"Take me home, country roads" sings one of John Denver’s greatest hits, and though Milwaukee isn’t home for actor/musician David Lutken, the roads have led him back to the Cream City.

Last year, he starred in the Milwaukee Rep’s production of "Woody Sez," based on the life and music of Woody Guthrie. One year later, he’s kicking off the 2015-16 season for the Rep with another country/folk icon with "Back Home Again: On the Road with John Denver," a two-person show following fellow musician Dan Wheetman’s almost decade on the road with the renowned country artist.

The show kicks off on Friday, Sept. 11, but before then, OnMilwaukee got a chance to sit down with Lutken and find out what drew the actor/musician to Denver’s music and the unexpected global appeal of such Americana rich songs. 

OnMilwaukee: When were you introduced to John Denver’s music?

David Lutken: Oh goodness gracious. Well, before I was an actor – I guess you could say that – I played music for 10 or 15 years after I got out of college, playing in bars and honkytonks and restaurants and the occasional concert. So that all started in about 1972, and John Denver permeated the music scene at that time. I was more, I guess, of a fan of older music, but I certainly learned plenty of John Denver songs right from the source, right from the get-go.

OnMilwaukee: What about his music enticed and interested you, then and 40 years later?

Lutken: I’ve always admired his songwriting and melodic abilities. Folks like Woody Guthrie, who I’ve sung a million times, were some of the greatest poets in the history of the United States … but their melodies left a little to be desired in some circumstances. Whereas Mr. Denver, being one of the great proponents of the sweet love song, even if it’s the love of a place rather than the love of a person or an idea. And, of course, having sung with the Chad Mitchell Trio, he had his share of humorous songs and political songs as well. But his full flower was in songs like "Poems, Prayers and Promises" and "Rocky Mountain High" and those really beautiful songs – one a soaring thing and the other a very intimate folk tune.

I think what’s interesting about this show, to change your question a little bit, is that John Denver has always been there in the mix there to me, but until now, I’d never done a show about John Denver. So a lot of these tunes are new to me, and it’s been great fun learning them. Dan (Wheetman), whom I’ve known for 35 years, was playing with John when I first met him when I was living in Aspen, Colorado in 1980. So it’s been very interesting, because I knew him then, and we played together and did all kinds of things along our separate but intertwining paths. So it’s been very interesting to me to find out a whole lot more than I ever knew about what was going on with him at the time that I knew him.

OnMilwaukee: What’s been your favorite discovery about John Denver through this whole process of putting this show together?

Lutken: The most interesting discovery for me – and I suppose if I thought about it for more than five minutes it would’ve occurred to me – is that there’s a certain branch of folk music there are a lot of people who write on a vast spectrum of tunes about their personal lives and relationships. And I did not know that the songs that John Denver was writing were mirroring so exactly what was going on in his personal life.

The reason for this show, of course, is that by sad and wonderful coincidence, some of those same things were happening to Dan Wheetman, my friend who was working with John at the time. They’re sort of parallel existences, and I never knew that that was so specifically what John Denver was writing about in the moment. As a distant audience member, I just thought, "Oh, these are songs about his memories of things that have gone kaflooey or been wonderful." But they weren’t. He was writing what he was seeing and what was happening to him right then essentially.

OnMilwaukee: Do you have a particular favorite song from the show to perform or just personally enjoy?

Lutken: I guess my favorite discovery in this show is a Danny Wheetman song, which is called "Honey Be There," which I think is a great tune. I had never heard it before; he recorded it with his band Liberty right about the time I met him, I guess, back in 1978 or so.

But also, there’s another one – and this will sound very hokey. The other favorite I guess is really "Take Me Home, Country Roads," because it’s a great song and that’s the reason why everybody knows it. It’s just a great song.

