John Mellencamp
"And like my friend John Mellencamp would sing -- because John sang some truth today -- one day you get sick and you don't get better."Grammys 2015: Bob Dylans MusiCares Person of Year Speech
"Mellencamp is among our greatest living songwriters."Johnny Cash
"John Mellencamp not only has a mind, but better yet, he's got a mind of his own."Nora Guthrie
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"Orpheus Descending"
Official Lyric Video
Noteworthy Press
\"Longest Days\"
John Talks Heart Attack, Smoking Cigarettes - David Letterman
","at":"2015-07-02 16:45:35","is_sticky":"0","position":null,"timezone":null,"display_time":"0","sticked":"0","page":{"id":"2913","site_group_id":"1","site_id":"3","path":"/oldnews/watch-john-perform--longest-days----interview-on-the-late-show-with-david-letterman-4-27-2015","title":"Watch John Perform \"Longest Days\" & Interview On The Late Show With David Letterman 4/27/2015","name":null,"html":"A-list stars appearing during Dave's final weeks before retiring from the Late Show. His first appearance with Dave was over 30 years ago, they bonded over being fellow Hoosiers, and John has been a regular guest over the years. Watch John's last performance and interview on late night TV with Dave.
\r\n\r\n\"Longest Days\"
\r\n
\r\nJohn Mellencamp Talks Heart Attack, Smoking Cigarettes - David Letterman
\r\n","created_at":"2015-07-02 16:45:35","created_by_user_id":"1","publish_at":null,"unpublish_at":null,"is_head_revision":"1","revision_status":null,"page_type_id":"5","layout":"article/main","description":null,"robots":null,"image":null,"video":null,"audio":null,"into_head":null,"before_body":null,"path_aliases":"{/news?n_id=2409}","redirect_to":null,"redirect_header":null,"keywords":"News","language_id":"1","allowed_role":null,"preview_key":null,"instance_id":"9128","replacing_instance_id":null,"use_cache":null,"publish_timezone":null,"seo_title":null,"details":null}},{"id":"1439","page_id":"2902","blurb_html":"Read Jay Cridlin of the Tampa Bay Times complete review of the Ruth Eckerd Hall show in Clearwater, FL on the 2015 Plain Spoken Tour. Here is an excerpt: \"Mellencamp goes his own way, always has, even when those paths weren’t the most obvious or popular. In trading down for smaller stages, he’s managed to remain exactly who he wants to be, even if it means leaving a few huge hits in the chamber.","at":"2015-06-22 18:44:18","is_sticky":"0","position":null,"timezone":null,"display_time":"0","sticked":"0","page":{"id":"2902","site_group_id":"1","site_id":"3","path":"/oldnews/tampa-bay-times--john-mellencamp-rouses-fans-his-own-way-at-ruth-eckerd-hall-in-clearwater","title":"Tampa Bay Times: John Mellencamp Rouses Fans His Own Way At Ruth Eckerd Hall In Clearwater","name":null,"html":"By Jay Cridlin -\r\nTampa Bay \r\nTimes\r\n
Selling out 2,180-seat Ruth Eckerd Hall on back-to-back nights is no small \r\nfeat. Still, shouldn’t things have gone differently for John Mellencamp?
\r\nThe Indiana icon has accrued enough massive hits that he could spend his 60s \r\ncruising through arenas and amphitheaters, blasting through a cavalcade of Baby \r\nBoomer belt-‘em-outs like Springsteen, Petty or Bon Jovi. Who wouldn’t raise a \r\nTastee-Freez chili dog to that?
\r\nBut Mellencamp goes his own way, always has, even when those paths weren’t \r\nthe most obvious or popular. In trading down for smaller stages, he’s managed to \r\nremain exactly who he wants to be, even if it means leaving a few huge hits in \r\nthe chamber.
\r\nDoing so on Thursday did nothing to diminish an overwhelmingly crowd-pleasing \r\nkickoff to Mellencamp’s two-night stand in Clearwater. He may be a legacy act, \r\nbut the way he sees it, it’s a legacy he hasn’t finished writing.
