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.