But I have a funny history with "Country Roads" because of the Woody Guthrie show. We did "Woody Sez" here during the Polar Vortex of 2014, and my little group and I have done that show all around the world; we’ve been to Great Britain and all over the continent of Europe and the Middle East and China, and we’re hoping to go to the Southern hemisphere next year. In my experience, there are only a couple of songs that are universal songs everywhere we’ve been in the world. One is Johnny Cash "Fulsom Prison Blues," which almost everybody knows that song, and that’s fascinating to me. "This Land Is Your Land" is right up there. But the one that really seems to do it is "Country Roads."

We were in Shanghai playing at a hootenanny playing for a bunch of college students and other folks after a performance, and we were having a wonderful time. They were playing Chinese instruments, and we were playing our instruments. We tried to do some songs – one of the other ones is "You Are My Sunshine" is a song that almost everybody has heard somehow; I don’t know how – done by good ol’ Jimmie Davis, the governor of Louisiana. But the one American song that they were familiar with was "Take Me Home, Country Roads," and that was fascinating to me. 

OnMilwaukee: Why do you think that song spoke to them so much?

Lutken: I don’t really know why; I think it may be because when Richard Nixon went to China, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" was a big song, but I don’t know that for a fact. But I do know that Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, all these other places that we went, that was THE American tune that they knew. We played it in the West Bank and Palestinian territories and the former East Germany and Belfast – and they know that song. And it’s fascinating and wonderful.

OnMilwaukee: That’s interesting because I think if you were to ask people about Woody Guthrie and John Denver, they would say that they tap so much into that particular feeling of Americana. What is it about that translates across the globe it seems?

Lutken: First of all, of course, is that they’re very catchy, and they have great hooks, which that’s just being a good songwriter. But the rest of it I guess is that there is a certain sort of ease and gentleness to his songs – even in horrible angst and despair, which is another fascinating thing about some of the tunes that they’ve chosen. It is that very ease and gentleness that magnifies the emotions in the tunes.

For a song like "Take Me Home, Country Roads," all of those building blocks put together is what makes it such a great song – and quite a few of his other songs are right up there as well. He just did a fantastic job of stacking these things up, and that coupled, of course, with a bunch other things, like being in the right place at the right time and punching his way through long years of playing on the road by himself and with the Chad Mitchell Trio. And he persevered. There’s really something to be said about his craftsmanship.

OnMilwaukee: Why is it that their music has had such longevity?

Lutken: The simple answer is because they’re good. They endure, and it’s all because the particular formula – that particular spark of their abilities and their distinct voices – of good and distinctiveness. It’s all sitting on the foundation of the music and how memorable it is. I used to say when I was playing in bars that all you really needed for a great hit song was a really great chorus and one line that was completely unforgettable.

My example was the Roger Miller song "King of the Road," which has the line "I ain’t got no cigarettes," and I don’t know why it is, but everybody just remembers that line. It encapsulates that song – a song about a bum who thinks he’s the king of the world – and has that perfect speck of imagery. Just like John Denver’s songs. They just have that thing that just perfectly describes what they’re talking about in the midst of this very memorable melody. That’s what songwriting is about.

OnMilwaukee: It’s like that line from "Inside Llewyn Davis" about how a folk song is never new and never gets old.

Lutken: Very good. Another great line in that movie, though, is when the fella says, "I don’t see a lot of money in this." (laughs) I’ve been there, in that exact spot, playing in the bar at 10 in the morning with all the sunlight coming in, and it all smells like stale beer. Finally getting to play for The Guy, and he says, "Thanks a lot for coming." (laughs)

OnMilwaukee: Why is now the time for John Denver’s story and his music?

Lutken: The longer answer is that this particular show, of course being the memoir of Dan Wheetman, it’s one of those things that he knew the timing was right because this was when he decided to do it. I do think it will be, for reasons both highfalutin and artistic and also very lowfalutin and practical, a popular show. The highfalutin reasons are a little bit of what you’re saying, that perhaps in a cynical world, people are looking for an antidote to that. Mr. Denver and his tunes certainly are that.