According to Len Jaffe, a Washington, D.C.-based singer-songwriter who attended the show where Denver premiered the song, this resulted in a five-minute standing ovation. Later that night, during Denver's first set, Denver called his two collaborators back to the spotlight, where the trio changed their career trajectories, reading the lyrics from a single, handheld, unfolded piece of paper. When they finished, on the morning of Wednesday, December 30, 1970, Denver announced that the song had to go on his next album. The three stayed up until 6:00 a.m., changing words and moving lines around. Rhododendron was the title that Nivert had written down on the lyric sheet, which they later sent to ASCAP. The first thing she encountered was the Rhododendron, the state flower, so she kept trying to work the word Rhododendron into the song. Nivert got out an encyclopedia to learn more about West Virginia. The verses and chorus were still missing a bridge, so the three of them went about finishing. When Danoff and Nivert ran through what they had of the song they had been working on for about a month, planning to sell to Johnny Cash, Denver "flipped." He decided he had to have it, prompting them to abandon plans for the sale. When they returned to the apartment, Denver said he was "wired, you know." He was rushed to the emergency room, where the thumb was splinted. On the way, Denver's left thumb was broken in a collision. After the club's post-Christmas reopening night on Tuesday, December 29 (Cellar Door engagements ran from Tuesday to Sunday, and this booking was for two weeks), the three returned to the couple's apartment for an impromptu jam. Starting December 22, 1970, Denver was heading the New Year's bill at The Cellar Door, with Fat City opening for him, just as Denver had opened at the same club for then-headliner David Steinberg. Of the commune members, Danoff remarked, "They brought their dogs and were a very colorful group of folks, but that is how West Virginia began creeping into the song." While the song was inspired by Danoff's upbringing in Springfield, Massachusetts, he "didn't want to write about Massachusetts because didn't think the word was musical." ĭanoff was influenced by friend and West Virginian actor Chris Sarandon and members of a West Virginia commune who attended Danoff's performances. To Danoff, the lyric "(t)he radio reminds me of my home far away" in the bridge is quintessentially West Virginian, an allusion to when he listened to the program Saturday Night Jamboree, broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia, on WWVA at his home in Springfield, Massachusetts during his childhood in the 1950s. "It didn’t have anything to do with Maryland or anyplace." "I just started thinking, country roads, I started thinking of me growing up in western New England and going on all these small roads," Danoff said. Inspiration for the title line had come while Taffy Nivert and Bill Danoff, who were married, were driving along Clopper Road in Montgomery County, Maryland to a gathering of Nivert's family in Gaithersburg, with Nivert behind the wheel while Danoff played his guitar. In 2023, the song was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry. In March 2014, it became one of the four official state anthems of West Virginia. The song is considered a symbol of West Virginia. It has continued to sell, with over 1.6 million digital copies sold in the United States. The song became one of John Denver's most popular songs. The song was a success on its initial release and was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1971, and Platinum on April 10, 2017. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number two on Billboard 's US Hot 100 singles for the week ending August 28, 1971. " Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as " Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (audio) on YouTube
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