I would guess that it would be released, but it will probably be after the No Better Than This tour before we see it. I'm sure they want those coming to the shows to be watching the movie for the first time and not already own it on DVD. Releasing it now would be akin to releasing a movie on DVD while it's still in theaters.

It's unclear what the movies future is. It is still in the editing stage so until it's a done/final/John approved thing I don't think there will be firm plans for it.

So this movie debuts in two months and it's still not complete? John said on the Tavis Smiley show that Tavis was in the movie, so I figured since this was shot last July and August that the final product had been complete for some time. I wonder what is taking so long. 

I would guess that it would be released, but it will probably be after the No Better Than This tour before we see it. I'm sure they want those coming to the shows to be watching the movie for the first time and not already own it on DVD. Releasing it now would be akin to releasing a movie on DVD while it's still in theaters.

And get this: the whole thing was captured on this mono AMPEX 601 tape recorder Mellencamp bought off eBay:



(Above: Mellencamp's recording set-up in the First African Baptist Church of Savannah. Photo courtesy of Bob Merlis.)

It has been mentioned a few time, kind of as a color note, not a main point of the story.

I remember when one of John's team members sent me the ebay link when John bought this, saying check this out. It was quite surprising!

So does John actually have an eBay account, or does he have somebody who makes these purchases for him? I just can't imagine John logging onto eBay, asking questions to a seller about the condition of the recorder and executing a purchase. Seems hard to believe. He has to have somebody do this stuff for him, right?

John Mellencamp's nights in the Sun: Singer adds a Memphis beat to new record
By Mark Jordan

As he craned his neck up toward the single bullet microphone that hovered in the middle of the room, John Mellencamp resembled another singer who had stood on the exact spot at 706 Union more than 50 years earlier.

Sure, the Indiana-bred Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is shorter than Elvis Presley, and, at 57, his face showed the wear of 15 years that "The King" of rock and roll never lived to see. But there was a suggestion of Elvis in the sweep of Mellencamp's thick, greasy black hair. And when he and his band launched into the bouncy, mid-tempo rockabilly number "Coming Down the Road," the sound was so instantly familiar you half expected to see Sam and Scotty and Bill in the room as well.

It was not planned that way. In July 2009, Mellencamp and producer T-Bone Burnett, a team of technicians and musicians, and a documentary film crew packed into Memphis' tiny Sun Studio, where, when it was called Memphis Recording Service, Presley all but invented rock and roll in 1954.

"We didn't know what we'd end up with," Mellencamp says of the session at Sun, one of three recording locations for his 25th album, No Better Than This, which hit stores Tuesday.

"Did we go down there to create the Memphis sound? No. We just went there to record in a historic place. The fact that the minute you hit an upright bass where Sam Phillips says put the upright bass and it sounds the same shouldn't have been any surprise. But we were surprised."

Coming more than 20 years after Mellencamp's hit-making heyday ("Jack and Diane," "Pink Houses"), the new record finds the singer-songwriter mining the same Americana sound he was pioneering back then, but in the more relaxed, unforced manner of recent critical triumphs like 2008's Life, Death, Love and Freedom.

"I'm in it for the music and the fun now," Mellencamp says of his motivation to keep making music. "T-Bone, in one of our early meetings, said, 'John, you had the luxury or the misfortune of being a rock star. We've got to get rid of that.' And I said I agree. There's no place for that anymore. I look foolish trying to be a rock star at 58 years old."

Mellencamp's more laid-back attitude about his career shows in his writing. No Better Than This grew out of a single song, "Save Some Time To Dream," the album's opening track about letting go and enjoying the little things.

"I just sat down, and I didn't try to guide these songs," he says of the collection of 13 originals, written, incredibly, in as many days. "As a songwriter you can direct songs: 'No, I don't want to take a song this way. I want to go this way.' But with these songs I didn't try to guide them. I just let the songs present themselves."

Sitting down with Burnett, who had also produced Life, Death, Love and Freedom, the pair decided to extend the natural, unforced concept to the actual recording, turning back the dial on the studio process to a simpler, less-complicated day. They sought out historic venues where the mood was more important than the acoustics. And they opted to use antiquated gear — a single microphone and an Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder they bought on eBay — to capture the magic.

Mellencamp eventually settled on three locations for the sessions: the historic First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., near where Mellencamp has homes on the resort islands of Tybee, Ga., and Daufuskie, S.C.; room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where bluesman Robert Johnson cut his first recordings; and Sun, launching pad for a long list of legends, including Howlin' Wolf and Johnny Cash.

"The Sun sessions were more lively, more jovial," Mellencamp says of the two days spent in Memphis, the only ones to feature a full band. "We recorded all night long because we couldn't get in there during the day because they have tours and stuff."

