John Denver performed three sellout concerts at the Guthrie on three nights, June 18, 19, and 20, 1971. The first two dates were sold out in a day. When the Guthrie added the third night, it sold out in three hours. This was the first time that the Guthrie Theater itself booked a concert, instead of the Walker Art Center.  The concerts were to be recorded by RCA Victor, as Denver wanted to put out a live album called “John Denver at the Guthrie” to be released in the fall of 1971, but apparently the record company resisted, and no live album from these sessions was ever issued.

Denver was backed by Mike Taylor on guitar, Dick Kniss on bass, and his friends Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert (AKA Fat City) on vocals.

Critic Peter Altman found him to have an unusually affable stage personality, and to have grown beyond “fraternity-row notions of romance and poetry,” committing himself more seriously to the anti war movement. Some of his affectations (the incessant “Far Out!” being one) was annoying to Altman, and he didn’t particularly like the “several vague, dreamily adolescent songs about sunshine and freedom and truth,” but it would seem that his audience came to rely on it.  (Minneapolis Star, June 19, 1971)

 

In appreciation for the support given to him at the Guthrie concerts, Denver made a free appearance on Wednesday, June 23, 1971, at the Minneapolis Dayton’s 8th Floor Auditorium to meet his fans.