For many of us, no doubt, 2008 couldn’t end soon enough. But fans of John Mellencamp had plenty to cheer about.

The biggest story, of course, was John’s induction—finally!—into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10. Fellow Hall of Famer Billy Joel did a great job in ushering John into rock’s pantheon, but John had already made it clear that he would not rest long on his new laurels.

Indeed, following the December, 2007 announcement of his induction, he kicked off 2008 bigtime with a Jan. 25 benefit performance at the Housing Works Used Bookstore in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. The intimate show was part of the bookstore’s celebrated concert series in support of its nonprofit AIDS service organization, and was attended by an SRO crowd of 200.

In February he previewed new material during a Canadian tour with Tom Cochrane & Red Rider (which featured the debut of his then 12 year-old son Speck, who played guitar on “Authority Song” during the final show of the tour in Victoria, British Columbia). The new songs surfaced on July 15 with the release of “Life, Death, Love and Freedom.” John’s 22nd album was his first to be produced by T-Bone Burnett, and debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart (selling some 56,000 copies in the first week). Released in both analog and Burnett’s new high-definition CODE format, the disc garnered rave reviews and went on to make numerous Top 10 album lists in December—including a No. 5 placement on Rolling Stone’s year-end listing of the best albums of 2008.

John spent a busy late summer and fall promoting “Life, Death, Love and Freedom.” Numerous national TV appearances included “Late Night with David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show,” “Good Morning America” (for which he performed on two occasions) and the CBS “Early Show.” He also toured the U.S. following the album release, with Lucinda Williams opening.

To further support the album, John produced videos for key tracks “My Sweet Love” and “Troubled Land,” both filmed primarily in Savannah, Ga. But he also produced a stripped-down, website-only video at home for “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” the classic 1960s anthem by his idol Bob Dylan that was the rallying cry for his generation. The video, which featured John solo on acoustic guitar, perfectly fit in with the presidential campaign’s paramount theme of “change” and received intense media attention—as did a similar home-made follow-up video for “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” track “Troubled Land,” which became the first music video to premiere on The Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, John contributed his time and talent to support presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Hillary Clinton—and the eventual president-elect Barack Obama. Besides singing at an Obama campaign rally, he made a radio ad backing him for Indiana listeners just in time for the election. Apolitically, he was also chosen to provide the after-dinner performance for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center's First Annual Notes of Hope Benefit Dinner on Sept. 9 at Lower Manhattan's Cipriani Wall Street restaurant--only blocks away from Ground Zero.

On Sept. 15 John came to the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem to tape an episode of “Spectacle: Elvis Costello with….” Part of Costello’s novel music/talk show series for the Sundance Channel, the program departed from the norm by teaming John with Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Norah Jones in swapping songs and stories with the esteemed host.

John’s performance at Farm Aid 2008, held Sept. 20 in Mansfield, Mass., was said by many to be his best Farm Aid showing in years. Three days later he returned to the 700-seat Crump Theatre in Columbus, Indiana, for a special concert to be included in a documentary entitled “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp.” The program, which involved interviews with John, former and current band members, boyhood friends and school classmates, focused on his early career years and aired on the Bio Channel in December (the channel had shown an earlier documentary, "Life, Death, Love and Freedom," which chronicled the making of the album, in July); Mayor Fred Armstrong proclaimed Sept. 23 as John Mellencamp Day, and noted that the first—and last—time John Mellencamp played the 700-seat Crump Theatre in Columbus, Indiana was on Oct. 4, 1976, when the then John Cougar was supporting his debut album “Chestnut Street Incident.”

Following the Crump show, John stopped in Washington to play a YouthAIDS benefit and then headed on to the U.K. for his first promotional efforts there since 1992 and “Whenever We Wanted.” On Oct. 6, he received Q Magazine’s prestigious “Classic Songwriter” title at a star-studded awards show at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel—the award being presented personally by Q editor Paul Rees. Other London activities included an appearance with Coldplay and Glen Campbell on the popular “Later…with Jules Holland” BBC-TV program tomorrow (on his 57th birthday!) and a performance at the famed Borderline club.