Sandwiched between dates on Mellencamp's tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, the sessions were rushed as much by necessity as by design. Burnett assembled a band that included guitarists Andy York and Marc Ribot, drummer Jay Bellerose and David Roe, who was Cash's bass player in his final years. With little-to-no rehearsal, they knocked out 13 songs in two nights, taking breaks only for a late barbecue or fried chicken dinner or to listen to playback in the construction trailer out back where, in the humid July night, the sensitive Ampex was set up "underneath a bare bulb and the mosquitoes that found us."

The setup reminded Mellencamp of one of his earliest records, 1983's Uh-Huh.

"I recorded that in a little teeny house in the hills of Indiana," he recalls. "We couldn't bring the equipment in the house really, so we had to go outside to hear playback."

With little time to figure out how to record in Sun's small white room, Burnett was helped tremendously by the studio's founder, the late Sam Phillips.

"Phillips made it easy for us because he had left the X's (of tape on the floor) where he would set his band up," Mellencamp says. "Most people, if you're not from Memphis, you don't know this. T-Bone and I didn't know it till we walked in the room. But it was like, hell, here's where the drums go. This is where the microphone goes. So he made it real easy for us. And the minute we started to play and heard the playback, it was like, well, there's that sound. There's that sound we're familiar with."

Mellencamp recorded versions of all 13 No Better Than This songs at Sun, though only nine made it onto the record. With Bellerose's slapping bass particularly prominent, these tracks have an undeniable Sun feel, something fans will get to experience this fall when Mellencamp takes the album on the road, complete with a "Sun" set, an acoustic set, and a showing of photographer Kurt Markus' "making-of" documentary.

There are no plans for a Memphis date. The closest show is Nov. 3 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

More lasting than the actual sounds made in Memphis, Savannah and San Antonio might be Mellencamp's rediscovery of the organic nature of making music. There's a reason the recordings of Johnson and Sun endure to this day: Despite the primitive conditions, or perhaps because of them, they speak to something intimate and real and true. "When we were in Memphis, I looked at T-Bone and said, 'What the (expletive) were we doing in the '80s?'" said Mellencamp. "I made a record once that took almost a year to make. And I look back on it, and I think I spent millions of dollars (messing) around with these songs, making sure every note was in place, using the most sophisticated equipment to make it sound a certain way."

In contrast, he says, No Better Than This was made with a lot less fuss, and the results are just as good if not better.

"The songs all just presented themselves to me in a very honest, sincere fashion," he says. "They were written that way, and that's part of the thought process of recording them that way."

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/aug/22/john-mellencamps-nights-in-the-sun/

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss the email or something.

How do us paid members from the old CCB site redeem our $40 credit in the Mellencamp.com store? I got an email about this a few weeks ago but the coupon code included in that email doesn't work. Thanks. 

It says "a musical retrospective," so I'm not sure if this is a new interview or not.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13

Awesome review, Patricia. Thanks so much for taking the time to write that out. Somebody should tell John that he wasn't married to Elaine when "Big Daddy" came out. In fact, he didn't marry her until a year after "Whenever We Wanted"  was released and didn't even meet her until the "Get a Leg Up" video shoot in 1991. Also, Hud and Speck weren't born until after "Human Wheels." He's really bad with dates and things like that and always has been, but he's still entertaining as hell. Thanks again for the great review.

Picture from last night:

Informative article about the show here:

John Mellencamp talks career, new album and Robert Johnson
Story by Phil Gallo
SoundSpike Editor at Large

Calmly and carefully, even apologizing for being frank,  John Mellencamp decried the Internet, the state of music today and problems with education -- while also providing details about his new album -- during an interview session Tuesday (8/17) at the Grammy Museum.

He also reiterated his call for Willie Nelson to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The purpose of Mellencamp's talk and five-song performance was to spread the word about "No Better Than This," his second album with T Bone Burnett behind the controls and one that goes to great lengths to recapture the essence of recordings made around the time of rock 'n' roll's birth. They recorded in mono on a single microphone at the First African Church in Savannah, GA, a key depot on the Underground Railroad; Sun Studios in Memphis, TN, where Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded; and room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, TX.
 
"T Bone and I did research on how it was set up," Mellencamp said, referring to Robert Johnson's 1936 recording sessions at the Gunter Hotel that produced "Come on In My Kitchen," "Terraplane Blues" and "Dust My Broom." "I found a blueprint and knew which corner he sang into, and we wanted to set it up exactly the same way."

That meant removing the heavy drapes, and taking up the hotel management on their idea of using a parquet dance floor to cover the carpeting that would not have been there in the '30s. The sound engineers, who needed to be in an adjacent area and not in the room itself, didn't get it right the first time and had to redo the set-up.

Once they followed the Johnson blueprint, Mellencamp said, "there wasn't much to it. As T Bone said, that's one great-sounding corner."

Sun Studios, Mellencamp noted, "was perfectly laid out for a three-piece band, but they have all this modern digital equipment, so we had to rent a trailer and park it out back [with a vintage tape recorder]. They had tours all day so we had to record at night, going in at 7 p.m. and coming out at 4 or 5 in the morning.

