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://www.upload.ee/files/15288510/JohnDnv_1969_NowhreCffeehouseCincinnatiOH__5-9-1969_atse.zip.html

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.