It was announced in late October that John had been nominated for the first time for induction into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in New York, in the Performer/Songwriters category. Then on Nov. 5 he joined millions of Americans in expressing a mixture of disbelief and joy at Obama’s historic election to the presidency. “This for me is something I never thought I would see in my life,” he said in remarks that were widely publicized.

On Nov. 15 John commenced a whirlwind month-long tour of Australia and New Zealand with Sheryl Crow opening, closing out the year by playing to as many as 10,000-plus fans each night during his first concert appearances Down Under in over 15 years.

And what’s in store for 2009? In an end-of-the-year conversation, John indicated that plans are underway for a long-awaited boxed set. A video for “A Ride Back Home” is also in the works, as is a live album culled from his 2008 concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, in Sydney, Australia, or both. And work continues on John's much-anticipated musical collaboration with Stephen King, "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," with T Bone Burnett now on board as musical director. 

I couldn’t find the Bio Channel on my cable system—which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there!—but as I’d been interviewed at length for “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp” (half an hour, at least!) the producer sent me a copy. I only decided to watch it, though, after notifying everyone I knew about it (“Hey! I’m gonna be in this GREAT John Mellencamp documentary”), especially those I knew back in Wisconsin when I first started telling people about Johnny Cougar (“See! I TOLD you he’d be a big star—and more important, look how big I am!”), only to hear back, “But you were only in it for maybe 10 seconds!”

Yes, maybe it was 10 seconds, total, in two appearances—but pure genius, of course. “They see themselves, they hear themselves in his music,” I say right at the beginning—at least I think it’s me, talking about John’s fans and their incredibly close relationship with him. But it’s a voiceover and I’m not really sure (mainly because even after over 25 years of living in New York I still sound like I just got back from milking the cows). But the unidentified guy on screen who follows, who looks well into his 80s, is definitely me: “He’s traveled all over the world but he’s always come back to Indiana!” Brilliant!

But enough about me—for the moment. Having indeed followed John since the Cougar days, I thought I knew just about everything about him. Not true. “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp” taught me plenty, particularly the pivotal “Johnny Cougar Day” event preceding his initial appearance at Seymour’s Crump Theater. No wonder people hated him. And no wonder he hated Johnny Cougar.

I, on the other hand, loved John Cougar. Loved the “John Cougar” album (still such a great cover shot, staring out right at you with the lit cigarette dangling from his mouth!) and the first shows I saw him do in support of it at Headliners in Madison. He was great even then.

But “the people in Seymour thought he was a joke—a complete joke—[and] laughed at him,” noted former bassist Robert “Ferd” Frank in “Homeward Bound,” referring to the 1976 “John Cougar Day” festivities, and it’s easy to see why: It really was “a ‘Spinal Tap’ moment,” as Mike Leonard of the local Herald Times put it, what with the record company flying out national press to see John Cougar and his Tiger Force Band (what a band name!) parade through town—accompanied by the “Cougarette” girls in their yellow “COUGAR” t-shirts.

“How much longer are we gonna talk about this [bleep]?” John asked the interviewer before recounting the “humiliating” experience of the forced drive down Chestnut Street, two days before his first and only Crump Theater performance until his triumphant return there in September to tape the special concert performance for “Homeward Bound.”

“We wanted to burn the clothes we had on,” he continued. “It was a creepy situation, but at the same time, as creepy as it was, here it is 35 years later and without that beginning I don’t think we’d be here today. It enabled me to see real quickly what it was that I would never do again and what I won’t do, and made it very easy for me to say ‘no.’”

All this time I never fully understood why he hated “Johnny Cougar” so much. But I do now. And I have a much better understanding of how he transitioned into the groundbreaking singer-songwriter-bandleader that is John Mellencamp.

“It took a few years and a few albums for him to go away from the John Cougar made-up image,” said the 80-year old man. “He became, really, himself—John Mellencamp.” Such insight! I couldn’t have said it better myself…oh, yeah, that is me! Egad! Can my hairline recede any further? Will I look younger if I dye my beard? Have the cows come home?

Thank God it was only 10 seconds, but there were two or three other things I said that missed the cut that I want to claim credit for.

