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John Mellencamp
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John Mellencamp, Indiana’s favorite son, has been singing big, cinematic songs about the little guy – the underpaid, the unemployed, the unappreciated and the completely ignored – for 4 rabble-rousing decades now. His poignant portraits of working-class Americans – everyday characters with names like Jack, Diane, Jerry, Suzanne and Margaret – are musical snapshots of people easy to recognize, whether they be neighbor, lover, relative, passing stranger or the person gazing back at you from the mirror. John and his loyal band of crack musicians, all schooled in 60’s garage rock and pop simplicity, charge through his paeans to individualism and courage with a no-nonsense rally cry of urgency. His music is indeed the insistent heartbeat of the heartland.
Yet despite John’s worldwide success – the hits, sold out concerts, the Grammy award and his Rock And Roll Hall of Fame induction – it is his maturation as an artist and his progressive concerns for the future of his homeland that propel and inspire him. The annual Farm Aid benefit project which he co-founded with Neil Young and Willie Nelson, an event that provides financial relief for struggling farmers and their families is just one of Mellencamp’s numerous populist concerns. He genuinely cares and remains vigilant, ready and willing to provide time and money to topical issues, large scale and small. His boisterous anthems seem readymade for political campaigns (Small Town), and in fact have been utilized to bolster the images of candidates seeking to win the trust of Middle America. Most recently Mellencamp, a life-long Democrat, requested that Senator John McCain desist in using his songs Pink Houses and Our Country at his presidential campaign rallies. McCain’s people agreed, ensuring the lyrical integrity of the self-professed “left of center” artist remains unsullied.
With a rich body of work that includes several mainstream singles chart successes (Pink Houses, Small Town, Jack and Diane, Hurts So Good), critically lauded albums (American Fool, Scarecrow, Human Wheels), and adventurous collaborations (Me’Shell NdegeOcello, Chuck D, India.Arie and Sounds Of Blackness), one wonders where John’s creative impetus might guide him next.
On July 15th, 2008 the world will find out, as Starbuck’s Hear Music will release John Mellencamp’s Life, Death, Love and Freedom, atmospherically produced by T-Bone Burnett and boasting a tight set of stripped to the bone tunes. Sparsely adorned songs like Longest Days, Young Without Lovers and Without A Shot emanate an eerie beauty – you can almost feel the darkness of the studio, the smoky spaces between the musicians. This is gruff-voiced Americana – accusatory, plaintive – equally evoking the junkyard bark of Tom Waits and the bluesy rasp of Taj Mahal. The first single My Sweet Love is vintage Mellencamp – a drumbeat crazy love song, big of heart and guitar that would sound right at home on an Everly Brothers album.
Creative research & bio by Mike Moeller
© 2008 EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING. 75 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY 10011.
All Rights Reserved. This Information, or Part Thereof, May Not Be Reproduced In Any Form Without Prior Written Permission. |
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| My Sweet Love |
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| Jack And Diane |
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| Hurts So Good |
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| Pink Houses |
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| R.O.C.K. In The USA |
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| Small Town |
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| Cherry Bomb |
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Dan McCarroll
