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Born in Seymour, Indiana, in 1951, Mellencamp endured hardships early. He was born with
spina bifida, a neural tube defect that could have left him crippled, but he persevered. As a rebellious teenager, he joined his first band at the age of 14. At 17 he eloped with his pregnant girlfriend, Pricilla
Esterline, and started working in a string of blue-collar jobs to support his family. At the ripe old age of 24, Mellencamp moved to New York City to pursue his music career.
Shortly after his arrival, he signed with manager Tony DeFries, who also managed David
Bowie, and garnered a recording contract from MCA. In 1976 he released his debut record, a cover album titled Chestnut Street Incident. To Mellencamp's shock, he discovered that DeFries had billed him as
Johnny Cougar on the album. The record bombed and Mellencamp was promptly dropped from MCA. The incident sparked the singer's general disdain towards the music industry, which persists to this day. After spending
two years writing new songs and honing his craft, Mellencamp returned with A Biography on Riva Records in 1978. Again, the record fizzled, but the disappointed and disillusioned Mellencamp learned from the experience and returned with Johnny Cougar in 1979. The album received good reviews and sold well thanks to the Top 40 hit "I Need A Lover."
Mellencamp continued to work hard on his career, releasing Nothin' Matters and What If
It Did in 1980. The Steve Cropper-produced album spawned two Top 30 hits, "This Time" and "Ain't Even Done With the Night." With success at the doorstep, Mellencamp paused briefly, re-examining his songwriting before releasing his breakthrough album, American
Fool, on his new home, Mercury Records. The album went to No. 1 on the strength of two Mellencamp classics, "Hurts So Good" and the No. 1 smash "Jack and Diane." The singles also received
heavy support from MTV. With commercial success under his belt, the singer added his surname to his stage name, becoming John Cougar Mellencamp.
For his next album, Mellencamp began to focus more on the issues facing the common man in
Smalltown, USA. 1983's Uh-Huh peaked at No. 9 with the anthemic "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song" and the small-town ballad "Pink Houses." Mellencamp's first headlining tour followed. The musician continued to develop his social conscience for his 1985 release, Scarecrow.
The album received glowing reviews and stellar sales, generating Top 10 singles "Lonely Ol' Night," "Small Town" and "R.O.C.K. in the USA." Mellencamp soon progressed from observer to
advocate, organizing the American farmer benefit Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. Mellencamp also refused corporate sponsorship for his tours, preferring to distance himself from big business.
With his 1987 release, The Lonesome Jubilee, Mellencamp began to explore more of his
folk roots, including a fiddle into his arrangements. The album peaked at No 6 with the singles "Paper In Fire," "Cherry Bomb" and "Check It Out." He continued his exploration of
American roots music on 1989's Big Daddy. The album met good reviews and strong sales, but failed to produce a successful single. 1991's Whenever We Wanted and 1993's Human Wheels both were well reviewed, but sold only moderately. In 1994, Mellencamp's album, Dance Naked, went gold only a few months after its release, vaulted by the No. 3 single, a duet with Me'Shell NdegeOcello on Van Morrison's "Wild Night."
A major heart attack in late '94 forced the cancellation of a world tour to support Dance
Naked. After spending much of 1995 recuperating, Mellencamp returned with Mr. Happy Go-Lucky in 1996. The album featured the single "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)." In 1997, he released a greatest hits album, The Best That I Could Do (1978-1988).
Mellencamp jumped to Columbia Records to record John Mellencamp, which was released
in October 1998. The album contains the track "Eden Is Burning," a sequel to the 1982 hit "Jack and Diane."
Joe Hauler
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He's had fourteen hits so far, but somehow nobody really thinks of
him as a hitmaker. His songs are too real. Two of his albums have
stayed in the top ten for over twenty weeks apiece. And he's the
only male artist of the 80's to have three triple platinum albums in a
row. But he spends most of his time with his family and old high
school friends.
