John Mellencamp Community

For this installment of the Mellencamp.com Blog I wanted to tell you about something not quite Mellencamp related.

Detail oriented Mellencamp fans will remember that a country quartet named Little Big Town opened up John's 2006 Spring tour. John started bringing them up nightly to sing on Pink Houses. John then used the extremely talented group, consisting of 2 male and 2 female lead singers, during the summer of 2006 as he recorded what became Freedom's Road.

I was lucky enough to get to be the fly on the wall for some of those Freedom's Road sessions and developed a solid friendship with Karen, Jimi, Kimberly and Phillip. Karen went on to work with John again on Life Death Love and Freedom and my path has crossed with either Karen or all of Little Big Town many times since Summer 2006.

I really dug their harmony rich country sound. The stuff they did on Freedom's Road is amazing. John worked them hard to bring out a 60's rock harmony from them, but hearing the pure beauty of the 4 of them singing in a room is STUNNING.

Last week I visited with them, briefly, before their show at the Kentucky State Fair opening for Sugarland in Louisville KY.

They are riding high right now with a new album out this week on Capital records titled The Reason Why.

They wanted me to pass along their hellos not on to John & Elaine, Band and Team, but also to the fans they have in the Mellencamp fan base.

The first single from the new album is a hit on country radio and video called Little White Church.

I am REALLY enjoying the new album. The title track might be one of my 5 favorite songs of the year, its a super catchy pop country love duet, please give it a listen.

The other key tracks line up to be Kiss Goodbye (sweeping slow ballad), Why Oh Why (rootsy rocker), All The Way Down (poppy ear catcher), the aforementioned Little White Church and the ballad Shut Up Train.

LBT has had a rough go of it since they sold a million copies of of The Road To Here, the album they were touring on in 2006. Just after their released their second album the independent record label they were on went belly up and killed the momentum of their album. They had to get their career off the ground with a new label. Happily however, since they toured with Mellencamp band members 6 years or so at that point Karen and Jimi were married and there are several babies part of their road crew now!

I think the new album is a slam dunk. They bring something to the country genre that is different than most other acts, plus they are a true four front person band. Extremely rare in country music. Their rootsy/rocking country sound I think has a place in the hearts of Mellencamp fans who liked Lonesome Jubilee and Big Daddy. What is notable for a country artist is they they write or co-write most of their songs.

I encourage you to take a listen on MySpace where the full album is available:

http://www.myspace.com/littlebigtown/music/albums/the-reason-why-16354653

If you want to follow along with the lyrics and a few notes on each song visit (you can listen there too):

http://littlebigtown.com/media/albums/reason-why

They were on Good Morning American this week doing Little White Church and The Reason Why if you want to see how good they are live:

http://littlebigtown.com/news/watch-clips-lbt-performing-good-morning-america

Thanks for checking it out! Post your throughts!