Singer/songwriter Steve Weisberg recalls days as lead guitar for John Denver
Posted: Saturday, May 24, 2008
by J. Louise Larson
http://familyrootsandwings.blogspot.com/
When lead guitarist Steve Weisberg met John Denver in a hardware store in Aspen, he had the restraint not to ask for an audition.
"I knew he had to find me, and I knew he would," he said.
Then one day in 1973, the phone rang.
"This is John Denver." The famous voice at the other end of the line asked him to audition; things have never been the same for Steve Weisberg.
John Denver had already cut "Country Roads" and "Rocky Mountain High" before he hired Weisberg. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.
"We went from playing colleges and the state fair in Columbus, Ohio, to Madison Square Gardens in a heartbeat," he said. Almost immediately, they cut the top-selling John Denver's Greatest Hits Vol. I.
With his "Country Boy" charm and grass roots musical bent, Denver had an appeal that transcended all kinds of barriers, Weisberg quickly noticed.
"The first thing I noticed about the shows was that we were always playing for three generations," he said.
A young lead player, Weisberg's first inclination was to be loud - but he learned another way with Denver. "John played at a volume that got everyone sitting on the edge of their seats - and they stayed there. When we played New York, no one spoke. You could hear a pin drop in Madison Square Garden. It was almost eerie," he said.
When he went to work for John Denver, Steve Weisberg worked hard to get into a purer musical workspace. "I was a musical sponge, but I had to develop my own style," he remembered. "I was surrounded by hot licks players. Let them chase that folly - I was a warm licks player."
Weisburg got an opportunity to stretch his talent to writing music one year when Denver was looking for a Christmas song. "Well, I'm the Texan here," Weisberg thought.
The music came first. Then the image of guys on horses in the snow. John Denver loved "Christmas for Cowboys." With just the guitar and Denver's vocals, they got it on the first take. Legendary drummer Hal Blaine came in to add a chimes track. "The world's greatest drummer played one note, and that was the record," Weisberg recalled, his fingers slipping easily over the frets, one black cowboy boot tapping as he eased into the tune.
Weisberg's musical judgment took some time to form.
"When I heard 'Annie's Song,' I thought it would go nowhere. I didn't understand how warm and fuzzy would outlast clever," he recalled.
Recently in a sushi bar, he heard a "cloyingly sweet, overarranged version" of "Annie's Song." "That's when you know your song's in the Big Book of Music, when it's elevator music," he said.
Weisberg learned piano, trombone and guitar as a youngster in Dallas, where he attended Ben Franklin High School and St. Marks before heading to UT.
Forsaking Austin in hopes of getting discovered by Denver in Aspen back in 1973, he played at a restaurant with The Bluegrass Salad Boys; another Aspenite often joined them on banjo.
"He never spoke a word," Weisberg recalls of the laconic banjo player they knew as the funniest man in America, but everyone else called Steve Martin.
One day, Weisberg told a joke, and Steve Martin looked at him and said, surprised, "Weisberg! You're very funny!" After more than four years with John Denver, Steve Weisberg eventually returned to Texas, joining his father in the apparel business.
While Weisberg and Denver lost touch, the friendship was easily rekindled at the star's 1996 appearance at the Majestic in Dallas. It was the last time he saw John Denver. The following October, the star was killed in a plane crash when the plane he was piloting went down.
The news only sank in as Weisberg, headed the memorial, was stunned to hear a TV anchor say "the world lost its most beloved country boy."
Engrossed in business, Steve Weisberg abandoned music for two decades.
In his den, surrounded by pictures with John Denver, a wall of guitars and dobros and green vintage western furniture handed down from his Mamaw and Grandpa in Waco, he talked about almost two decades in a musical desert.
"Music had called to me strongly, and when it quit calling, I wasn't motivated to play too much."
He had a sweet post-50 surprise when he met wife Donna. A horse trainer, she moved to Dallas to be with Weisberg, who despite the many times he played "Country Roads" and "Thank God, I'm a Country Boy" was essentially a city dweller. A chance meeting with a real estate agent led them to the little spot on Ellis County's Bluebonnet Trails. They haven't looked back.
In western shirt and boot-cut jeans, Steve Weisberg is finally living the music he played three decades ago with the consummate Country Boy. There's the gentle whinny of velvet-nosed horses and the pair of dogs that make a loyal beeline for him every time he comes through the gate.
"To think that I might have gone to my grave not knowing unconditional love from a dog - to not know about that is an incomplete life," he reflected. "Watching them run that 80 yards with the absolute joy that Dad's home - it's just different here. It's cool and it's sweet out here."
Then, one day, the need to play came raging back, Weisberg recalled.
"When it started calling again, instantly the demand for the music I do re-emerged - within 10 days of each other. The time was right," he said.
Recently, he sat in on a ticketed jam session with John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Today Steve Weisberg juggles a successful business career with a re-emerging musical passion. On the July 4 holiday, he'll play three concerts in Las Vegas with Denver band alum Roy Rivers.
He also plays guitar on Sundays at Red Oak Lone Star Cowboy Church. "You can keep your bars _ they're for drinking," he said - and Steve Weisberg left drinking behind, a long time ago.
"What's more intimate is when there's no dance floor ... you can take the song to a country where they don't even understand the lyrics, and if you play it well, it brings out the same emotions as it does when the audience understands the lyrics, every time," he said.
Out of his self-compelled Country Roads pigeonhole of so long ago, he's exploring older familiar roads re-remembered: the blues and jazz.
"Now when I'm on my way into Dallas, I'll find myself thinking about chords and progressions or lyrics. Now I've got a story in me, and it's starting to come out," he said.
Steve Weisberg's e-mail signature reads like a life philosophy. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." "Everyone has something - not everyone finds it The people that get called are so fortunate. I'm getting off real light for someone whose calling quit calling him for a long time," he said.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Steve is an incredible artist and just a joy to talk to. Have had the pleasure to talk with him and his lovely wife on numerous occassions and always brings a little character to our conversations.Keep rocking Steve,HalI saw Steve in Branson 06-19-09 with James Garrett for the John Denver tribuute show. it was great and I was lucky to see the show for it was the last show we saw and Steve was only there for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.In Branson This show is a must see!!!!Bryant Morton
By chance is Steve Weisberg and relation to the flutist, Tim Weisberg?
Steve is such a joy to talk to! He told me the story about meeting John in the hardware store, while they were both looking at the same fireplace grate.
I could listen to him sing all day. He plays a guitar with the same ease that most of us drive a car...only with much more passion.
I hope to get the chance to hang with him again when he comes through town!
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