Critic Mikal Gilmore says that in his music, he is "a man coming to
grips with himself and his history, his nation and his legacy." Dave
Marsh writes that "John Mellencamp is my kind of rock & roll
star... (He has) guts and raw nerve. .....John Mellencamp has
carved a spot in rock history...." And Chuck Eddy, in The Village
Voice, declares that, "No one currently making music, platinum or
otherwise, has done more than Mellencamp to earn the audience's
respect."
John Mellencamp was born in Seymour, Indiana (population
15,050). The land around Seymour looks like an American
paradise. It is gently rolling and deeply green. The air is
breathtakingly free of smog. But below the surface, Seymour
suffers from America's hidden distortions.
Seymour's fathers were pioneers: silent stoics who spend most of
their lives alone in the fields with their plow animals. Isolation ate
like acid into their souls. Eventually, fist fights on Friday nights
would become one of their few recreations. The tradition carried
over to the days of Mellencamp's youth.
John Mellencamp attended the Emerson Grade School a few doors
away from his home, then moved on to Shields Junior High, which
has since been turned into a Bible college.
John started his first band in 1968. To the citizens of Seymour, it
displayed an unaccustomed cultural mix. The eight-man unit
covered tunes by James Brown and James and Bobby Purified ("I'm
Your Puppet") It had two vocalists -- one black and one white.
The white one was Mellencamp.
In 1972, John recruited Larry Crane to form the beginnings of yet
another aggregation. This one would last fifteen years: it's the band
Mellencamp has today.
When John jumped into a Ford Grenada and took off for New York
City, he told his friends he was going to get a recording contract.
They knew he couldn't possibly do it. Said his closest buddy, "If
you want to go to New York, go on a weekend. But don't quit the
phone company."
John eventually landed the contract, and a new name to go with it.
Big time manager Tony DeFries agreed to sign the Indiana boy only
if he would change his monicker.
John Mellencamp's first album came out as the work of "Johnny
Cougar" -- the name with which DeFries had saddled him. Called
Chestnut Street Incident, the record was greeted by critics with
contempt. But Mellencamp and his band went out to play clubs all
across the country, and hunkered between dates back in Indiana,
living off of close to nothing. The second Mellencamp album, A
Biography, did not improve matters. It plummeted to instant
oblivion.
Then came the third LP, John Cougar, bringing the first faint sign
that leaving the phone company may have been a sane move. The
Mellencamp composition "I Need A Lover" got airplay in Australia.
Finally -- three years after the release of his initial album -- the song
became John's first top-forty hit, in Australia. There would be
another two -- "This Time" and "Ain't Even Done With The Night."
Then came a pair of songs John says "everybody told me not to put
out: "Hurts So Good" and "Jack And Diane." Insiders were sure
the songs could not possibly get airplay. They tried to force the
Indiana native to re-record his entire album. Mellencamp refused.
The result was shocking to the naysayers. "Hurts So Good" went to
number two and hit gold. "Jack And Diane" went to number one
and stayed there for a full four weeks. According to Billboard,
Mellencamp became the first living male artist in over a decade to
land two top ten singles ("Hurts So Good" and "Jack And Diane")
and a number one album simultaneously.
American Fool, the disk Mellencamp had refused to re-record,
became the biggest-selling album of 1982 (it sold over three million
copies and stayed at number one for nine weeks). The Rolling
Stone critics who had always panned Mellencamp named the album
one of the most significant LPs of the year. And Mellencamp was
dubbed the artist of the year in all the trade magazine polls.
In the wake of the record's success, the writers who had mocked
Johnny Cougar suddenly noticed one small detail they'd previously
overlooked: the passion of Mellencamp's live performances.
Timothy White, in Penthouse, called a Mellencamp stage
appearance "exhilirating...quirky...tough, stunning...crisp, stark, and
bright...pounding, propulsive...thunderous...stately...The sound and
saga of the contemporary heartland never felt so bold, ran so deep,
rang so true."
