John Mellencamp Community
December 08, 2024, 04:45:32 pm *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
News: Visit Mellencamp.com's NEWS section for all of the latest updates!
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: "Ghost Brothers" Toronto Life Article - Nov. 7/14  (Read 4464 times)
mitch1982
One of the Crazy Ones...
*****
Posts: 278



View Profile
« on: November 07, 2014, 06:33:05 pm »

Go see a haunting new musical by John Mellencamp and Stephen King


Like all great ghost stories, this one begins with a haunted house. In 1996, John Mellencamp, the singer-songwriter known for twangy ’80s power rock, bought a lake house in Indiana. When the owners mentioned the place happened to be haunted, Mellencamp was curious. He did some digging and discovered the story of two feuding brothers who’d lived there back in the ’30s; after fighting over the same girl, one brother crushed the other’s skull with a fire poker. As Mellencamp got used to the creepy rhythms of the house—mysterious cigar smells, flickering lights, strange noises—he started imagining a spooky, sinister musical inspired by the tale.

Ghost Brothers of Darkland County is as mythic as its source material, a theatrical pipe dream that took 13 years to come to fruition. In 2000, Mellencamp called up horror maestro Stephen King to write the libretto. They agonized over the songs and script for a decade, then brought in T-Bone Burnett, the roots-rock titan responsible for O Brother, Where Art Thou and Crazy Heart, as musical director. In 2012, the triumvirate released an album featuring stars like Elvis Costello, Neko Case, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Sheryl Crow—a parade of shadowy honky-tonk melodies and goosebump-inducing sound effects.

In the stage version, which hits town for one night only next week, the action has been transplanted to a family cabin in Mississippi. It’s less a play than a live rendition of an old-timey radio show, one that blends King’s atmospheric terror, Mellencamp’s hummable tunes and Burnett’s southern Gothic patina into a theatrical experience that’s as haunting as the ghosts onstage.

http://www.torontolife.com/tag/ghost-brothers-of-darkland-county/

« Last Edit: November 07, 2014, 06:34:37 pm by mitch1982 » Logged
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!

 

WEBSITE & CONTENTS © JOHN MELLENCAMP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.             PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS OF USE | CONTACT

 

Email Updates! Home Powered by BubbleUp,Ltd. John Mellencamp on YouTube.com John Mellencamp on Wikipedia John Mellencamp on MySpace.com John Mellencamp on Facebook.com John Mellencamp on Twitter.com John Mellencamp on iLike.com John Mellencamp on Pandora.com John Mellencamp on LastFM.com John Mellencamp on Imeem.com