John Denver's Greatest Hits

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John Denver's Greatest Hits
Compilation album by John Denver
Released	November 1973
Recorded	1969-1973
Genre	Folk, Country, Pop
Label	RCA Records
Producer	Milton Okun
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Rolling Stone Record Guide [1979]
John Denver chronology
Farewell Andromeda (1973) Greatest Hits (1973) Back Home Again (1974)

John Denver's Greatest Hits was John Denver's first compilation album, released in late 1973 for the holiday shopping season.

Contents 1 History 2 Track listing 2.1 Side A 2.2 Side B 3 Chart positions 4 Personnel 5 See also

[edit] History

The collection included material from his earlier days as a songwriter (going back to 1965 on "For Bobbie") to his recent hit "Rocky Mountain High". Indeed many of these tracks were not hits per se, but as Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote for All Music Guide, "the[se] were [the] songs that defined him."

Moreover, Greatest Hits is important historically because it contains new, revisionist recordings of several of these songs. Denver explained this himself in the liner notes by saying that he had picked the numbers most requested in his concerts, but that "I felt that some of these songs had grown a bit, that I am singing better than I was four or five years ago, and that I would like to treat some of the songs a little differently than I had in the original recordings." After its release these versions were used for airplay despite differing in subtle but important ways from the original versions; generally, they were more polished.

Greatest Hits climbed by the spring following to the top of the Billboard 200 pop albums chart, went platinum, and was one of the first albums world-wide to sell over 10 million copies. Overall it is easily the best-selling album of his career in the United States, being certified 9-times platinum by the RIAA.

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Side A

1. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, John Denver) - 3:08
2. "Follow Me" (John Denver) - 2:56
3. "Starwood in Aspen" (John Denver) - 3:10
4. "For Baby (For Bobbie)" (John Denver) - 2:58
5. "Rhymes and Reasons" (John Denver) - 3:11
6. "Leaving on a Jet Plane" (John Denver) - 4:00

[edit] Side B

1. "The Eagle and the Hawk" (John Denver, Mike Taylor) - 2:10
2. "Sunshine on My Shoulders" (John Denver, Dick Kniss, Mike Taylor) - 5:10
3. "Goodbye Again" (John Denver) - 3:36
4. "Poems, Prayers and Promises" (John Denver) - 4:34
5. "Rocky Mountain High" (John Denver, Mike Taylor) - 4:43

[edit] Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1974	Billboard 200	1

[edit] Personnel

For the newly recorded tracks:

• John Denver - vocals, acoustic guitar
• Steve Weisberg - guitars
• Dick Kniss - bass
• Frank Owens - piano
• Herb Lovelle - drums
• Gary Chester - percussion

[edit] See also

• List of best-selling albums in the United States

Preceded by The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand

Billboard 200 number one album March 30 - April 12, 1974 April 20 - April 26, 1974

Succeeded by Band on the Run by Paul McCartney & Wings