The moon and the stars are the same ones you see….

By Lynn R. Mitchell

[From my Wednesday night Facebook posting.]

There’s a full moon tonight over the Shenandoah Valley and it brings back a memory. John Denver told the story at his Red Rocks Concert on July 5, 1982, of being in China and seeing the full moon while thinking about Annie back home in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

“The moon and the stars are the same ones you see, it’s the same old sun up in the sky” … he sang “Shanghai Breezes” that night under the Colorado night sky.

My sister Gail, my husband, and I were on the fourth row in front of the stage — first come, first serve seating so we were there when the gates opened, and saw the sound check in mid-afternoon with John.

Here is part of that magical night.

There are additional links to the July 5, 1982, Red Rocks concert in this post I wrote several years ago on John Denver’s birthday (see Remembering singer-songwriter John Denver on his New Year’s Eve birthday). We were visiting with my sister who lived in Denver at the time … we were part of that crowd of cheering fans on that night long ago in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

I think my sister said it best:

Wow, have never seen this footage. We’re somewhere in that bobbing herd of fans down there in front. Hard to remember a time when all we had to worry about was saving a space at Red Rocks. And I would swear that’s my “woo hoo!” at the point there when he holds the note on “true love is still the only” etc. What a wonderful night that was.

A wonderful night, indeed. Sweet memories….

Remembering singer-songwriter John Denver on his New Year’s Eve birthday

By Lynn R. Mitchell

“I would not be the man I am, nor would I sing the way I do, nor would I have written the songs I have written without the influence and inspiration you have been to me. I want you to know that today there are hundreds, if not thousands, who join me in saying, ‘God bless the day that you were born.’ ” – John Denver’s birthday letter to his mother, two months before his death

Today is John Denver’s birthday, born on New Year’s Eve in 1943.  John Denver — forever in our minds as the youthful, blonde-headed, wire-rimmed granny glasses-wearing troubadour — would now be a 71-year-old grandpa if he had lived. His daughter Anna Kate, 38, who lives in New Zealand with her husband Jaime Hutter, gave birth to a daughter, Daisy Eloise, on December 21, 2011.