Despite the national recognition, John was still living in Seymour,
grilling hamburgers in the evening with the guys from Seymour
High. But now, they'd bring their wives. His next album -- Uh
Huh -- would be an ironic attack on the illusions of stardom and
success. The key to the work would be the song "Pink Houses."
Said Mellencamp, "I was driving back from the Indianapolis airport
with a friend on a highway elevated 40 feet over the ground, looked
down and saw an old guy sitting in his backyard in front of a pink
house with a dog in his arms staring up at me with this real
contented smile on his face. It was obvious that he thought he'd
really made it in life. But there he was with a damned six-lane
highway running through his backyard." It was a side of Cougar no
one had ever seen before.
"Serious Business," (Uh Huh) portrayed a typical West Coast scene
of life in the fast lane: the would-be star is allowed to spend the
whole day baking by the swimming pool, then is ushered into a
room with a groaning buffet and a full selection of boys and girls
for his sexual delectation. It was clear from the song's tone that this
was not the life John Cougar Mellencamp wanted to lead.
The kind of life he *did* want to pursue was exactly what was
beginning to preoccupy Mellencamp. And that preoccupation
worked a dramatic change in his songs. "In the 60's, I worked to
tear family down," he said. "But today I realize that what's wrong
with America is that the family unit is being destroyed. Family and
friends are the most important things you have.
"Did you ever see the movie Hud? It's about this young guy, Paul
Newman, who's so good looking he can have any woman in
town...and does. He hates work, loves to drink, and rides around
town in a big old Cadillac raising hell. When it turns out the cattle
on his father's ranch have hoof and mouth disease, Hud wants to sell
them to the neighbors and collect the cash before the government
can come in a kill them. Hud doesn't care how many people he
hurts or cheats.
"Hud's father has put his whole life into those cows. They're
everything he owns. But the father has principles. He won't
compromise his honesty to save himself.
"At one point, Hud has a fight with his father. And his father says,
'Slowly but surely the face of this nation is changing because of the
people we admire. You're smart, and you've got your share of guts.
You've got all the charm it takes to make youngsters like you. But
you don't give a damn. You don't care about people. You don't
value nothing. You don't respect nothing. You keep no check on
your appetites at all.' Then the old man looks at Hud's young
nephew, a good kid who wants to immitate everything Hud does,
and says, 'You're just going to have to make up your mind some
day about what's right and what's wrong.'"
Mellencamp was making up his own mind. "When I first saw Hud,
I admired the hero and wanted to be like him. That admiration
lasted for years. Now, it's the opposite of what I want to be. Now,
I'm beginning to identify with that idea that 'slowly the face of the
nation is changing because of the people we admire.' Now I'm
beginning to see that you've got to do something to make this world
a better place, you've got to make a contribution.
"I don't want to write any more songs that make people feel bad
about themselves. I only want to write songs that raise their self
esteem...so that no matter how many times they've been knocked
down, they have the courage to get back up."
Those feelings led to 1985's Scarecrow. On American Fool in
1982, Cougar had gloried in adolescence and had been horrified by
the specter of growing up ("hold on to sixteen as long as you
can/change comin' round real soon make us women and men"). On
Uh Huh he had lashed out against the phony values of slick, adult
success ("I fight authority, authority always wins./I've been doing it
since I was a young kid and I've come out grinning"). But on
Scarecrow, Mellencamp made the most important declarations of
his career. He affirmed the desperate importance of values it takes
maturity to understand:
I worked my whole life in the steel mills of Gary
And my father before me, I helped build this land
Now I'm seventy-seven and with God as my witness
I earned every dollar that passed through my hands
My family and friends are the best things
I've known
Through the eye of the needle I'll carry them
home
---------
He fell asleep with his head against the
window
He said an honest man's pillow is his peace
of mind
This world offers riches and riches will
grow wings
I don't take stock in those uncertain things
The old man had a vision but it was hard for
me to follow
I do things my way and I pay a high price
When I think back on the old man and the
bus ride
Now that I'm older I can see he was right
Another hot one out on highway eleven
This is my life, it's what I've chosen to do
There are no free rides, no one said it'd be
easy
The old man told me this, my son, I'm
telling it to you.
