[John] Denver asked to hear what [Bill] Danoff and [Taffy] Nivert had been working on. Nivert urged Danoff to play the “Country Roads” song, which he’d been working on for several months, but he hesitated.
“I said, ‘He won’t like that. It’s not his thing, you know, because it’s for Johnny Cash,’ ” Danoff said in an interview.
At the time, Danoff and Nivert were only local performers. But they aimed to make it big by writing a hit song for bigger artists.
“So I played him what I had of ‘Country Roads,’ and he said, ‘Wow! That’s great, that’s a hit song! Did you record it?’ I said, ‘No, we don’t have a record deal,’ ” Danoff said.
Read or listen to it all.
(NPR) At 40, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' Still Belongs
[John] Denver asked to hear what [Bill] Danoff and [Taffy] Nivert had been working on. Nivert urged Danoff to play the “Country Roads” song, which he’d been working on for several months, but he hesitated.
“I said, ‘He won’t like that. It’s not his thing, you know, because it’s for Johnny Cash,’ ” Danoff said in an interview.
At the time, Danoff and Nivert were only local performers. But they aimed to make it big by writing a hit song for bigger artists.
“So I played him what I had of ‘Country Roads,’ and he said, ‘Wow! That’s great, that’s a hit song! Did you record it?’ I said, ‘No, we don’t have a record deal,’ ” Danoff said.
Read or listen to it all.