I know I recalled the phenomenal Mellencamp crowd response that you get a taste of when he comes out at the Crump show. I singled out one time when he came out at the New Jersey Meadowlands Arena, in the early or mid-‘90s, when the crowd stood and cheered for at least five minutes before John and the band hit the first note. It really was an extraordinary expression of love and appreciation that John graciously accepted (he made a few token efforts to start the show that only served to up the volume) that I’ve never witnessed for anyone else.

Then I talked about the songs, maybe mentioning a conversation with John when we agreed that melody and not lyrics is what hooks the listener. He expounded on this in “Homeward Bound” when he noted how he always makes sure his melodies are “singable enough” that anyone can sing along to them. I also found his comment—and “Pink Houses” demonstration--that all his songs begin as folk songs quite illuminating.

And I know I spoke about John’s rebel nature as an artist, and of course, product of the music business. But this, too, is covered extensively in a documentary that inevitably centers on the so-called star-making machinery of that business. Here, with John’s stated awareness that because of the breakthrough pop success of “I Need a Lover” and his regrettable Johnny Cougar name and image, he would never be taken seriously by the rock critic establishment until he made records that were “so undeniably popular that they had to deal with us,” it becomes an invaluable lesson in pop stardom, administered by someone who clearly never wanted to be a pop star.

--jim bessman 

“Longest Days” - John Mellencamp: Mellencamp’s full-circle tale of life’s hopefuls descends into harsher realities when “you know you got no flame.” He opens up his soul to a new level of craftsmanship through a worn guitar and his raspy, twang-laden voice. Click HERE to see the full list.  

Writer Brandon Daviet (who also writes for Colorado’s The Marquee entertainment magazine) placed LDL&F as his top album of 2008.

Number One: John Mellencamp / Life, Death, Love and Freedom - John Mellencamp promised and delivered with what might not be the year’s most danceable record but is certainly its most important. With a country in financial turmoil tracks like “Troubled Land” and “Longest Days” accurately reflect the emotions of many Americans. Other songs like “If I Die Sudden” tackle the loss of faith, while the politically charged “Jenna” is an open letter against racism. In a year when little Katy Perry has swept the charts with her pseudo-lesbian fantasies, Mellencamp manages to remind us that not everybody in America is incapacitated by simple pop ditties, shiny I-phones, and American Idol. Click HERE for his full list. 

John’s new album landed at #11 on Saskatchewan's Leader-Post writer Jordan Zivitz's Top 20.

John Mellencamp: Life Death Love and Freedom (Hear Music) - An unflinching look at mortality and a world gone wrong, this late-career renaissance convincingly casts Mellencamp as a contemporary-folk great.
Click HERE to see his full list.  

John’s 2008 album made the Schenectady (NY) Daily Gazette top album list compiled by music writers Michael Hochanadel and Brian McElhiney and features editor Dick Bennett.

John Mellencamp: “Life Death Love and Freedom” — The influence of producer T Bone Burnett is evident here in what may be the best album of Mellencamp’s career. It’s a darker, stripped down, more bluesy sound for the singer/songwriter who tackles such weighty subjects as racism in a small Louisiana town. (Bennett)
Click HERE to see their full list.  

Variety.com writer Phil Gallo places John’s 2008 release “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” at #7 on his list of “50 albums released in ’08 that I am glad are in my collection.” Click HERE, to see his full list. 

Buffalo News writer Jeff Miers praises John’s most recent album on his year end list:

John Mellencamp, “Life Death Love & Freedom” (Hear Music): Mellencamp is at his best when fueled by righteous anger. Here, the sympathetic production afforded by T-Bone Burnett helps to craft an instant classic.
Click HERE to read this article online. 

The restless voice of ornery America, John Mellencamp has spent three decades railing against injustice and conservatism. Now, on the eve of the US election, MOJO find him contemplating his own mortality on the set of Elvis Costello’s new TV show…

Words: Phil Sutcliffe, Portrait: Elaine Mellencamp
This article includes some great photos and should be available at select bookstores and newsstands that sell import magazines.

“Do you know what’s been happening today?” John Mellencamp enquires, responding briskly to a broad opening question about his “left-wing Democrat” politics. Well, it’s September 15 in New York City and, thus far, leading investments bank Lehman Bros has gone bankrupt, the Bank of Americas has rescued broke stockbroker Merrill Lynch, and American’s largest insurance company, AIG has announced it needs $80 billion pronto or it’s going to belly-up.

