It always amuses me when a rock star suddenly sees the light and makes a televised effort to fight poverty, decry war and address multitudinous social and demographic problems. When the cameras are turned off, the crowd disperses and the horrific events of a recent tragedy fade into distant memory, the stars go back to their opulent and sheltered lifestyles. They did their good deed and they can proceed home with a clean conscience. Recently, the organizers who gave us "We are the World" have gathered the current top recording artists to re-record the song to raise money for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Now matter how much media attention and limelight they focus on themselves, they cannot extricate themselves from a rather large shadow; the shadow of John Denver. Denver, known as "A Song's Best Friend" (with good reason!) was a troubadour who made singing for people, world peace and the environment a fundamental part of his repertoire. He founded the Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote protection of the environment, visited Africa in the 1980s (long before Bono), gave a concert to victims of Chernobyl, gave concerts in the USSR in the spirit of inspiring thawing of relations with the US, toured China as an unofficial cultural ambassador, represented the United Nations as a citizen ambassador and worked to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to name a few things. Yes, when he approached the organizers of the original "We are the World" to participate in it, he was turned down because they thought his image would hurt the credibility of the song. What a joke! This man did more humanitarian work than those other vainglorious singers. For them to treat him like that is a joke. In his 1994 autobiography, Denver wrote, "[i]t broke my heart to not be included in the Live Aid, Band Aid, and We are the World concerts; even in being a helping hand one couldn't avoid political divisiveness."
Yet now, we have Bono, lead singer of U2, imploring us to give money to aid the battle against AIDS and poverty in Africa, through disquisitions at his concerts and officious Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times. It seems that in addition to his battle to reinvent himself to suit the changing tastes of a fickle public and appear younger than he is, he has decided to add the title of crusader to his resume. But his approach is all wrong. He is asking the public to make financial contributions to the causes that combat some of the most urgent social problems in the world today. John Denver, on the other hand, inspired us to make the world a better place by being better people, to take the time to appreciate the precious moments natures gives us. While Denver later became ridiculed for being too cheery or cheesy, he was at the end of the day, much more sincere in his concern for the environment and for other people. Now as the world is rocked by violence, natural disasters and a damaged economy, it might find that it can take solace from John Denver. The journalist Diane Priestly recently wrote, "We all need John Denver in our lives. His positive, uplifting music is a force for good in a destructive and violent world. Thankfully the spirit of John Denver will never die. His music will live on for generations." Truer words were never spoken.
So, Bono, Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie, you may have outsold John Denver and currently reap the accolades that accompany any effort to aid people affected by disaster, but no matter what you do, you will never reach the legacy of John Denver.