"The purpose was to go into places and take it back to where it began. What we were able to do was capture the moment. That's a problem with music today -- there is no moment. Everybody was in the moment.... Sometimes we got it in the first take, sometimes the third or fourth or not at all. It was fun to be a musician."

The one place they were not able to record was the Brunswick Building in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas, TX, where Johnson recorded 11 songs. They were given excuses such as the lack of air conditioning, but Mellencamp said they stopped trying because "basically, the owner didn't want us in the building."

Still feisty even if he is less cantankerous, Mellencamp deflected much of the praise sent his way from interviewer Bob Santelli, the museum's executive director, who described himself as a lifelong fan. After referring to his albums "Scarecrow" and "Lonesome Jubilee" as "happy accidents," Mellencamp did swell up with pride in talking about his touring band from 1985 to the early 1990s.

"I had a vague notion, and I'm playing with [musicians] from Indiana, that if we played for hours and hours and hours [we'd be good]," he said. "By the time 'Scarecrow' came out everything jelled -- we were the best band in America. We were untouchable."

At that point, Mellencamp got a former agent of his seated in the audience to concur.

Mellencamp performed "Save Some Time to Dream" -- the song that got the project started -- and "Thinking About You" from the new album, plus "Don't Need This Body" from his previous album, an a cappella version of "Cherry Bomb" and "Small Town." Prior to that, he had thoughts on a few other subjects. (Tangents have been removed from the quotes for the sake of coherency):

On recording: "Making records for me was a drag sometimes. I quit a couple of times quietly. After 'Big Daddy' (1989) I said I'm not going to promote the record and I spent two years painting, had a heart attack and just took care of babies."

His first deal: "When I got a record deal I had only written four songs, so my first half dozen records are terrible. I was a barroom singer and had to learn how to write a song. Some people come out of the womb knowing how to write a song. ... (Eventually) I felt I was Woody Guthrie in one hand and Smokey Robinson (with melodies) in the other, and if I could just find a way to get them together."

On John Cougar, then and now: "I'm 22 and in New York with no money and no way to get home. A guys says, 'I made up the name David Bowie.' I went along with it and it took my entire career to rid of the thing. I was behind the eight ball as Johnny Cougar. ... You had guys coming up like Tom Petty, Willy DeVille, Steve Forbert. [To critics] I was the low-hanging fruit. ... I'm 58, soon to be 59, and am no longer the guy who wrote 'Hurt So Good.'"

Online omen: "The Internet is the most dangerous thing since the atomic bomb. It has destroyed the music business and it's about the destroy the movie business. What if some smart people unhooked electricity on the Eastern seaboard and messed with bank accounts during the blackout?"

Longevity: "From 1920 to 1940 big band music was just as popular as rock 'n' roll, but 50 years later can anyone name five big bands? It's Duke Ellington and then ... After a few generations, as important as we think rock 'n' roll is, it goes away. [Eventually] people will say the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the rest of us become footnotes. I have [given up] on the idea of longevity."

http://www.soundspike.com/news/tour/492-john_mellencamp_tour_dates_and_tickets_john_mellencamp_talks_career__new_album_and_robert_johnson.html

Rocker John Mellencamp Likens Internet to A-Bomb

Rocker John Mellencamp said on Tuesday that the Internet was the most dangerous invention since the atomic bomb, although new technology could paradoxically delay the inevitable demise of rock 'n' roll.

But before then, "some smart people, the China-Russians or something" may have already conquered America by hacking into the power grid and financial system, he warned during a public seminar at the Grammy Museum.

Mellencamp, 58, has established a reputation during his career as a bit of a loose cannon disdainful of music industry niceties. He still lives in his home state of Indiana, saying he never fit in elsewhere.

Famed for such hit songs as "Hurts So Good," "Jack and Diane" and "Small Town," he is also a political activist who campaigned for President Barack Obama. He has also helped Live Aid organizer Willie Nelson put on the annual Farm Aid charity concerts for small farmers.

His comments on the Internet coincided with the release -- in stores and at digital retailers -- of his new album, "No Better Than This." While he said the Internet was useful on a personal level for communication, he worried about its destructive potential.

"I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb," he said. "It's destroyed the music business. It's going to destroy the movie business."

For starters, the popularity of digital downloads, which fans listen to on their MP3 players and computers, has come at the expense of sound quality, he said.

He recalled listening to a Beatles song on a newly remastered CD and then on an iPod, and "you could barely even recognize it as the same song. You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different."

At any rate, most rock 'n' roll -- including his own contributions -- will eventually be forgotten, he said, likening its demise to that of big-band music, which was all the rage during the 1930s and '40s.

"After a few generations, it's gone," he said. "Rock 'n' roll -- as important as we think it is, and as big as it was, and as much money as people made on it, and as proud as I am to say that I was part of it -- at the end of the day, they're gonna say: 'Yeah, there was this band called the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and this guy named Bob Dylan...'

