A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 2004 BMG Heritage/RCA Great songs never leave us, on a jet plane or otherwise. – David Wild, in "A Fan's Notes," John Denver: Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits On October 4, 2004, BMG Heritage and RCA released John Denver: Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits, a two-disc compilation that presents most of the late singer-songwriter John Denver's best-known and most popular hits (the sole exception being Grandma's Feather Bed ). Produced by Rob Santos and assembled by Gary Pacheco, Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits is a 24-track retrospective of Denver's storied career, including hits from his days as a star in the 1970s and the "twilight" years of the early to mid-1980s. Released to coincide with the 35th anniversary of Denver's first album for RCA Records ( Rhymes & Reasons, 1969), Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits presents 20 songs that were recorded between May of 1969 and April/May of 1983 on one disc, and four previously unreleased...

© 1975, 2001 Sony Legacy In February of 1975, RCA Records released An Evening with John Denver, a 2-LP "live and in concert" album recorded during several performances by the now-legendary singer/songwriter from Roswell, New Mexico, Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., known professionally as John Denver. Recorded in the late summer and early fall of 1974 at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, this album was produced by the legendary Milt Okun, and featured backup by various gig musicians and an orchestra led by Lee Holdridge. Originally released on vinyl LP and cassette and in various countries (including Netherlands, Japan, and Spain) as well as in the United States, An Evening with John Denver was a significant recording for Denver, who was not quite 31 years old at the time yet was as popular as Frank Sinatra had been in the 1940s and 1950s. He'd started his studio recording career only a few years before under Okun's tutelage, and this was his first live r...

(C) 1962, 1990 RCA Records/RCA Victrola One of my fondest memories from my college days (now almost two decades ago) centers upon the first time I heard Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique:  Épisode de la vie d'un artiste ... en cinq parties .  It was a cool (by South Florida standards) afternoon and I was in my Humanities class. Our professor -- Jay Brown, who aside from being an instructor at Miami-Dade Community College was, and still is, a talented musician who can play various instruments, including the glass harmonica -- touched upon many different topics ranging from epistemology to ethics. But on that day we were discussing music: the transition from the Classical period of Mozart to the Romantic era of Beethoven, Schubert, and Berlioz. More to the point, the topic of the afternoon was the advent of the big orchestra, and the prof played a selection or two from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique:  Épisode de la vie d'un artiste ... en cinq parties ...