JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP IS ON FIRE

JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP IS ON FIRE

John Cougar Mellencamp is one of those rags-to-riches success stories that deserves to be made into an ABC Movie Of The Week. Mellencamp honed his guitar playing and storybook songwriting skills in his hometown of Seymour, Indiana, but soon realized that no record company bigwigs were likely to come looking for him there. So in 1975 he headed out to New York City, armed only with a couple of tapes of his songs and a strong sense of determination, and landed a record contract.

Unfortunately, his big city manager decided John needed a new image, dubbing him “Johnny Cougar” and stripping the artist of some of the integrity that had made him so appealing in the first place.

But John managed to bounce back, breaking free from the constraints of his manufactured image and in the process establishing his own identity. His potential was hinted at in 1979 with the hit “I Need A Lover,” but it was 1983’s American Fool album that brought John widespread success. Songs like “Jack and Diane” and “Hurts So Good” filled the airwaves that year, and Mellencamp took his place among Springsteen and Dylan as one of America’s truly vital songwriters.

Eventually he tacked his real last name to his feline moniker. Now known as John Cougar Mellencamp, he released the enormously-successful Uh-Huh and Scarecrow LPs, gaining the respect of the record industry as he made music on his own terms.

Which brings us to this year’s soon-tobe-classic The Lonesome Jubilee, already praised as Mellencamp’s best slice of vinyl yet. The title is an ironic conflict of terms, reflecting Mellencamp’s happiness at the current state of his career as well as his sadness about recent personal losses (his grandfather and uncle both recently passed away). But John realizes that time brings change, both personal and professional.

“I’ve had the opportunity to evolve and grow,” he said in a recent interview. “I’ve had the opportunity to become the type of writer I always hoped to be. And man, that’s the greatest thing in the world—to begin to realize your potential, which is where I think I’m at now. I feel that I’m just now — starting with Scarecrow and this one — beginning to realize what kind of songs I can write.”

In an era filled with high-tech gloss and cookie-cutter stars, John Cougar Mellencamp is one of the few honest musicians left, offering a personal invitation to all of his fans to share the rewards of his long career and join him in his musical jubilee.

Steve Peters