\r\n“The only critic that ever really matters,” Mellencamp told the crowd at one \r\npoint, “is time.”
\r\nHis grizzled, graying mop as tousled as ever, Mellencamp, 63, has a bit of \r\nlounge lizard in him these days, a gum-chomping, casino-club swagger befitting a \r\nman who's bagged himself a Meg Ryan. It seemed almost anachronistic compared to \r\nthe Grand Ole Opry aesthetic of his stellar backing sextet – the men in genteel \r\nSouthern tuxes, violinist Miriam Sturm in a tulle gown.
But the oddness of it all kind of worked, in a Tom Waits-y way, with the \r\nhard-earned texture in Mellecamp’s voice conjuring up images of a twisted piano \r\nbar on The Full Catastrophe or a folksy, zydeco-tinged picnic on Check It Out. \r\nThe whip-smart precision and multi-instrumental diversity of the band (not to \r\nmention the understated but effective lighting) sold each song, from the triple \r\nguitar riffage of Small Town to the fully fleshed-out Americana of Lawless Times \r\nand Minutes to Memories.
\r\nAfter he was joined by opener Carlene Carter for a couple of numbers from \r\nGhost Brothers of Darkland County, his musical co-written with Stephen King, \r\nMellencamp left the stage while Sturm and accordionist Troye Kinnett played a \r\nbrief, lovely overture that included teases of I Need a Lover, Just Another Day \r\nand Key West Intermezzo (I Saw Her First).
\r\nThis was it: The wink that reminded everyone that Mellencamp knows exactly \r\nwhat he’s doing, that he knows he could pack a show with big hits without \r\nbatting an eye, and that, yes, he knows everyone there would probably sing every \r\nword. (Well, perhaps not – at one point, he had to admonish the crowd for \r\nroyally boning the lyrics during an acoustic Jack & Diane, screaming “Oh \r\nyeahhh…” instead of “Suckin’ on a chili dog…”)
\r\nMellencamp is a severely underappreciated songwriter, and if you’re looking \r\nfor reasons why he’s not playing bigger stages, you might find one or two in the \r\nsongs you haven’t heard. Take Longest Days, a powerfully reflective song from \r\n2008’s Life, Death, Love and Freedom. He introduced his acoustic performance by \r\ntalking about what can become of a young man who dreams of huge success.
\r\n“He gets to be about my age, and he realizes the dream is all that really \r\nmattered,” Mellencamp said. “If it came true or not, does it really matter? The \r\npoint is that he kept the dream alive.”
\r\nAnd so it is for Mellencamp. After Sturm and Kinnett’s brief overture, Johnny \r\nCougar shed his jacket and spit absolute fire for the rest of the set – the \r\nrighteous, resilient Rain On the Scarecrow; the seething Paper In Fire; the \r\nhot-rodding Authority Song and more. On the roaring Crumbling Down, a few women \r\ndidn't just dance but actually jumped for joy in their seats. Even without an \r\nencore, it was an utterly guns-a-blazing finish.
\r\nYes, things could have gone differently for John Mellencamp. He could be -- \r\nshould be -- playing much larger stages. But for his sake and ours, it’s pretty \r\nnice he ended up where he did.
