'I still cry': John Denver's ex-wife still moved to tears by Annie's Song

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr was born December 31, 1943, in Roswell, in the US state of New Mexico, to mother Erma and father, Henry, a decorated US Air Force pilot stationed at the nearby airfield.

When he was 11, Denver's grandmother gave him an acoustic guitar, which he learned to play.

By the time he was in college, he performed at local clubs before joining a folk-music group, The Alpine Trio, while at university in Texas.

In 1963, he decided to drop out of uni and headed to LA. Two years later he joined The Mitchell Trio, which toured the country playing small venues such as colleges.

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Annie Martell was a student at Gustavus Adolphus college in Minnesota when the three young men performed on campus.

Denver noticed the pretty brunette straight away. She recalled their first meeting during a 2022 episode of the Mobituaries with Mo Rocca podcast.

"John was giving a concert with the Mitchell trio. And afterward, he was playing his guitar and there were a group of people that were doing a play and kind of a silly little musical, and I was the girl that carried the signs across the stage Act One, Act Two, and according to John, I had a pair of blue jeans on and a flannel shirt and penny loafers," she said.

During a 1979 interview with People magazine, she said Denver told her he fell in love with her "on the spot" The two began exchanging letters, but they did not see each other again until a year later when he performed at nearby Minnesota State University.

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They went on a date and Annie recalled that John was charming and a hit with her parents. They were engaged nine months later and married on June 9, 1967.

They moved to Chicago before settling in Minnesota, where Denver wrote some of his early hits, including Sunshine on my Shoulders.

By then, Denver had adopted a new stage name and was pursuing a solo career.

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In 1967, he self-produced a demo recording of some of his original songs, which he gave out as Christmas presents. One of the songs was Babe, I Hate to Go, which caught the ear of a music producer. He in turn took the song to folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, who recorded the song under a new name, Leaving on a Jet Plane. It went to number one.

Denver recorded more albums before the 1971 hit Take Me Home, Country Roads put him on the map.

He and Annie were on a camping trip in Aspen Colorado with some friends when Denver fell in love with the area. He bought a home and they moved there in 1971, with the area inspiring some of his biggest hits, including Rocky Mountain High.

One day in 1973 he was on a ski lift when a song came to him. After rushing home, it took about 10 minutes to write Annie's Song.

Annie later recalled he wrote it after one of their many spats. "It was written after John and I had gone through a pretty intense time together and things were pretty good for us. He left to go skiing and he got on the Ajax chair on Aspen Mountain and the song just came to him.

"He skied down and came home and wrote it down... Initially it was a love song and it was given to me through him, and yet for him it became a bit like a prayer."

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The song went to number one in the US and the UK. Annie reportedly told newspaper reporters at the time, "When he played it to me, I cried. I was very honoured by it."

After struggling to conceive, the couple adopted two children; a boy, Zachary John, and a girl, Anna Kate.

Denver loved fatherhood and once said of adopting, they were "meant to be" theirs. He wrote the Frank Sinatra song, A Baby Just Like You, about Zachary. It even included the line, "Merry Christmas little Zachary".

Denver's star continued to rise. He starred in the weekly variety show, The John Denver Show, and a live concert television special An Evening With John Denver, which won an Emmy.

His guest appearance on an episode of The Muppet Show sparked a friendship with its creator Jim Henson and he went on to star in two specials.

He crossed over to acting, appearing in TV shows and films, including Oh, God! with George Burns, and began to focus on humanitarian projects while continuing to write and perform songs.

He wrote one of his biggest hits, Perhaps Love, as a duet with Plácido Domingo for the opera singer's 1981 album.

But behind the scenes, his marriage was floundering and in 1982, he and Annie divorced.

Denver later said career demands drove them apart while Annie said they were too young and immature to deal with his success.

In 1994, Denver spoke about his infidelities, drug use and even domestic violence in his autobiography, Take Me Home.

He confessed to becoming so angry during the breakdown of their marriage and division of assets that he tried to cut their marital bed in half with a chainsaw.

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Denver was staying at the Sebel Town House in Sydney in 1985 when he walked into the bar where Australian singer Cassandra Delaney was performing. Denver was reportedly captivated by her.

They married in Aspen in 1988, with their wedding making magazine covers across the world. They had daughter, Jesse Belle, in May 1989.

But their marriage was short-lived. The two separated in 1991 and divorced two years later.

Delaney later detailed the demise of their relationship and described Denver as a hard-drinking "vindictive bully".

The period after his divorce saw Denver charged with drink-driving, first in 1992. He was on probation when he crashed his Porsche into a tree while drunk in 1993.

His father had taught him to fly in the '70s but after his second drink-driving charge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) disqualified him from flying.

Denver was piloting a light homebuilt aircraft that was performing touch-and-go landings at an airfield near Monterey Bay, California, when it crashed on October 12, 1997. Denver, 53, was killed.

After his death, Annie, who continued to live in Aspen after their divorce, spoke about Denver, and the song that made her famous.

Despite it being written for her, she said Annie's Song wasn't her favourite John Denver song, even though it moved her to tears.

"I still cry when I hear it, but my favourite song is one called Perhaps Love, that he did with Placido Domingo."

She also spoke about the lasting legacy of the song in the 2022 podcast, and said she and Denver had patched up their differences before his death.

Annie said Denver continued to send her flowers every birthday and Mother's Day, and recalled the last time they spoke.

"I thanked him for the flowers he'd sent for my birthday and he went very quiet. He said, 'Oh, but Annie, I love you' and I said, 'John, I love you, too. Have a great trip, and I'll see you when you get back'."

She also said she kept the first letter Denver ever wrote her soon after their first meeting.

"I keep it on my desk now," she said. "It still moves me to see it."

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).