Assured that MOJO’s got the gist, Mellencamp proceeds with his smoke break cum photo session in the cluttered alleyway behind the Harlem Apollo, machine-gunning bullet points from a lifetime of raging against the system. “While the liberals were worried about being politically correct, the Republicans stole Wall Street,” he begins.
But you’re a liberal, aren’t you?

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’, we’re stoopid! I’m Stoopid! We were thinking about handicapped parking places while they were taking power.”

He’s not a city boy, though he’s true country from Seymour, Indiana. And as both the official progenitor of “heartland rock” and, with Willie Nelson and Neil Young, founding co-director of Farm Aid, he soon turns his thoughts back to where it all went wrong for family farmers. Earl Butz did it, he says – that is, President Nixon’s secretary of agriculture who switched subsidies from the small holdings to agribusiness and advised the little people to “Get big or get out”.

The mention of Nixon reminds Mellencamp of his own “dumb” lack of commitment back when, as a 17- year-old, he went to Washington for the 1970 May Day demo against the Vietnam war. “I was goin’ pretty good until I saw this girl and then “Oooooo(his head turns)… I didn’t make the march.” He sparks up his raspy 60-a-day laugh at this youthful folly.
His reminiscences are curtailed. It’s time to rehearse. Interview to be continued as and when. He bounces downstairs towards the cellar dressing-rooms.

Entering the Apollo imparts that ‘hallowed-portals’ feeling. However, once you’ve paused to admire the framed photo collages in the foyer – Smokey, Aretha, James Brown on down – it’s just a small, comfortable, working theatre.

To the right of the stage a screen announces, “Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…” A new 13-part TV series, it features as - live song and Elvis-led talk from assorted big names he likes, including Lou Reed, The Police, Jakob Dylan, Herbie Hancock and Smokey Robinson himself. In the America it will be carried by Robert Redford’s Sundance channel; in the UK by Channel 4’s 4 Music in December.

On-stage, Costello is conducting a remarkable convivial rehearsal-spontaneous and, as will later emerge, only approximately connected with what’s played on the show itself. Costello is flanked by Kris Kristofferson, Rosanne Cash and Norah Jones. Perched on stools, guitars on knees, they’re working up Johnny Cash’s I Still Miss Someone. “What key are we in, darlin’?” grizzled-as God Kristofferson asks Rosanne. She tells him. “I just need to know what I’m doin’ and so far I don’t, “he guffaws. Within 15 minutes uncertainty, bum notes and squinting at the autocue have alchemised into a harmony chorus of hair-raising loveliness.

Mellencamp appears stage left. He sits restlessly, straining at the leash of the others’ after-you civility. At one point he declares he’s not much of a collaborator: “I’m from Indiana and there’s nobody else there!” It shows. A good job they all know and understand his edgy ways – plain-speaking but a touch insecure at the same time.

The rehearsal closes with Mellencamp alone on –stage singing his 1986 Americans hit Rain On The Scarecrow , one take and fiercely: “The crops we grew last summer weren’t enough to pay the loans/Couldn’t buy the seed to plant this springs and the Farmers Bank foreclosed/…Blood on the scarecrow, blood on the plough.” Like his oldest hero Woody Guthrie, he doesn’t leave much to subtext.

Back with Mojo, Mellencamp – who some in the UK may recall from the ‘70s as pop-rock icon (failed) Johnny Cougar – is talking about the rough ride a blunt, political songwriter can face in America. “I updated an old folk song called To Washington (Troubled No More, 2003), he says – his lyric suggests President Bush is a warmonger possibly motivated by oil profits, “People were driving past my house throwing shit and yelling and giving my wife Elaine the finger as she drove down the street [in Bloomington, Indiana, their home for years].

“I was driving to the airport one day with the boys [about nine and eight then] and they played the song on the radio. A listener calls and says, “I don’t know who I hate the most, that fucking John Mellencamp or Saddam Hussein.” It really freaked the kids out and it pissed me off. We had to get security to come around the school playground because the teachers thought people might harm them.”

