New driving tour in Seymour highlights John Mellencamp's lifeWritten by
Ashley Petry
Star correspondent
John Mellencamp is the boy in the middle with the gray jacket. He is flanked by his siblings (from left) Ted, Janet, Joe and Laura (front). / Photo provided by the Mellencamp family.Millions of John Mellencamp fans are familiar with “Small Town,” his hit song describing life in a small community. But they may not realize the song refers specifically to Seymour where Mellencamp was born and raised.
To honor that legacy, the Jackson County Visitors Center recently developed a new audio driving tour, called “The Roots of an American Rocker.” It guides Mellencamp fans to key sites in Seymour, such as places where Mellencamp lived, attended school and filmed music videos.
“It’s a behind-the-scenes look at his early life, where he grew up and some of the things that may have influenced him along the way,” said Jane Hays, public relations manager for the visitors center. “It really gives an in-depth look at his personality in those days.”
The tour starts at Larrison’s Diner, which appeared in Mellencamp’s film “Falling from Grace.” The restaurant has been in business under various names for 70 years, and Mellencamp still eats here — usually ordering a cheeseburger, said owner Kevin Larrison.
The restaurant is decorated with Mellencamp memorabilia, and fans often dine here, hoping to catch a glimpse of the musician at his customary table.
“Every little place has something it’s proud of, and we’re real proud of John here,” Larrison said. “He’s done real well.”
The diner is on Chestnut Street, which inspired the name of Mellencamp’s first album, “Chestnut Street Incident.”
The tour has 13 additional stops, including the hospital where Mellencamp was born in 1951, the schools he attended, his boyhood homes and the restaurants and skating rinks where he spent time with friends. Several destinations on the tour served as filming locations for music videos — such as the First Presbyterian Church, which appeared in the video for “R.O.C.K. in the USA.”
At each stop, the audio guide includes samples of Mellencamp’s music and anecdotes from friends and family members about his childhood in Seymour.
At Seymour High School, the guide features comments from Mellencamp’s former English teacher and one of his high-school girlfriends — the one who inspired the song “To M.G. (Wherever She May Be).”
“It’s nice to get past the artist persona and get down to, he’s just a boy from Indiana. We were really excited to get the personal side of it from his family members and friends,” Hays said.
On the CD, teacher and coach Walt Wintin recalls his unsuccessful attempt to recruit Mellencamp for the wrestling team.
“He marched to a different drummer,” Wintin said. “They took his parking privileges away from him at the high school, so the next day he rode his horse and tied it to the fence on the football field.”
Mellencamp’s mother makes several appearances on the audio guide, sharing stories about washing her son’s mouth out with soap, buying him his first guitar and inadvertently throwing away some of his early song lyrics when cleaning his room.
One of the final stops on the tour is the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts. Mellencamp purchased the building, the former home of a childhood friend, in 1991 and leased it to the city for $1 a year. It now houses the world’s only permanent collection of Mellencamp’s paintings.
The audio tour — which started its life as a simple map produced by the visitors center — has been well received by locals and visitors alike, Hays said.
“It gives the fans something extra to do when they come here,” she said. “I think it makes people feel that they’re a little bit closer to him.”
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