Chart performance
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| "Wild Montana Skies" | |
|---|---|
| Single by John Denver and Emmylou Harris | |
| from the album It's About Time | |
| Released | November 1983 |
| Genre | Folk |
| Length | 4:02 |
| Label | RCA |
| Producer(s) | John Denver, Barney Wyckoff |
"Wild Montana Skies" is a single from John Denver's 1983 album It's About Time , featuring vocals from Emmylou Harris. The song is often highly rated as a Western and Montana-themed song.
In 2010, the Western Writers of America rated "Wild Montana Skies" as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. [1] In 2013, "Wild Montana Skies" won a poll as the "best song about Montana" run by the Great Falls Tribune . [2]
Reception was not entirely positive; the New York Daily News rated the song as the second-worst song with the word "wild" in the title, second only to "Wildfire" by Michael Martin Murphey. [3]
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Montana is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan to the north. It is the fourth-largest state by area, the eighth-least populous state, and the third-least densely populated state. Its state capital is Helena, while the largest city is Billings. The western half of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges, while the eastern half is characterized by western prairie terrain and badlands, with smaller mountain ranges found throughout the state.
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It's About Time is the 17th studio album by American singer-songwriter John Denver recorded at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami and released in November 1983. The album featured several notable supporting vocalists, including Patti Austin, Rita Marley, and Emmylou Harris. "Wild Montana Skies" was the single from this album; members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
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Monica Joan Tranel is an American rower, lawyer, and former political candidate. She competed at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. A member of the Democratic Party, Tranel ran unsuccessfully for Montana's 1st congressional district in the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Montana. Previously, she was twice a candidate for the Montana Public Service Commission and sought election to the Helena City Commission.
Black Eagle Dam is a hydroelectric gravity weir dam located on the Missouri River in the city of Great Falls, Montana. The first dam on the site, built and opened in 1890, was a timber-and-rock crib dam. This structure was the first hydroelectric dam built in Montana and the first built on the Missouri River. The dam helped give the city of Great Falls the nickname "The Electric City." A second dam, built of concrete in 1926 and opened in 1927, replaced the first dam, which was not removed and lies submerged in the reservoir. Almost unchanged since 1926, the dam is 782 feet (238 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, and its powerhouse contains three turbines capable of generating seven megawatts (MW) of power each. The maximum power output of the dam is 18 MW. Montana Power Company built the second dam, PPL Corporation purchased it in 1997 and sold it to NorthWestern Corporation in 2014. The reservoir behind the dam has no official name, but was called the Long Pool for many years. The reservoir is about 2 miles (3.2 km) long, and has a storage capacity of 1,710 acre-feet (2,110,000 m3) to 1,820 acre-feet (2,240,000 m3) of water.
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