"And the rest of us? We're just gonna be footnotes. And I think that that's OK. I'm happy to have spent my life doing what I wanted to do, playing music, make something out of life, but forgetting about the idea of legacy."

Mellencamp, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, said his first half-dozen albums were "just terrible," while his mid-'80s breakthroughs such as "Scarecrow" and "The Lonesome Jubilee" were "happy accidents."

He actually quit the music business for two years in the late 1980s and did nothing. "We even knew what was on TV at night," he said.

His new album takes the rocker back in time. He recorded it with vintage equipment in three historic locations: Sun Records in Memphis, original home of Elvis and Johnny Cash; in the same San Antonio, Texas, hotel room where bluesman Robert Johnson cut 16 tracks in 1936; and at the First African Baptist church in Savannah, Georgia.

Mellencamp recalled that he and his wife Elaine even got baptized at the church. "For about a half hour I really felt uplifted. It wore off," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11425737

I, for one, am very impressed by this website. It looks great and everything about it is top notch. One suggestion to spice it up that I wish would get strong consideration: How about a text or video interview of John answering questions from fans. You could set up an e-mail account where some of us hardcore fans could ask questions like, "Why didn't 'Common Day Man' get included on the 'Lonesome Jubilee' album?" and John could answer these questions either over the phone or by recorded video. If he chose to answer them by phone, you could merely post transcribed text of the interview on this site. If he chose the video route, you could post video of him answering the questions either with someone asking the questions to him or by posting a graphic of the question on the video and then letting John launch into his answer.

That would be really cool -- John could do it every six months or so and it would take no more than 20-30 minutes of his time. What a wonderful way that would be for him to keep in personal touch with his fans without having to do any real work or take a huge amount of time out of his schedule, and it could lead to a great interview where he's asked something other than "how did the hand claps get on 'Jack and Diane?'" and then we wouldn't have to hear the Lin drum machine answer for the 3,000th time. Just a thought. This seems pretty realistic to me.

Picked up my copy today, only got to listen to about 1/2 of thus far, but liking it.     
Best Buy had a nice little promo pic up of John today, of course love to see that.  And I would say they had at least 20 copies of the new release.

Can you snap a picture of whatever the promo pic was? Or can you describe it more? It was something physically in the best buy store?

At the Best Buy I went to today the promo poster was the same picture that's in the upper left hand corner of this website, or at least it was from that same photo shoot -- you know the one that was from Interview magazine right after "Freedom's Road" came out. It's nothing new, it's been seen before.

By Thom Jurek

The first thing that grabs the listener about John Mellencamp's No Better Than This is its sound: mono -- recorded live to an Ampex 601 tape recorder circa 1955, with a single microphone without mixing or overdubs. It's warmth and presence are immediate and engulfing. Mellencamp and T-Bone Burnett cut the album while on tour supporting, Life Death Love and Freedom, Mellencamp's celebrated precursor. This album was cut in some very famous locales: First African Baptist Church in Savannah, GA (the first African American Christian church in North America), Sun Studios in Memphis, and in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, TX, where Robert Johnson recorded "Stones in My Passway" in 1936. While Mellencamp's last album was celebrated for its wonderfully crafted songs, it nonetheless reflected Burnett's dictatorially heavy-handed production style. This set feels far more like the artist. The songs are rooted in country, rockabilly, folk, country-gospel, and even a rawer Midwestern rock that is Mellencamp's brand. The band is equal parts his standard road group and Burnett's studio crew, but the latter plays more of a supporting role than a guiding one here; this set, with its brilliantly pruned songwriting is Mellencamp at his focused best.

The album's opener, "Save Some Time to Dream," is from the older and wiser songwriter who gave us "We Are the People," "Jackie Brown," "Human Wheels," and a more skeletal part two to "Your Life Is Now." It's safe to say that these historic locales reflect the tunes somewhat -- especially the driving title track, "Coming Down the Road," and "Each Day of Sorrow" that come from, respectively, the rockabilly of Carl Perkins, early Elvis, and Johnny Burnette. "No One Cares About Me" is a pure Mellencamp lyric, but its sound is reminiscent of the Sun-era Johnny Cash. The spooky banjo of the minor-key blues that makes up "The West End" touches on the Johnson of "Hellhound on My Trail" and the folk-blues Bob Dylan utilized on "The Ballad of Hollis Brown." "A Graceful Fall" is electric hillbilly blues. "Love at First Sight," with Mellencamp accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, is among the finest love songs he's ever written. "Don't Forget About Me" is a country ballad that acts as its mirror image and resonates deeply. He may be looking back at some earlier styles of music that influenced him here, but the songs on No Better Than This feel invigorated, unfettered, and melodically and lyrically astute. He possesses an independent streak in abundance here; he is making music only for himself now, and, as a result, is in a league of his own. No Better Than This proves that good songs need very little to communicate instructive narratives and complex emotions, and that primitive recording methods are still sometimes the best ones.

