The Roving Apatosaurus: “Calypso” – a resplendent musical experience!
Stars and storms. Breezes and sweet surrenders. Crystal clear oceans, dreams and legends with graceful nymphs. John Denver’s music has them all. Subtlety, refinement, the power of words and the power of images, all mingled in his purity of sound. His songs are poetries of senses, overwhelming listeners with a blast of feeling and flavor. When you listen to “Calypso” you hear the wash of the ocean and sense the magnificence of its might. It makes you feel the crests of the waves on your shoulders and smell the salty crisp air. The song is vivid and powerful, an ode to strengths and ambitions. When listening it, you can dance with the wind and reach for heavens. The Roving Apatosaurus capture all of that mystical magic in their cover of the John Denver song.
The music created by The Roving Apatosaurus is a collaboration of multiple independent freelance artists from geographically disparate locations. Their goal is to create covers of fun songs that may need to be reintroduced to newer generations, or appeal to those of older generations who remember the originals, or just to provide a unique spin on a contemporary work.
And just like John Denver, who had a deep love of music and the environment, as well as the desire to communicate those passions to other people, The Roving Apatosaurus deliver “Calypso” with a sense of satisfying wonderment and awe.
The thing that caught the listener’s ears in the 60s and continued to be Denver’s greatest asset as a songwriter, until his tragic death in a plane crash in 1997, was his ability to strike an emotional chord in his audience through simple, direct, clearly expressed feelings brought to life with vivid imagery.
In songs like “Calypso”, Denver not only tells the listener what he’s feeling, he takes them to that place with him. This is what The Roving Apatosaurus strive to achieve on their version of the song – “to take you to that place”. And where exactly is “that place”?
“That place” is Jacques Cousteau’s oceanic world of underwater world research, and his ship ‘Calypso’ – leased for a symbolic one franc a year and refitted as a mobile laboratory for field research and as his principal vessel for diving and filming.
Via the song “Calypso”, first Denver, and now The Roving Apatosaurus, capture the researcher’s sense of adventure, and the ocean’s extensive immensity. The musical arrangement is filled with rich and sprawling strings gently wrapping themselves around the undulating vocals, which flow with a mellifluous candor. It is a remarkably heartwarming and felicitous sounding cover, strung together by the chords of Denver’s very essence.
The Roving Apatosaurus’ version of “Calypso” is invigorated by a keen sense of nostalgia, a sharp sense of recollection, and an earnest sense of emotional pride. They recapture the very nature of the original song and translate it into a new palpable almost tangible feeling.
The result is a resplendent musical experience. The video for the song is divided into 3 parts. The full and complete song with vocals, then a nostalgic trip down memory lane for those who remember, and the last part is an instrumental only version.
