Late Winter, Early Spring

[llew]

Like others have said...I've listened to that song since the early 70's when I was in high school. Loved it then...love it even more now. Thanks for the story and thanks for sharing!

[L20A]

Always loved the song.
John Denver had great people in his bands over the years.
Great musicians and great people in general.

We have lost some of them but the music lives.

[Bob Womack]

The album this song was on, Rocky Mountain High, came out in a really interesting cultural period. People were traveling from all over the country to Colorado to visit the Rockies. In his work of the time, John wasn't as much a ground breaker or pioneer as a chronicler of the times and mindset. Hilariously, the youth of the area where I grew up, the western slopes of the Great Smokey Mountains, were drawn like moths to the mountains of the west. I, too, made holy pilgrimage to Colorado to a ranch near Buena Vista in 1973. The song, "Rocky Mountain High," was on the radio and I listened as we traveled by bus on a chartered Greyhound Super Scenicruiser both directions.

When I got home my parents had bough me a copy of John's latest album after, Farewell Andromeda, which had just been released. I quickly went out and bought Rocky Mountain High as well, because so much of it captured my experience out in Colorado. This song, "Late Winter, Early Spring (When Everybody Goes to Mexico)" reminds me of the same period in the Great Smokies is blanketed in snow, the touristas disappear, most of the roads to the Smokies crest are closed by the Park Service, and everywhere the cycle of snowmelt and refreeze occurs. I used to day-hike in the Smokies during that season and loved the silence and solitude of the mountains. This song would often be playing quietly in my head as I hiked.

Bob

[Grandadam]

Thanks for the info how to purchase the sheet music!