Tenor pays tribute to John Denver’s music
Mike Eldred still recalls the moment when he felt an emotional connection with one of the ’70s most iconic singersongwriters. His family was driving cross-country to California. Playing on the 8-track: “John Denver’s Greatest Hits.” “As we were driving into the Rocky Mountains for the first time, his voice was playing in the car,” recalls the 48-year-old singer. “The connection between that voice, the songs and the scenery left a mark on me that I’ve never forgotten.”
Eldred is a classically trained tenor whose career includes a run on Broadway as Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” and a role in Frank Wildhorn’s musical “The Civil War.” There was also a stint as a big-haired Christian pop star that started in the late ’80s and lasted for two albums. More recently, he has created a name as a guest vocalist with symphonies, where his pure, lyrical vocals are put to good use.
“I love several different types of music, and I love trying to conquer all those styles,” Eldred says. “But John Denver, in particular, seems to fit really well stylistically into what I do and soulfully, in my heart.”
He debuted “The Very Best of John Denver” in 2011 during a performance with the Nashville Symphony (he splits his time between Tennessee and Montana). Previously, he would slip in one or two songs during his con-
certs.
“We slowly started putting it together, then all of a sudden we started seeing concert tributes to John Denver and PBS sort of got on the bandwagon with John Denver specials,” he says. “It was almost like it was time to hear his music again. The calm and simplicity of what he said and did musically is something I really believe in. It’s a unifying message in a divided country.”
The show features such Denver radio standards as “Annie’s Song,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and “Rocky Mountain High” mixed with lesser-known tunes and album cuts that probably won’t ring a bell with casual listeners.
“One of my favorites is a song called ‘Boy From the Country,’ ” Eldred says. “People don’t know it very well, but it’s a perfect example of the way he believed and felt and thought about our responsibility to the land and to each other. It’s gor- geous, a real singer’s song.”
Eldred’s voice is fuller than Denver’s, though he says, “We’ve got the same high notes.” But, he stresses, don’t buy tickets to the show expecting to see a guy with a salad-bowl haircut and granny glasses.
“It’s more about the music than the man,” says Eldred, who three years ago released an album of Denver songs called “Come Love Me Again.” “For me, it was always about the message in those songs and the brilliant simplicity of what he said. I have no desire to pretend I’m John Denver.”
Eldred’s father was a Baptist preacher, and Eldred didn’t grow up exposed to much secular music. “There was a lot of Bill Gaither and Amy Grant,” he says. Somehow, Denver was deemed acceptable by Eldred’s dad, who apparently missed the drug references that float around some of the tunes.
“It’s funny, because the message seemed moral,” Eldred says with a chuckle.