| JOHN DENVER Mother Nature's Son John Collis Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1999 |
Rating: 4.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-84018-124-1 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-84018-124-9 | 190pp. | HC/FCI | £15.99 | |
| Page 37: | "This age, the immediate pre-teen period, is surely when important questions begin to formulate in one's mind for the first time..." |
| Usage: S/B "begin to be formulated". |
| Page 57: | "At this time, he [Denver] was playing a veritable portable orchestra in the form of an 18-string guitar." |
| It's hard enough to tune and play a 12-string. At the prospect of 18 strings, my mind boggles. |
| Page 58: | "In 1962 the group had two its on Kapp, the macabre anecdote 'Lizzie Borden' and an anti-racist blues, 'The John Birch Society'." |
| That song was not anti-racist; it was anti-chauvinist. |
| Page 61: | "They were married at the Lutheran church in St Peter on 9 June 1967." |
| Usage: S/B "the Lutheran church of St Peter". |
| Page 62: | "Kirshner soon came to the conclusion that malleable strangers would be less trouble, and formed his Monkees by..." |
| A customer review on Amazon informs me that Kirshner did not start the Monkees. |
| Page 62: | "...by selecting two former chold actors: Mickey 'Circus Boy' Dolenz and Davy Jones, a Mancunian..." |
| A Britishism, it means... |
| Page 62: | "...and the band was completed by Peter Tork, an enthusiastic mimer of the bass guitar..." |
| The same customer review points out that Peter Tork plays ten instruments. |
| Page 76: | "Their record company, warner Brothers, decided to take a tongue-in-cheek dig at its author. They posed their paunchy sales manager, Dick sherman, stripped to the waist and sporting a long blonde wig, in a spoof of the controversial cover photograph adorning supergroup Blind Faith's then-current debut album..." |
| It's totally unclear what any of this has to do with Peter, Paul and Mary, or with John Denver. |
| Pages 77-78: | "This was in the repetoire of another American ex-patriot folk singer enjoying huge success in the UK at the time, Julie Felix." |
| Vocabulary: S/B "American expatriate". This rather changes the meaning. |
| Page 79: | "He and Annie were invited to her New York opening at the Plaza Hotel, where she sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and insisted that Denver took a bow." |
| Verb tense: S/B "insisted that Denver take a bow". |
| Page 81: | "Denver himself worked at promoting the record at home in Minneapolis, courting the top local disc jockey..." |
| Denver and Annie had moved to Aspen by this time. It says so right tat the top of the page. |
| Page 127: | "The Denver image at this time was so wholesome that in 1977 even the middle-America journal Family Weekly could happily refer to criticisms of his music as being "insipid as a vanilla milkshake." |
| Wording: S/B either "refer to his music" or "criticize his music". |
| Page 139: | "Denver's father had left the air force in disillusion during the Vietnam War..." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Air Force". |
| Page 146: | "McAuliffe died along with Commander Michael J. Smith and the rest of his crew." |
| Dick Scobee commanded STS-51L; Michael Smith was the pilot. |
| Page 173: | "Together with Dick Kniss and Pete Kennedy, Paxton performed 'Forest Lawns'..." |
| The title is singular: S/B "Forest Lawn". It's the name of a well-known cemetery in Los Angeles. (But it's a satire — an odd choice for a memorial service. Could there be another song named "Forest Lawns"?) |
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