\r\n*****
","created_at":"2015-06-22 18:44:18","created_by_user_id":"1","publish_at":null,"unpublish_at":null,"is_head_revision":"1","revision_status":null,"page_type_id":"5","layout":"article/main","description":null,"robots":null,"image":null,"video":null,"audio":null,"into_head":null,"before_body":null,"path_aliases":"{/news?n_id=2392}","redirect_to":null,"redirect_header":null,"keywords":"News","language_id":"1","allowed_role":null,"preview_key":null,"instance_id":"9117","replacing_instance_id":null,"use_cache":null,"publish_timezone":null,"seo_title":null,"details":null}},{"id":"1451","page_id":"2914","blurb_html":"John Mellencamp isn't just aging gracefully; he's defiantly shaking a stick at all the years still facing him.\r\n\r\nAt age 63, the Indiana rocker is looking back on his Hall of Fame career with some sentimentality, but he is also living fully in the present and ready for what lies ahead. Read Graham Rockingham's complete Hamilton Place Theater review after the jump.","at":"2015-06-22 15:13:57","is_sticky":"0","position":null,"timezone":null,"display_time":"0","sticked":"0","page":{"id":"2914","site_group_id":"1","site_id":"3","path":"/oldnews/hamilton-spectator--mellencamp--a----plain-spoken----poet-facing-down-life---s-longest-days","title":"Hamilton Spectator: Mellencamp: A ‘Plain-Spoken’ Poet Facing Down Life’s Longest Days","name":null,"html":"By Graham Rockingham -\r\n\r\nHamilton Spectator \r\n
Mellencamp: A ‘plain-spoken’ poet facing down life’s longest days
\r\nAt age 63, the Indiana rocker is looking back on his Hall of Fame career with \r\nsome sentimentality, but he is also living fully in the present and ready for \r\nwhat lies ahead.
\r\nYou could see this in the songs he selected for the spirited 90-minute set he \r\nperformed before a near capacity crowd at Hamilton Place Wednesday night.
\r\nInterspersed with the crowd-pleasing hits, ran lesser known songs bound by \r\nthe common theme of the aging minstrel facing down his final chapters of life. \r\nI'm ready for you, come and get me, just try.
\r\nBacked by a polished six-piece band featuring the magnificent violin of \r\nMiriam Sturm, Mellencamp opened the concert in the present, introducing the \r\ncrowd to two songs from his superb new album "Plain Spoken."
\r\nThe first was the gritty downbeat rocker "Lawless Times," a song laced with \r\nthe day-to-day paranoia of urban living. The second was the more introspective \r\n"Troubled Man," a folkie ballad looking back on a life not always well lived.\r\n
\r\nBoth showed that Mellencamp hasn't lost any of his songwriting powers. If \r\nanything they've grown with maturity. He remains the "plain spoken" poet of the \r\nhinterland, his lyrics never requiring interpretation.
\r\nIt didn't take long for Mellencamp to enter more familiar territory, bringing \r\nthe crowd to its feet with the 1985 hit "Small Town," before doing a soft-shoe \r\nshuffle and launching into a howling cover of Robert Johnson's blues classic \r\n"Stones in my Passway." Here he proved that his tobacco and whisky stained voice \r\ncan still hit the big notes.
\r\nAt the start of a brief acoustic set, he told the crowd about some advice his \r\nmother gave him before she died at the age of 100: "You're going to find out \r\nreal soon that life is short even in its longest days." It was a fitting intro \r\nto "Longest Days," a bleak track from his underappreciated 2008 album "Life, \r\nDeath, Love and Freedom."
\r\nStill in acoustic mode, came the biggest crowd favourite of all, "Jack and \r\nDiane." It's a song that has become such a singalong favourite, that Mellencamp \r\nno longer even tries to sing the chorus. Still, he had to stop and correct the \r\naudience after it broke it one verse too early.
\r\n"No, no," he said with arms outstretched. "That's the chorus. Generally a \r\nsong has a first verse, a second verse, and THEN the chorus. Let's try that \r\nagain."
\r\nThen Mellencamp shifted backed into that introspective melancholy mood again \r\nwith a Tom Waits style of delivery for an a cappella rendering of "Full \r\nCatastrophe of Life."
\r\nHe continued in that sombre mood with "If I Die Sudden," before finishing off \r\nwith a finale of some more old favourites: "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song," \r\n"Pink Houses" and "Cherry Bomb." The audience, of course, loved it.
\r\nAlthough many of his fans still long for the young rocker they grew up with \r\nin the 80s, Mellencamp has, in recent years, morphed into a roots/Americana \r\nicon, closer in kinship to Steve Earle than John Cougar.
\r\nAs if to prove it, he brought out opening act Carlene Carter — a full-fledged \r\nmember of the founding family of country music — to help out with a couple of \r\nsongs he has written for a Stephen King theatrical production called "Ghost \r\nBrothers of Darkland." One was pure country, the other gospel-tinged.
\r\n\r\n\r\n