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hpfpxzwdldje~T1

John Cougar Mellencamp: Growing Up In Public

Bill Holdship, Creem, December 1987

You'd think that John Cougar Mellencamp would be living a rock 'n'
roll version of the proverbial life of Riley.

Two years ago, Scarecrow took him to heights even he probably thought
were unreachable. And now there's The Lonesome Jubilee, the second
smash album in a row that has not only the public raving about him,
but the critics as well – some of those same critics who blasted him
relentlessly after he first began pursuing his rock 'n' roll muse well
over a decade ago. He's set to begin another of his mammoth tours (the
missing link between James Brown and Bobby Fuller) right around the
time you'll be reading this. There's a very strong possibility that
the film he and Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurty have been trying
to make for years will begin production sometime next year, with John
making his dramatic debut as a country & western singer. He's a friend
to farmers and small town "hicks" throughout this country. He's a role
model. He's an American hero. A lot of rock 'n' rollers adore him. His
dreams would appear to have come true. He should be on top of the
world, right?

"Everything in my secure little world has changed during the last
year," he says with a trace of regret in his voice, "and it's just
crazy. It seems everybody I know is getting divorced. I'm sick of
people dying around me. I mean, c'mon! I had a nice little secure
world going here for a few years! Now my best friend's getting
divorced, and I gotta deal with that. Some of the guys in the band
have been married for like 10 years, and now they're not getting along
with their wives. So they're talking about divorce, lawyers. And it's
like, what's going on here? My Uncle Joe just died. My grandpa died.
(Guitarist) Larry (Crane)'s grandma, who I really liked, just died.
And it's like, wait a minute! This was not in the game plan. It's
really upsetting. I never realized how painful all this could be. You
figure, well, people die, people get divorced – that's part of living.
But when it's your relatives and your friends...Things are changing in
my life around me, and I just don't like it."

Well, The Lonesome Jubilee is really good. At least that's something
to be happy about.

"Well, probably the reason the record's so good – if it really is that
good – is because of those things. It's horrible to think you've gotta
be a miserable son of a bitch to write a good song," he laughs, "but I
guess that's kind of the way it works sometimes. I don't think it's
bad luck so much as it's part of the maturing process that happens to
everyone, whether we like it or not. We all get married somewhere in
our 20s or so, and we have these hopes and dreams. Or like my Uncle
Joe – I figured he's only 56 years old, he's going to live to be at
least 80. I'm going to know this guy forever. You make all these
assumptions about the future, and then it's like, 'What?!?! Uncle
Joe's dying of cancer? I was with him two days ago. He weighed 220
pounds and could lift a tree. And now he's in bed, dying? Man, that's
not supposed to be happening yet.' I guess every human being has to
reach this level of maturity – but it's like you get to be 35 years
old, and people's ideas of what they were and what they wanted when
they were 25 and first married have changed. So it's like 'Things
aren't what I thought they were going to be, so I'm bailing out.' And
I hate seeing that happen. I hate to see people bailing out. It's like
'What do you mean you're quitting?' So it's been hard to deal with,
but I guess it's also been a bit f a learning process."

This is the standard place where I should probably give you a
"refresher" course on the life and career of John Cougar Mellencamp.
But let's be brief here, because: 1) You don't really need it if
you've been reading this magazine over the years; 2) You probably
already know all the pertinent details if you're even bothering to
read this article, and 3) You'd virtually have to be a media hermit
today not to know about Mellencamp's background and the type of rock
'n' roll he represents.

Of course, John Mellencamp is the archetype of the small town kid who
became a superstar against incredible odds, the incredible odds in
this case being an unscrupulous manager who tried to manufacture him
as something he really wasn't ("Johnny Cougar"), leaving a sour taste
for the artist that would linger for years within the music industry.
It's been done to lesser talents, and lesser talents have never
recovered. But – and here are the pertinent details in this story –
Mellencamp picked up the pieces and persevered. He wrote and recorded
some excellent songs on some fine LPs, beginning with 1979's not quite
eponymous John Cougar. He continued to gain momentum, reaching a
zenith with 1985's Scarecrow, one of the truly great rock 'n' roll LPs
of the decade. And he puts on one of the most incredible shows in rock
'n' roll; if you don't believe that, then you've never seen him live.

The Lonesome Jubilee continues the Mellencamp evolution in excellent
form. Most critics are calling it his best record yet, a fact with
which even the artist concurs. "The critics weren't wrong in the
beginning," he says. "They were right. I wasn't any f – good in the
beginning. But I've had the opportunity to evolve and to grow – and to
become something. I've had the opportunity to become the type of
writer I always hoped to be. And, man, that's the greatest thing in
the world – to begin to realize your potential, which is where I think
I'm at now. I feel that I'm just now – starting with Scarecrow and
this one – beginning to realize what kind of songs I can write."

