Examiner.com: No Better New Album For John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp isn’t wasting any time on his current tour with Bob Dylan.

During off days, he’s busy recording No Better Than This, his studio album follow-up to his acclaimed album from last year Life Death Love And Freedom (a condensed live version, Life Death Live And Freedom, came out a month ago).

But Mellencamp is using a different kind of studio to record No Better Than This, in keeping with his stated intention of making a different kind of album. In fact, the veteran singer-songwriter has called it “a complete change of style—and voice,” since he is recording his new songs in the style of classic folk blues records from the 1930s and ‘40s.

With that in mind, Mellencamp has already recorded at the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia (the oldest African-American church in North America), as well as the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis. Other historic buildings in the South will be used for future sessions, including the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where blues pioneer Robert Johnson recorded blues staples like “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Crossroad Blues.”

Mellencamp has penned over 30 new songs for the project—way more than needed for an album’s worth of material. One song that is likely to make the cut is “Save Some Time To Dream,” which he performed at The Bob Dylan Show with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson tour stop earlier this month at the New Britain Stadium in New Britain, Connecticut.

“Save some time to dream,” he sang, in a solo acoustic segment, “because a dream will save us all.”

The tour is one of the big concert packages of the summer and is being staged mainly at minor league baseball parks. Mellencamp’s participation—and his album recording sessions—are being lensed by famed photographer Kurt Markus for a documentary film project.

No Better Than This is being produced by T Bone Burnett, who produced Life Death Love and Freedom. It is being taped with antique recording equipment in order to get the sound and feel of the vintage blues recordings that are its model.

The new album is projected for release in early 2010.

Click HERE to read the article on their website (includes a studio photo).