The spirit of John Denver’s music — and Christmas — is evident in the Rocky Mountain High Experience: A John Denver Christmas show.

Starring Rick Schuler, the show pays tribute to Denver, who died in 1997, with a nostalgic look back at the country/folk singer known for songs like “Rocky Mountain High,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Annie’s Song.”

The tour, with 44 shows over two months, visits Pittsburgh’s Byham Theater for a matinee on Nov. 23.

“It’s really a fun show. John Denver had an interview — gosh, this was in the ’70s when he was in his peak — and he said his show was so good, he would like to attend the show himself. And I have to say, I kind of feel the same way,” Schuler said with a laugh. “It’s like a trip down memory lane for all of us because these songs are, for many of us, like old friends. It really captures something beautiful about our country, about the ’70s, about a lot of good things in our lives, especially as Americans and really the times of John Denver, along with his music and really the stories.”

Earlier this month, Schuler also released a new album, “Colorado,” with eight originals and four Denver songs.

“The word Colorado kept coming up in the songs, because I wrote all the songs in Colorado. (My producer) says, ‘Rick, we can’t have any more Colorado songs on this thing.’ I said, well, I’m just gonna call it ‘Colorado,’” he said with a laugh.

In a phone call from California before the tour started, Schuler spoke with TribLive about Denver’s music, the Christmas show and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.

What is it about John Denver’s music that you most identify with?

C.S. Lewis had a way of saying it. He calls it that there are three eternal longings of the soul: the longing for home, the longing for love and the longing for God through nature, which is a way that we long for God. I think those themes are hit so beautifully or resonate so beautifully in John’s hit songs. And so, for me, those hit songs are a touchpoint for many of us, especially those who grew up in the ‘70s, or even for people who grew up with somebody who grew up in the ‘70s. (laughs)

I’m sure there’s probably multiple generations at these shows.

Oh, yeah. It’s really cool because I noticed that when the kids come, whether they’re teenagers or little kids, they’re just mesmerized because they’re not used to hearing a story. And the interesting thing about a story and C.S. Lewis — I quote him a lot because he’s so profound — but he says a story can break past the watchful dragons of reason. And with music, I had to engage the heart. That’s something I think that’s beautiful and kind of lost really. John’s music is very different from James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and Gordon Lightfoot, all of those guys. I love their music. They’re the best, but John’s music is different. John smiled at people. He bared his heart when he sang.

There’s something more organic and really beautiful. And in fact, John’s lifelong manager became a very close friend of mine about 14 years ago. He just passed a couple of weeks ago so I’ve been thinking a lot about him. But John had the very best team one could ever ask for in the business, Hal Thau, and Hal introduced him to his record producer and publisher, Milt Okun, who really was John’s musical mentor. He really pretty much placed John into the music scene in a big way through Hal and also Jerry Weintraub, who put John on television. So what’s fascinating to me is when I’m standing in front of a thousand people and I ask people, hey, how many of y’all ever seen John in concert live? And I’ll tell you, very few people, I mean, not even 5%. But when I ask how many have seen him on television, you know what their first response is? They laugh. It’s like, duh, nearly everybody has seen John Denver on television. It’s unbelievable.

He had a bunch of specials, right?

He had 29 television specials. And during the ‘70s, he had up to three to four a year with ABC, I think it was. He was doing a lot of television. The movie that he made, he made a couple of them actually, but the big one was “Oh, God!” with George Burns. John’s presence, particularly in the ‘70s, was ubiquitous. Quite frankly, it’s the most amazing story really, my story with John and his music. From the first time I had to wear glasses at 13 years old, people were telling me I looked like him and I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know who the guy was. He was only the biggest star in the world. When I find out it’s like, oh, that’s the guy on the radio. I love his music.

And it was weird, because I was learning to sing and our timbre is so similar. Our texture’s different, by God’s grace. John has a very sharp, edgy texture, even a little bit of a rasp, and my voice is smooth. So I feel like I’m adding something to it, which is really fun. But it’s quite a story. The Christmas shows are just special. John’s television specials, actually they called the first couple of them a family moment. That’s kind of how the shows are really. It’s really fun. And I wish I could come to one of my own shows, kind of like John.

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Did you ever get a chance to see him perform live then?

Oh, yeah. I saw him several times. I saw him with my mom. It was the trippiest thing. I was probably 14 years old. This is about a year after everybody was telling me that I looked like John because of the goofy glasses I had to wear, which I hated. Still hate. The funniest thing is we were sitting in the front row, and oh my gosh, when the guy walked out on stage, it was so trippy because so many of his gesticulations and aspects of how he came across were so similar to me. He was a very sincere, very reflective person. I was stunned, really. And after getting to know people that really knew him, obviously, we’re very different too. We’re similar but different.

I thought his shows were unbelievable. Some of his bandmates became friends of mine, really close friends of mine. The guy that authored the song “Grandma’s Feather Bed,” Jim Connor is a friend, and John Sommers, who authored “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” Several of these guys I’ve met, and they’re just wonderful people, and I saw them in concert with John. I just think John was the very best of the very best of our country. I didn’t want anything to do with John Denver, because I got so sick of it. My yearbook in high school didn’t even have my name in it. It was John Denver, Sunshine Boy, this that and the other. When I got rid of my glasses in my 20s, I was like, man, I’m tired of hearing people tell me I look like John Denver, and I moved out to California. I was hanging out with one of my lawyer friends, and when I first met her, she thought I looked like John Denver. And I said, I’m not John Denver. Then she came to when I did my first show about eight years later, she sat in the front row and gave me this look like, hahahaha.

But yeah, it’s kind of a fun story. And I tell a lot of stories, I try not to overdo that part, but I do like putting perspective. I told my team, I said, look, man, I think I love doing interviews almost as much as I love doing the shows because there’s so much to talk about with what I’m doing. And really, what I feel is happening with the audience, which is really just it’s like an individual/collective experience. And that’s why I called it the Rocky Mountain High Experience. Because it’s the experience I had when I first listened to that song, it kind of transported me to the Rocky Mountains. John had a line in one of his songs, “The Eagle and the Hawk,” where it says “Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops, sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars. And reach for the heavens and hope for the future and all that we can be, and not what we are.” So the whole idea of the imagery and the imagination is so captured up in all of this music and in John’s stories and my story with John and the people around Aspen. … So it really is a lovely show. It’s fun, all ages. And really, for Christmas, it’s probably, I think modesty forbid, the show you want to see.

With the Christmas songs, what do you think is your favorite song that he did?

There’s so many. That’s a hard one. “Oh Holy Night,” my goodness, “Silent Night,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” There’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Let It Snow.” There’s just so many good ones. I use a lot of the Christmas songs as segues, and I use a part of the song that everybody knows to sing so that it’s like a giant caroling kind of thing. I mix them up with the John Denver songs, so I get all the songs that we need to get in. I can’t walk out the door without singing “Annie’s Song” or “Country Roads.” There’s just a lot of music to fit in, and I’ll be fitting in a couple of my songs from the album of mine, as well as John’s. But I think the Christmas show is — well, it’s funny, I like the regular show too because there’s more songs that I can fit — very special. It’s very warm and cozy and magical.

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