His lasted album – produced by T Bone Burnett – takes a more panoramic perspective as is indicated by the title, Life Death Love and Freedom – archetypal Americans song book themes, he says. In key tracks Longest Days, John Cockers, Young Without Lovers and Don’t Need This Body, Mellencamp, 57 now and survivor of a heart attack in the ‘90’s, writes first-person about age and mortality. He creates bitter characters who prepare for their end cocooned in stubborn, self-righteous isolation.

“This record is about life,” he asserts. “Part of life that we don’t really want to think about. But Life, ultimately, is beautiful. That’s why I wrote the songs. People say this is a dark record and I’m thinking. No, it’s about our one shot at being here and it’s beautiful so if you can’t get that you’re not old enough to be listening to this fucking record.

“That song If I Die Sudden goes back 20 years to an uncle of mine who died of cancer at 58 from smoking. On his death bed he said, “I’m an atheists. Do not have a preacher come here and say what a great Christian life I’ve led. I didn’t.” For me that was like Wow! You gotta be pretty damn sure of yourself or pretty damn stupid to say that. I couldn’t figure out which one it was.”
You’ve got to be pretty damn sure of yourself to make an album about dying.

“I don’t think so,” he crackles. “You’ve just got to be willing not to sell record!”

It’s showtime the crowd’s in now and Costello’s chatting away on his stool, no autocue. He explains the evening is modeled on a Nashville “guitar pull” where a bunch of guitar-strumming pals sit around and try out their new songs, Rosanne Cash adds, “I think they originated in my dad’s living room with Bob Dylan, Kris and Waylon Jennings, Kris sang Me And Bobby McGee for the first time there.”

They take their turns solo, trio and quintet, Costello offering his unrecorded road favourite Down Among The Wines And Spirits, Kristofferson the not entirely unknown Sunday Morning Coming Down, and Norah Jones a new song co-written with Ryan Adams called Light As A Feather. Then Mellencamp – not playing the TV-unfriendly acoustic with “Fuck Fascists” scrawled above the strings – sings Longest Days, from his new album, one of its gentler intimations of impermanence. He forgets the title, blurts it out when he gets to the chorus, makes a bit of a hash of it. When he finishes Rosanne reaches across to him and says a few words as if kindly consoling him…

But that wasn’t the case, he explains later. “There were tears welled up in her eyes and she said, “That’s something you mean.” I sorta said, Oh come on, ‘cos my performance wasn’t’ great, but I saw her eyes…it was quite, uh…I’m glad….” He trails off.

Everyone enjoys peer approval, but it may be extra important to Mellencamp because of the demoralizing Cougar episode which “launched” his recording career. In 1977 he came to London where David Bowie’s former manager Tony DeFries reinvented him from the name upwards. Pin –up pop-rock when punk ruled, “Cougar” succumbed because all he had back home was a wall papered with record company rejection letters. The hype ruined his reputation in the UK and he feels the taint remained even when he reverted to his real name and music he believed in.

His next UK manager, Billy Gaff, Rod Stewart’s ex, persuaded him to part with the publishing on his first 10 albums. When Mellencamp, back in the US, started making hits, even $5 million wasn’t enough to buy his rights back. But by then he’d begun the music life he craved. “Critics were never going to like Johnny Cougar,” he says. “He was a fucking jerk. My only option was to make hits so big I had to be accepted. I sat down with the band and said, Look, we’re 30 years old, if we don’t quit fucking around, we’re gonna be out of business. Well, I knew the bars of America because we played 300 of them a year. They wanted something raucous. So we applied the smallest number of words, the lowest common denominator, don’t try to make any big points: (sings) “Come on baby/make it hurt so good.”

Hurt So Good, from John Cougar’s 1982 American Fool, hit Number 2 in the singles chart. Then the LP reached Number 1 along with the Jack And Diane single “Two American kids growing up in the heartland”, one of whom had been black until Mellencamp decided to shelve such complicating notions.

Encouraged, and now stage-named John Cougar Mellencamp, he moved to phase two, “With Pink Houses [from Uh-Huh, 1983] we went out on a limb, I said, Look, let’s try and pull a fast one. Let’s write about what we really think of the United States, but tie it up in a chorus. Made an anthem out of it…” And a Top 10 hit. “At that point I realized, now I can start doing what I need to do, I wrote Rain On The Scarecrow.

