Mr. Media Interviews By Bob Andelman

Today's Guest: Singer John Denver.   Order 'John Denver's Greatest Hits,' available from Amazon.com by clicking the CD cover above In the years that I was a pop music critic for the St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune back in the mid-1980s, one of the best parts of the job was interviewing musicians by phone before they came to town. I always liked the conversation, the give-and-take, the challenge of engaging talented men and women who talked all day long with reporters—and no doubt hated most of it. At the end of almost every interview, the musician would invite the critic to come backstage after their upcoming show and say “Hello.” I almost never did that because I knew it was more a pleasantry than a sincere invitation. But when John Denver said to come around, I actually followed through. It was January 21, 1984, the weekend of Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa, and John was performing at the Bayfront Center Arena in St. Petersburg as part of the festivities. My mother was in town visiting that week and I b