If "Jack And Diane" had scared record company executives,
Scarecrow must have terrified them. The album avoided every
easy, commercial theme. But it didn't matter. Scarecrow became
Mellencamp's third triple platinum LP in a row. The hunger for an
artist writing songs "to raise people's self-esteem" became clear
when Billboard announced the top three pop artists of 1986. They
were Whitney Houston, Madonna...and John Cougar Mellencamp.
Mellencamp finished six months of touring in Japan in the summer
of 1986, and decided to spend the next year or two with his family.
But something inside him wouldn't let him leave his themes alone.
Songs began writhing out of him. He says, "I didn't really want to
write these songs. I told everyone that I wouldn't put out another
album for two or three years. Here it is a year later, and I've got a
record. I just couldn't help writing these fucking songs. What's
more, I wrote thirty five of 'em."
What was the subject matter that refused to let Cougar rest? He
says, "the small victories in our lives. The album's called
Lonesome Jubilee because small victories are things most of us
experience alone. This record's about connecting with your visions.
And it's about bruised optimism."
The Lonesome Jubilee touches the petty evils that even the best
meaning inflict on eachother. Says John, "That's what I meant by
One man
does his work
he's not satisfied
not at all
feels like
that he is being used
--------
He takes it out
on the ones he loves
because it's safe
and who they gonna tell
And he hates the cold-bloodedness
that runs inside
from 'Hard Times For An
Honest Man'
"I was trying to say that when you put on the clean white shirt,
make sure it's really clean. Don't prance around like you wrote the
scriptures yourself if you're secretly brutalizing the people close to
you in invisible ways.
"Sometimes the walls that cut people off are walls they erect
themselves. Like in 'Hard Times For An Honest Man,' a girl is hurt
once, then throws up barriers she keeps around her all her life. She
finds other guys who would do great justice to her life, if only she'd
allow it. But she won't let them.
"I came to the realization that you have to find real close, warm
relationships. I't one thing to breeze in and breeze out and shoot
your mouth off. But it never dawns on you that you can hurt
people. It never hits you that when you turn your back on the
person you've been sleeping with, it can hurt her. You think she's
tough; she's not.
"When my Uncle Joe died, it taught me a big lesson. He hated
everybody and everything for 53 years of his life. He was always
trying to act like the big man, grunting at people instead of talking
to them, abusing his wife, sleeping around. But he left an
impression on everybody he met, whether they liked him or not.
He was a great big guy, real strong, real tough, and real good
looking. He fought, treated people like dirt, was always acused of
being a womanizer, and never had close relationships. When
Grandpa died he suddenly realized there was more to life than
protecting his image. He'd wasted 53 years of his life until his
father died. Then all of a sudden he said, 'What's the point of all
this? I've got nothin. Nobody likes me. I haven't got any friends. I
don't have a kid.' When his father died, he realized that maybe he
hadn't been living right.
"I saw him start to enjoy life at 53. It was amazing to me what a
great guy he'd become. Then three years later he got cancer and
died. He was the eternal teenager, and he only had three years to
grow up. I have to work at not being that guy. I reazlied I can't be
like Uncle Joe, building walls up around myself. If I had 'em up, it
was time to start tearing 'em down.
"That's what you see in 'Paper In Fire.'"
He wanted love
with no involvement
so he chased the wind
that's all his silly life required
and the days of vanity
went on forever
and he saw his days burn up
"I don't wanna have to be on my deathbed worrying about how I'd
thrown away my life."
With albums like Uh Huh, Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubilee,
that is the one worry John Cougar Mellencamp almost certainly will
not have.
The End
(Reprinted without permission)
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