How a Misread Road Sign Led to John Denver’s Classic Take Me Home, Country Roads

Coming up, we go back to the making of a song that came from the basement sessions of an artist that originally wanted to work for the CIA. Songwriting couple Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert were traveling to a family reunion when they read a road sign… It said Westernport Maryland but they misread it as West Virginia and so they wrote a song about the road sign… Their error would become an all-time standard. They originally wrote the song with Johnny Cash in mind but they were playing with a rookie by the name of John Denver who wanted to hear some of their newly written songs as both Denver and the songwriting couple were looking for their first hit. They showed him their West Virginia song called Take Me Home Country Roads but it wasn’t quite finished. They finished the song together and then next day when they played it to a small audience, the crowd went nuts… they were even singing along by the end. Take Me Home Country Roads became a 70s classic and It’s been named by legislation as an official song for West Virginia, even though the co-writers and the music icon that made it a huge hit had never been there before!. Let’s travel through the backroads to reach our destination and honor a true American standard…NEXT on Professor of Rock!

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