This concert was co-sponsored by Expect A Miracle Now Foundation:

Home Again

Christine Benedetti - Aspen Daily News Staff Writer

Exactly nine years ago, John Denver's friends gathered around a Snowmass campfire in post-memorial revelry to celebrate the legendary American singer's life, after he died in a plane accident just days before. Of course there was some singing (John Denver songs), reminiscing and even Jack Daniels made an appearance.

At that point, the group - comprised of local friends, former band members and family - came up with the idea to remember the folksinger in an annual event, thus John Denver Week was born. "Aspen is clearly where John Denver lived, and wrote his music, has his friendship circles and it's where it all started," says Larry Kushner, the executive director of the M.U.S.E. Foundation, the founding organization. "Now we use his music to perpetuate his good works."

The week is highlighted by back-to-back concerts, on Friday, Oct. 13 and Saturday, Oct. 14, featuring several of Denver's former band mates and headliner Kathy Mattea, a Grammy and Country Music award winner. Beyond the tributes though, is the heart and spirit of the event: thousands of dollars given back to local charity Challenge Aspen.

"John is such a figure, almost a founding figure in Aspen throughout the community, and people all over the world learned about Aspen through John," says Houston Cowan, Challenge Aspen's CEO. "And, it's great for a nonprofit organization to benefit even after he's gone for so many years."

And benefit they have, with more than $1.5 million through the years.

"That's a huge amount," says Cowan. "It's something that he would have been a part of, and he's still able to change people's lives without being here."

The money goes toward financing camps and bringing more than 400 disabled individuals and their families to the Roaring Fork Valley for a ski week, an experience they might have not otherwise been able to have, says Cowan. "We're truly about bringing people with disabilities to a place that John has always written and sung about, and that's the outdoors in the Rockies," he says.

Besides headliner Mattea, this weekend's concert showcases many of the regular returnees who perform in memoriam annually. Among these is local John Sommers, author of "Thank God I'm A Country Boy."

"It's just a wonderful opportunity to carry on John's music," says Sommers. "It's basically a chance for his fans to come together, from all over the world... and relive the past of John."

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend, with some globetrotting from Japan, Indonesia and Taiwan.

"John affected so many lives in so many ways - he did mine," he says.

Sommers played in John Denver's band for four years, but now plays for Heart of the Rockies. He says getting all the old members together is "really a special time" for them. Accompanying Sommers is Bill Danoff of "Take Me Home Country Roads," Mollie Weaver, former guitarist Pete Huttlinger, Jim Salestrom and Chris Nole.

Besides the concerts, there are a number of other, more intimate events planned for John Denver fans, such as a memorial service and hike to the John Denver shrine on Aspen Mountain.

This way, fans and former friends can have time to reflect on Denver's life, in his Rocky Mountain place. "We are paying respect to the memory he left," says Sommers. "But, his music is living on."