John William Denver was born in Rosita, Colorado on December 31, 1943. He learned to play the guitar at age ten and started writing songs at age 14. By age 18, Denver was performing at local dances and honky-tonks. At 19, he made his first recordings
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He established a name for himself as a singer of popular ballads throughout the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with "Take Me Home, Country Roads", which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974. He became one of the most popular performers on "The Grand Ole Opry" in Nashville, Tennessee. By the early 1980s, however, Denver's popularity began to wane due to personal problems he experienced following his divorce from his second wife, actress Shirley MacLaine.
Upon his return to the public eye in 1987 after a five-year absence from recording studios, Denver released two albums that failed to sell an equal amount of copies as his 1970s releases.