Many people – Mellencamp himself included – have already said that The
Lonesome Jubilee sounds unlike any other rock album they've ever
heard. That isn't to say that – like his previous material – the LP
doesn't conjure up images of rock's rich past, from the Yardbirds
(that is, if the Yardbirds had a fiddle) approach of the great 'We Are
The People' to the summer pop of 'Hard Times For An Honest Man', the
Del Shannon-esque musical interlude that runs throughout 'Check It
Out' (John emphatically points out that those "pings" in the song
aren't a piano, but a hammer dulcimer played by super drummer – and
former college music student – Kenny Aronoff), the allusion to the
Young Rascals on 'Cherry Bomb', or the Stones-like feel of 'Rooty Toot
Toot'. The fact of the matter is, though, The Lonesome Jubilee may
include more diverse elements and influences on one rock record than
any album since the heyday of the Band. And quite often this multitude
of musical styles will all appear in the same song. We're talking a
gamut here that includes hard rock, soul, '60s pop, country,
Appalachian mountain music and even something that often resembles
Cajun or zydeco, thanks to the combined efforts of accordionist John
Cascella and Lisa Germano on fiddle.

"We didn't really listen to any of that before we recorded," says John
in reference to the possible New Orleans influence, "but it just
worked out that way. Larry is very astute with that stuff. He always
has been. I mean, that guy can play Cajun guitar like you wouldn't
believe. We just never utilized it.

"I'm real proud of this record, man. It's the first record of which I
can say I'm very, very proud. I'm just to the point now where I can
listen to it as a listener would – and I'm always going, 'Well, that
sounds like this old record.' But then two seconds later, it doesn't
sound like that anymore. So it becomes its own thing. Like I'll say,
'Well that sounds a little bit Cajun' – and then, all of a sudden, it
doesn't sound that way anymore. It comes and goes within each song.

"We were on the road for a long time after Scarecrow, so we were
together a lot as a band. For the first time ever, we talked about the
record before we started. We had a very distinct vision of what should
be happening here. At one point, The Lonesome Jubilee was supposed to
be a double album, but at least 10 of the songs I'd written just
didn't stick together with the idea and the sound we had in mind. So I
just put those songs on a shelf, and cut it back down to a single
record. Now, in the past, it was always 'Let's make it up as we go
along' – and we did make some of The Lonesome Jubilee up as we went
along. But we had a very clear idea of what we wanted it to sound
like, even before it was written, right through to the day it was
mastered."

Perhaps all these diverse elements in Mellencamp's music add up to the
reason it's always been impossible to put a label on, or a prefix in
front of, his music. When one thinks of "college bands," names like
R.E.M., the Cure or the Replacements come immediately to mind. And yet
Mellencamp was voted "College Act Of The Year" by the College Media
Journal two years ago. Check out one of his concerts: the T-shirts on
display range from heavy metal to new wave. It all equals the same
thing to him.

"You also see a lot of people my age at the shows," he says. "I'm real
proud of that, and I think the greatest thing that ever happened to me
is the fact that my audience is so widely spread. When I was voted
'College Act Of The Year,' I didn't even know I was in the running.
They called me up to tell me, and I wondered, 'Gosh, how did that
happen?' I always thought my audience was older than that. But I think
it's great. A lot of it probably just has to do with the fact that
I've been around for so long. I mean, this has been a lot of years for
a guy to stay in the rock 'n' roll business."

Of course, after the phenomenal success of Scarecrow, Mellencamp
could've chosen to rest on his laurels and just gone through the
motions, releasing a lesser product, which is what many other acts
have done upon reaching his level. But over the past 10 years – a
period during which many new rock faves have ended up letting me down
in the end – John Cougar Mellencamp has been one of the few (perhaps
the only one) who has continued to grow while refusing to sell out,
and personifying that often overused word "integrity."

"See, the thing of it is, if I let my fans down, I let myself down,"
he explains. "There's a few people in this world who rock 'n' roll
means something to – and I guess I'm one of them. For me, the music is
the most important thing. Now, whether people like it or not – or say
I'm mainstream or not – that's their decision and their taste. But I
have to believe in the songs when I'm singing them for it to be real
to me. And the most crucial thing for me is that I want it to be real."

And real is probably the best adjective to describe John Mellencamp as
"rock star." Despite what the misguided Tony DeFries attempted to do
to him many years ago, Mellencamp has never been a manufactured pop
star. To paraphrase Popeye, he is what he is – and that's all that he
is. Most importantly, his concerns – and the things his music reflects
– are very real. Although his physical appearance has changed slightly
– he currently has much longer hair than he's had in years, ("I got a
Beatle cut again," he laughs. "I've always called long hair a Beatle
cut.") – he could almost be the same (basically) rock 'n' roll nobody
I first met eight years ago. There's still that ambivalent mix of
humility and cockiness (which has often been the yin and yang of some
great rock 'n' roll) on display – but the attitude is generally more
refreshing than you'll find in some younger, less experienced "rock
stars" (or even some older ones suffering ego problems). There has
been a maturing process at work here.

