denver)
03 talk (John Denver)
04 Yesterday (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 Rhymes and Reasons (John Denver)
07 The New Frankie and Johnny Song (John Denver)
08 The Weight (John Denver)
09 Reason to Believe (John Denver)
10 Marcie (John Denver)
11 Upon a Monday Morning (John Denver)
12 Circus (John Denver)
13 For Lovin' Me (John Denver)
14 Cindy's Crying (John Denver)
15 San Francisco Bay Blues (John Denver)
16 Abraham, Martin and John (John Denver)
17 talk (John Denver)
18 Pretend Country Radio Announcement (John Denver)
19 [You Dun Stomped] My Heart (John Denver with Erich Zwertschek & John Marlowe)
20 talk (John Denver)
21 Suzanne (John Denver)
22 talk (John Denver)
23 The Game Is Over (John Denver)
24 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (John Denver)
25 talk (John Denver)
26 Sticky Summer Weather (John Denver)
27 talk (John Denver)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ThGD5zTV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/OVHqfRGx3jTjqbM/file

I'm happy to say that PJ (a.k.a. Peter) from his great "Albums I Wish Existed" blog has volunteered to help make the album covers I can't make for the next couple of weeks, until I get a new computer. There don't seem to be many good photos of Denver from 1969, since he wasn't famous yet. So Peter made this one from a 1970 photo at an unknown location. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the use of the Krea AI program.