“They’d been in an accident,” Danoff said. Then a phone call came from the emergency room of the George Washington University Hospital. “After an hour they weren’t there and we were worried,” Danoff recalled. In Memoriam: Remembering Public Pioneers We Have Lost After the fourth night at the Cellar Door, Denver, the Danoffs and a few friends planned to meet back at the couple's basement to try out some new songs. Denver had already recorded one of Danoff’s songs, "I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado," when Denver was booked for New Year’s Eve week at the Cellar Door with Fat City as the opening act.ĭenver was looking for more material for an upcoming record for RCA. Their first gigs were at house parties before taking the stage at the short-lived Emergency Club on M Street.ĭanoff knew Denver from his times appearing at the Cellar Door, first with the Mitchell Trio and later as a solo act. The couple would later go on to become half of the Grammy-winning Starland Vocal Band.īut in the late 1960s, the two were struggling songwriters living in a basement apartment on Q Street NW in Georgetown. “Nobody at the club knew I sang or played anything,” Danoff recalled 50 years later. The opening act was Fat City, a Georgetown-based band that featured Bill Danoff and his then-wife, Taffy Nivert Danoff.īill Danoff had been a doorman at the Cellar Door, and then the lighting and sound tech for years, before he ever performed at the club at the corner of 34th and M streets NW. It was the fifth night of a week-long stint for John Denver. What happened to the original second verse about naked ladies and Jesus?īill Danoff, the song's co-writer, is setting the record straight on those questions and more.Ī sold-out crowd packed into the tiny Cellar Door nightclub in Washington, D.C., on Dec. Was the song originally titled "Take Me Home, Clopper Road," inspired by a Maryland road of the same name? Was the song originally inspired by and written for Johnny Cash? Sign up here and get news that is important for you to your inbox. We're making it easier for you to find stories that matter with our new newsletter - The 4Front.
0 kommentar(er)