"I now realize that you can't go through life and expect that you're
going to beat it up," he says, graciously making no mention of Sean
Penn, "because you re not. I've met guys in younger bands sometimes –
and I'll have no attitude towards them – but they'll have an attitude.
But I have to think it's because it's theirs, and they're very
protective of that. I think a lot of musicians start out feeling that
they've got to prove something. I know I did. I had a real attitude
when I was first starting out, that I had to beat my way through
things. But after awhile, you realize that the only person you're
kidding is yourself."

In fact, a maturing process is what John seems to think The Lonesome
Jubilee might be all about. And just as the Ecclesiastes quote inside
the album explains (the same quote, by the way, that Hemingway used
for the title of his first novel), it's a maturing process that
everyone must eventually face. Adult rock 'n' roll is a concept I once
thought should be a contradiction in terms. And yet, during the past
several years, a few artists have produced just that...pure rock 'n'
roll that is basically written for grown-ups. That doesn't mean that a
grown-up can't listen to, say, 'Something Else' and continue to get a
lot out of it. After all, most of us still haven't obtained that
perfect dream Eddie Cochran was symbolizing underneath it all – but,
for many of us, that dream has changed from what it once was. Lou Reed
is an artist who produces adult rock 'n' roll. John Cougar Mellencamp
is now another. And that isn't to say that a kid can't get into his
music based solely on the music alone. You don't even have to listen
to the lyrics. But if you do...

"I think you have to be 35 to understand these songs," he laughs.
"When I sing about Jackson Jackson (in 'The Real Life') – unless you
know what it's like to spend your whole life or the majority of your
young adulthood doing what you're supposed to do, then you can't
relate to it. Because some of these young guys are thinking, 'Well,
I'm doing what I want to do' – but that's not true. They're doing what
they're supposed to do. Jackson Jackson is based on my Uncle Jay. He
said those exact words to me one time at the Red Lobster here in
Bloomington. He and his wife got a divorce. She was 14 and he was 17
when they got married – and he said, 'Man, I have done exactly what
I'm supposed to my whole life. I married this girl when she was 14 – I
didn't love her. We had kids. We raised the kids. I stayed there. I
worked every f – day pouring concrete. Now I'm in my 40s, and I want
to do something for myself.' And I asked, 'Well, what do you have in
mind?' He said, 'I don't know.' You can't be 21, though, and relate to
that. I mean, I look back on my life now – and you look back on your
life – and you realize that we hardly ever really get to do what we
wnated to do. Suddenly, it's 17 turns 35 – and how can someone 21
understand that?"

But isn't 'The Real Life' also about holding onto the rebellious
because spirit at middle age?
"Well, it's about holding onto wanting to be alive. So many people,
they just quit. It's like, 'I'm done. Stick a fork in my ass because
I'm finished.' But I don't think anyone really wants to be that way. I
think people just get tired. And it's easier. See, young people won't
understand that. I would've never understood that 10 years ago. 'Man,
what are you talking about, you're tired? I've got energy to burn, and
you're tired?' But now I'm 35, and I know what it's like to be tired.
It's sometimes like 'What am I doing in this rat race?' And you can't
even understand the rat race unless you've been in it for 20 years."

The Lonesome Jubilee isn't just about middle-aged disillusionment,
although there is plenty of that, from Jackson Jackson to the sad
Sister (in 'Hard Times For An Honest Man'), who put the walls around
her heart after years of emotional abuse. On the other hand, "this
album is full of hope," says John – and there's plenty here on how to
best deal with bad situations through compassion, acceptance and hope
for the future.

And speaking of future generations, 'Rooty Toot Toot', – the LP's
final track – includes an inside joke in that the song's main
character is named after Mellencamp's middle daughter, Teddi Jo.

"That song was a nursery rhyme that I wrote for her," he explains.
"Teddi Jo said, 'Dad, how come you never use my name in one of your
songs?' My youngest daughter's name is Justice, so she said 'You used
Justice, and you used Michelle' – because Michelle's middle name is
Suzanne – 'so I want you to write me a special song.' So I wrote
'Rooty Toot Toot' as a nursery rhyme. It didn't even have music. I
showed it to Larry, and he said, 'That's a good little, uplifting
story' – so we arranged it into a song and put it on the record."

Finally, like Scarecrow, the album reflects John's social concerns.
One of the issues that seems to be on his mind these days, if the
album is any indication, is the idea of racism in America, a subject
that's reflected in the two videos he and the band recently produced
for the LP in Savannah, Georgia.

"We drove around Savannah for a day looking for different locations.
People in the South are real poor, and I wanted to show that. Like in
'Paper In Fire' where it says 'The dream burnt up,' I wanted to try to
show the most burnt-up dream in the world. So we found that street,
and it just turned out that it was also the oldest street in Savannah.
The oldest street in Savannah, and still, in 1987, it is not paved. No
concrete. It's a dirt street in downtown Savannah.

