John Denver was a singer/songwriter from Aspen, Colorado who is well-regarded for his contributions to the folk, country and Americana genres. Although Denver died tragically in an airplane accident, during his lifetime he wrote a substantial amount of material and was widely lauded as one of the best soft rock songwriters of his generation. Getting his start in a few folk groups in the late-1960s, Denver would go on to achieve massive commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s with many of his albums and songs, including the well-known tracks "Rocky Mountain High," "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads." Ever the ardent activist, during Denver's later life he'd crusade for a wide-range of issues he believed in, such as opposing music censorship, bringing environmentalism into the mainstream and supporting space exploration.