On stage the guitar pull proceeds good-naturedly via Me And Bobby McGee and Mellencamp’s love-hate reflection on Indiana, Small Town. Closings, each of the quintet takes a verse of Johnny Cash’s Big River. Mellencamp tears into his, harsh and high, practically launching himself off the stool like a sprinter from the starting blocks. The crowd roars. Then does it again for a couple of retakes. The artist shake hands, hug and clap one another.

Afterwards, Mellencamp affirms he did enjoy this strange experience of co-operation. Such company only reinforces his certainty the Life Death Love And Freedom represents his future. “It’s about growing up to be Kris Kristofferson or growing up to be a Willie Nelson,” he muses. He cuts loose a little then, in grumpy-old man mode. Corporate America, he opines is “stealing our culture – the same TV shows, the same stores, the same food, the same accents everywhere you go.” Disneyland popsters have taken over music since “America turned its back on rock ’n’ roll – now there’s only one record store in New York City! You can download tracks, but who wants that? The quality’s so terrible!”

He crackles a last laugh and swings back to an experience that gave him food for thought about his new album: “I had the strangest phone call. This friend of mine calls me up about 11 o’clock at night and says, ‘This guy here wants to talk to you’. It’s a famous actor who I’m aware is dying of cancer. I’m thinking, what the fuck’s he want to talk to me about? Anyway, he says, ‘Hey man, I’ve been listening to your album. It’s such a comfort to me.’ He says, ‘It’s made my life more bearable’. I didn’t know what to fuckin’ say.

“And my friend who’d been with him, he’s such a wise-ass, he rang the following day and asked me, ‘What he’d say?’ I told him and he said, ‘Now you know what it feels like to be a real artist’, I said Yeah. Thanks.”
 

A&E's Bio Channel has posted three outtake clips on their website from the recently premiered "Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp" documentary. The clips include John’s reflections on the first incarnation of the Johnny Cougar band, his worst gig ever, and his painting process and its application to music. Click HERE to view the clips on Bio.com.
 

John Mellencamp has completed his whirlwind month-long tour of Australia and New Zealand, and by all accounts it was a triumph. As a reviewer for The West Australian wrote of the tour-opening Nov. 15 “Evening on the Green” show at the Sandalford Winery in Caversham, “It would be easy to see John Mellencamp’s set simply as a collection of great songs. Here was a chance to apply metaphor to a body of work which still after all these years is pointedly relevant. But first, it was time to party a bit.”

Playing to as many as 10,000-plus fans each night, Mellencamp did indeed party down, to approximately 100,000 fans from the Sandalford show through the Dec. 7 tour finale at the Mudhouse Winery in Christchurch, New Zealand. The 12-show tour stops were in places Mellencamp had not visited in over 15 years—one reason, perhaps, as to why he was so talkative during the shows (especially regarding outgoing President Bush).

Tour highlights included his nightly performance of “I Need a Lover,” the song that essentially launched his career when it became a major hit in Australia ahead of Pat Benatar’s cover hit with the song in the U.S. “I’ve gotta play this song,” he explained each night on stage, “‘cause without it, I wouldn’t be here.” Mellencamp performed it Down Under in a shortened acoustic solo guitar version. He also performed “My Sweet Love” in duet form with his opening act Sheryl Crow.

Mellencamp’s young son Speck also came out at the end to play guitar on “Authority Song,” the set-closer until Mellencamp tacked on “Hurts So Good”—the first time he included the monster hit in concert since 2005. It served as a fitting end to his warmly-welcomed return to Australia and New Zealand.

“He may have 21 albums behind him, but Mellencamp is certainly no has-been,” concluded Western Australian Web site PerthNow. “He has grown beautifully into his music [and] this concert was a privilege to attend.”

"I Need A Lover" Live in Australia
 

By Mike Leonard

Rock star and Bloomington resident John Mellencamp performs at the Crump Theater in Columbus in this still from tonight’s 90-minute documentary special “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp,” airing on the Biography channel.

John Mellencamp has never enjoyed spending much time talking about how he got saddled with the stage name of Johnny Cougar.

It was an embarrassing and infuriating marketing decision made by his manager at the time and enforced with the threat of “no name change, no record.”

