Performer bringing tunes of John Denver here Feb. 21

Singer Chris Wilson is show crooning John Denver's Tune "Annie's Song" at an earlier show. Submitted photo

Chris Wilson was born in 1976, when folk-pop singer John Denver was filling arenas and stadiums with feel-good tunes about nature’s glory and love’s beauty. Wilson’s folk singer mother filled the family home with many of Denver’s songs well into the 1980s.

And then a young Chris Wilson noticed something.

“By then, I felt kind of sad that it seemed like a lot of (radio) people weren’t playing those songs so much anymore,” Wilson said, speaking by phone from his home in Rochester, New York. “And it seemed as if those songs were fading away.”

No more.

Wilson, now 43, will bring his interpretation of a set of the late Denver’s more popular hits to a 90-minute fundraising concert at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at North Christian Church to benefit the Columbus-based Granny Connection. The nonprofit organization cares for children orphaned by the AIDS crisis in Lusaka, Zambia.

A pre-concert barbecue dinner is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Tickets for the meal and concert are $35 in advance and $40 at the door.

Denver died at age 53 in 1997 when the experimental plane he was piloting crashed into Monterey Bay, California.

The musician’s concerts honoring Denver began in 2014 when he released a disc titled “A Lovely Space To Be: The Music Of John Denver.” The first concert at a 400-seat venue in Rochester sold out in two days. He intersperses a few of his own folk-oriented tunes into the performances.

As much as he always loved Denver’s music, he felt some trepidation.

“Initially, there was some concern that I would be typecast in the role as the John Denver guy,” Wilson said. “So I was little nervous about that. But I love to celebrate great material. And I know that John Denver is an interesting character for a lot of people.

“And I know there are a whole lot of people who dearly love John Denver (and his songs), but don’t necessarily readily admit it. So we describe these shows sort of as a guilty pleasure.”

Denver boasted more than 30 Billboard hits, including “Leaving On a Jet Plane,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “Rocky Mountain High” (an official state song of Colorado), “Sunshine On My Shoulders,” “Back Home Again,” “Thank God I’m A Country Boy,” “Annie’s Song,” “Calypso,” and many others.

“His songs are a part of the Americana DNA,” Wilson said. “When most people hear the opening to ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads,’ they just automatically know that.”

The format for his tribute-oriented shows is to mix some of Denver’s life and lyrics with his own life in order to make a more heartfelt connection with the audience.

“I present his songs as something of a soundtrack to my personal story,” Wilson said. “I certainly don’t pretend to be him in concert or even especially sound like him.”

Yet, when some audience members get lost in the sentiment of the past, their emotional exuberance has led them afterward to say to the artist, “You sound just like John Denver.” Granted, Wilson accepts such as a compliment, though he agrees that the artistic quality and tone of his voice and Denver’s are significantly different.

Yet, on such well-known, softer number’s such as “Annie’s Song,” he does sound like a more technically polished version of Denver.

Ann Jones of The Granny Connection would like nothing better than to see the local 400-seat venue filled for the performance. She pointed out that the event is the organization’s main fundraiser of the year “and it really counts for those kids and grandmothers in Zambia.”

[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”About the event” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]

What: Fundraising dinner and concert featuring internationally touring folk-pop artist Chris Wilson presenting John Denver classic songs interspersed with a bit of his own material

When: A barbecue dinner is scheduled at 5:30 p.m., followed by the concert at 7 p.m. Feb. 21

Where: North Christian Church, 850 Tipton Lane in Columbus

Why: To raise money for the local nonprofit Granny Connection’s work caring for children orphaned by the AIDS crisis in Lusaka, Zambia

Tickets: For the meal and concert are $35 in advance at Viewpoint Books in Columbus or online at grannyconnection.org or $40 at the door

[sc:pullout-text-end]