Billboard Top 40 Hits 1971: #69: ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’- John Denver with Fat City. April 10, 1971.

• Single: ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’- John Denver with Fat City
• Record Company- RCA Victor
• Genre: Country
• Written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver
• Time: 3:17
• B-side:’Poems, Prayers and Promises’
• Album-Poems, Prayers and Promises
• Grade: A
• Peaked at #2

‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ – is now one of West Virginia’s four official state anthems. The idea for the song came up when two of the songwriters- Danoff and Nivert were driving along on country roads to Nivert’s family reunion in Maryland. Danoff started working on a song about the roads they were taking. Originally instead of West Virginia- Massachusetts was the state in the song. Danoff and Nivert- would go on to torture the world with their ‘Afternoon Delight’- under the name Starland Vocal Band. Ralph. Originally Danoff thought it would be a song they’d get Johnny Cash to sing- they didn’t play it for Denver because they didn’t think it would fit his style.

This was John Denver’s first Hot 100 single as an artist. From 1971-84 he would have 33 Hot 100 hits, 13 making the Top 40. He had 4 #1 hits -“Sunshine On My Shoulders’, ‘Annie’s Song’ both in 1974 and ‘Thank God I’m A Country Boy’ and ‘ I’m Sorry’ both in 1975. Denver died in a light plane crash in California in 1997 at the age of 53.