For years, the moniker was more like an anchor around the neck of the 57-year-old Seymour native and longtime Bloomington resident. Few fans or critics were willing to take seriously a cat named Cougar, or even the artist formerly known as.

“Are we through talking about this now?” Mellencamp asks on camera during the new 90-minute documentary, “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp,” which premieres at 9 tonight on the Biography channel (Bloomington Comcast cable digital channel 482).

It’s a light-hearted moment among many in the documentary. And it’s not like Mellencamp didn’t know he’d have to talk about the early and tumultuous years of his career, because the concept behind the program is to tell the “before they became famous” stories of successful entertainers.

Mellencamp speaks in detail about those early years — the bad bands, the rejection letters, the times when he got booed or “bottled” off stage. It’s darkly comical when current and former band members Mike Wanchic and Robert “Ferd” Frank describe trying to develop an American rock band in England at the same time the punk movement took off, fueled by groups such as the Sex Pistols. Spit, hair brushes and bottles would come flying out of the crowd, and as Frank points out, with the spotlights in your eyes, you can’t even see what’s coming at you.

Johnny Cougar and the John Cougar Band began to garner respect with the first hit song, “I Need a Lover.” And as Mellencamp says, when the album, “American Fool,” soared to the top of the album charts in 1982, it changed everything. He was then able to morph into John Cougar Mellencamp and then, at long last, his given name, John Mellencamp.

Success — and a reputation for pugnaciousness — enabled him to really take his music in directions he wanted to go, instead of doing the things that record labels and producers wanted him to do.

“Homeward Bound” producer Anthony Uro says he came up with the concept for the show three years ago but only this year was able to sell it to the Arts and Entertainment Network and its BIO affiliate. Tonight’s show is essentially a pilot. “They’re really happy with the show,” he says, “but whether they pick it up for a series depends on ratings.”

Uro’s Stage 3 Productions crew works fast. It began filming interviews for tonight’s show in early September and completed the film phase by the end of the month.

The last third of tonight’s show provides excellent concert footage from the show staged at the historic Crump Theater in Columbus, one of the first venues Mellencamp played at the beginning of his career.

This same show will be edited down to 60 minutes for broadcast at some point in the future on A&E.
 

John Mellencamp’s music, A&E’s Biography (BIO) Channel rightly declares, “defined a generation.” Its new “Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp” documentary special, debuting Thursday, December 11th, shows how Mellencamp’s music developed out of his Indiana roots.

The 90-minute program visits Mellencamp’s hometown of Seymour and meets with the people who inspired his music and covers early career high—and low—points. The special features archival footage, personal photos, and interviews with childhood friends, band members, and other key people in his life. Bonus concert performances of several songs, including cuts from John's new album “Life, Death, Love & Freedom” are included.

According to Producer Anthony Uro, the documentary “really gives viewers an in-depth look at the John Mellencamp most people don’t see, because it’s not only about John, the successful rock star, it also paints a very detailed picture of John’s early life and career before he was famous, and the people, places, and events that shaped him as a person and as an artist.”

While the special ends with Mellencamp’s extensively-covered intimate concert at the Crump Theater in Columbus, Indiana, Uro is most excited about Mellencamp’s commentary in “Homeward Bound,” as Mellencamp offered much more time than originally allotted.

Click HERE to see the complete air date details for "Homeward Bound" and HERE for "Biography.
"Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp" Promo Commercial
 

Rolling Stone magazine’s new year-end double-issue cites “Life, Death, Love & Freedom” as the #5 album of 2008.

The December 25th issue, which features Brad Pitt on the cover, places the critically acclaimed John Mellencamp album just behind My Morning Jacket’s “Evil Urges.” The top three spots are taken by TV on the Radio’s “Dear Science,” Bob Dylan’s “The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs - Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006” and Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III.”

“John Mellencamp’s growling fatalism and T Bone Burnett’s scorched-blues production make this the darkest, most compelling Mellencamp album in years,” said Rolling Stone in the blurb accompanying its prestigious 50 Best Albums of 2008 listing. “It is also the perfect run-up to Election Day: Fourteen songs about a nation going broke and a generation on the ropes.”

