John Denver scores his first #1 song, “Sunshine On My Shoulders,” on March 30, 1974. He would go on to become one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the 1970s.
“Sunshine On My Shoulders” was John Denver’s attempt to write a sad song, a big part of Denver's broad appeal. “I was so down I wanted to write a feeling-blue song,” he told Seventeen magazine in 1974, “[but] this is what came out.” Originally released on his 1971 album Poems, Prayers and Promises, Denver’s lovely ode to the restorative powers of sunlight only became a smash hit when re-released on his John Denver‘s Greatest Hits album in late 1973—an album that went on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide.
It should come as no surprise that an artist who played such an enormous role in the softening of mainstream pop music in the 1970s would find little support from rock critics. “Television music” marked by “repellent narcissism” was Rolling Stone‘s take on Denver. “I find that sunshine makes me happy, too,” wrote Robert Christgau of The Village Voice, “[but] there’s more originality and spirit in Engelbert Humperdinck.”
Such critical response did little to dampen public enthusiasm for Denver’s records during his heyday, however. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, John Denver has sold 33 million records.
Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. on December 31, 1943, in Roswell, New Mexico, John Denver died in California on October 12, 1997, when his aircraft crashed into Monterey Bay.