"And for the next video, we shot 'Hard Times For An Honest Man' on the
steps of where they auctioned off the slaves when they would come up
off the boat from Africa. It was gruesome. Scary and gruesome."

They actually publicize that they auctioned slaves there?

"Yeah. But now they've turned the slave headquarters into designer
boutiques." He laughs. "Ain't that America?"

Before we end our conversation, I tell John about the Sons Of
Mellencamp – the acoustic duo comprised of Gregg Turner and "Metal"
Mike Saunders, two rock critics who also front the Angry Samoans (see
this month's Newbeats section). "I've heard about them," says John. "I
thought it was pretty funny." I explain that the act is funny but
respectful; these guys are big Mellencamp fans. The Samoans are
probably closer to the punk element than most people would associate
with Mellencamp, although earlier in the interview he said in
reference to critics Chuck Eddy and Chuck Young: "A lot of kids don't
like music unless it clears the room. I think that's good. lt's like
'This is your music.' I did the same thing when I was a kid." But
since they're such big fans, John graciously consented to answer a few
questions the Sons Of Mellencamp sent along to ask "Dad," the best of
which included...

How and where would a person hear the Stooges in Indiana in 1971?
"Well, you'd read about them in CREEM – that's where I discovered
them. And then you'd go to this record store down in Kentucky, and
you'd browse the records that had dust on them."

What kind of guitars and amps do (Mike) Wanchic and Crane use onstage
to get the standard John Cougar Mellencamp sound?
"Well, Fender Telecasters. They'll switch their amps around, but
usually it's the old tube Ampeg amps. Every now and then, when we wrap
a headband around our heads, we'll use a Marshall. But a small
Marshall, a studio Marshall. Sometimes Larry says 'C'mon, let's plug
in this 150-watter and see what it'll do,' but it never works out for
our sound."

On Rhino's Bobby Fuller Four albums, there's a credit with your name
on it. Why?
"Because I mentioned his name in 'R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.' When I
played in Albuquerque, I think it was, his mom and some of his family
came down to see me play. They acted like I gave them 60 million
dollars just for mentioning his name. They gave me his belt that he
died in."

Did the stand-up bass that Toby Myers uses come from hillbilly or jazz
musicians?
"I think both. But if you really know Toby Myers, and you talk to him,
I'd have to say that he's a hillbilly."

Why'd you decide to use fiddle and mandolins so prominently?
"I just enjoy the sound of them. When they're played well, they sound
great. When they're played with heart, you can't beat them."

Did the keyboard player cry when you took away his synthesizer and
gave him a Vox, which is a superior instrument?
"No, I tell you, John Cascella's been playing with me for a long time,
and I don't think that guy's ever complained about one single,
solitary thing. His personality is 'I'm a team player, and whatever
you want to do, let's do it.' You know, he was embarrassed to tell us
on the Scarecrow record that he was an accordion player – and he was
like the state accordion-playing champion of New Jersey in 1964 or
'65. He's from this big Italian family, and a third generation player.
So he's definitely going to be playing electric accordion on this tour."

What's your favorite Velvet Underground song?
"Well, I've got two. 'Sister Ray' and 'Sweet Jane'. I'd have to say
'Sweet Jane', though, because if I had to list my Top 10 rock 'n' roll
songs ever written, 'Sweet Jane' would be one of them."

What's your favorite Stooges song?
"Well, I'm almost embarrassed to say my favorite Stooges song is
'Search & Destroy'. I think my second favorite is '1969'."

What's your favorite Bobby Fuller song?
"Well, I'd have to say the hit. 'I Fought The Law'."

And if you were on the Grand Ole Opry in 1956, and they told you the
electric bass was the new thing, and to get rid of your acoustic bass,
mandolin and fiddle, what would you say?
"I'd say 'Forget it, man.' I'd say 'If I don't play this instrument,
then do I not go on? Because if I have to play this instrument, I
probably won't be there, bye.' "

These Sons Of Mellencamp are pretty funny guys.
"The first time I saw it, I just thought it was hilarious. You know
me. I'm always up for a joke. I haven't transcended out of that
college prankster stage yet."

Even as a grown-up...

And so, the final appropriate question for John Cougar Mellencamp
seemed to be: does he feel vindicated now that he's finally totally
accepted after all these years?
"That stuff doesn't matter anymore," he says without hesitation. "I
don't really think about that. The bottom line is I'm really too old
to concern myself with it. I mean, I like it. I'm glad that these
people all like the record. But the reality is: I'm 35 years old. I've
got a wife. I've got three kids. I've got a life of my own. I've
somehow transcended all that. I don't mean to sound arrogant or
anything like that – but that's just the way it is."

Seventeen turns 35. It's not what a lot of people might have expected.