The article also singled out “Troubled Land,” and especially its lines “Beware of those who want to harm you/And drag you down to a lower game/Just know the truth is coming” for sounding “like the Election Day we deserved.”

“Troubled Land” also came in at #48 in the magazine’s 100 Best Singles chart.

“This stark heartland rocker offers a clear-eyed view of Bush’s America,” extolled Rolling Stone, adding “but the ending feels like a benediction,” in reference to John's lyric “Just know that truth is coming.” 

By JANUARY WETZEL

He was born in a small town, and on Thursday, he will return to his Seymour roots through the Stage 3 Productions documentary "Homeward Bound: John Mellencamp."

Airing at 9 p.m. on the BIO network, channel 115 on Comcast, channel 226 on DirectTV and channel 222 on Cinergy MetroNet, the 90-minute special features an intimate look at the rock-and-roll star's life and career.

It ranges from his early days playing in local garage bands and getting rejected by every record label to making his first album, "The Chestnut Street Incident," to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Through archival footage, personal photos and first-hand commentary from Mellencamp, childhood friends, band members and other people influential in his life and career, viewers will learn more about the man behind the music.

As part of the show, viewers also get a front-row seat to Mellencamp's special Sept. 23 concert at the historic Crump Theatre in Columbus, where he first performed 30 years ago. While performing classic hits and new tunes, Mellencamp interacts with more than 700 fans, sharing personal anecdotes about his career and his songs.

"It's a big deal to have someone from Seymour make it to that level," said Larry McDonald, owner of This Old Guitar music store in downtown Seymour.

As an old high school friend and bandmate of Mellencamp, McDonald is interviewed in "Homeward Bound," and This Old Guitar served as one of the onsite filming locations. With its walls covered in pictures, album covers and other Mellencamp memorabilia, the store serves as a fitting backdrop.

"Stage 3 Productions called the store and said they had talked to John and that he wanted me to be a part of the biography," McDonald said. "I was honored."

Also providing commentary in the show are Seymour residents Fred Booker, Mike Jackson and Gary Myers, as well as former Brownstown resident Dave Parman, all old friends and bandmates of Mellencamp.

Jackson, who gave up a career in music to become a doctor, said he still keeps in touch with John.

"It was a lot of fun," he said of being a part of the documentary. "It's cool to flashback to those times."

Like Mellencamp, music was Jackson's life in the early days.

"I played music for 17 years. We started the band The Mason Brothers, and John would come in and out, but when he was with us it was a peak time for the band," Jackson said.

Back then, though, he had no idea what would become of Mellencamp.

"I grossly underestimated the music he had inside him," Jackson said. "I knew what the odds were of being in the music industry, but I had no idea that John would do what he did. I knew he was very single-minded and he had a lot of drive, more so than I've seen in anybody else."

Jackson is glad he has been able to remain friends with his former bandmate.

"I have a lot of respect for him," Jackson said. "John has struck a major chord with so many people. Being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was no accident."

On Sept. 21, McDonald met with producers of the show to get a feel for what they wanted to do.

"They spent two or three hours here in the store talking about my high school days with John," McDonald said. "Then I took them around and showed them Seymour."

The next day, the producers arrived at the store at 9 a.m., along with a film crew.

"They lined the sidewalk with movie equipment and set up their interviews right here in the store," McDonald said. "It was so cool. They spent the entire day here."

For all those who tune in and watch "Homeward Bound," McDonald said there are several things he hopes they take from it.

"For one thing, I think people will see that he didn't make it easy," McDonald said of the struggles Mellencamp endured in the beginning.

"And he has been at this a long time. I wish more people could have participated besides myself, because I know there are so many great stories out there about John."

Jackson agreed.

"People will see how he arrived at this point, that he really did come from Seymour, it's not something that was manufactured," Jackson said.

The one thing McDonald says he remembers the most about Mellencamp is the music.

"The guy had a direction. He wanted to play music," McDonald said. "Because of that strong decision, look where he is now."

Jackson said even when they were kids Mellencamp knew how to control the stage and crowd.

"What I remember is how professional he was, even way back then," he said. "He was a good show and people knew it."

Although their lives took different directions, McDonald says he is glad Mellencamp is where he is now.

"I'm so proud of him and his accomplishments and proud that Seymour is part of his career," he said.
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