![]() Two years later, he signed with Riva Records, releasing A Biography (1978) to little attention. The fiasco of his first album was enough to sour Mellencamp on the industry for the remainder of his career. Chestnut Street Incident was a bomb and MCA immediately dropped him. Upon receiving the finished album in 1976, he was infuriated to learn that DeFries had billed the singer as Johnny Cougar. Mellencamp recorded an album of covers called Chestnut Street Incident. In New York, Mellencamp became a client of David Bowie's manager, Tony DeFries, who signed him to a lucrative deal with MainMan/MCA. By the time he was 24, he had decided to move to New York City to attempt to break into the music industry. When he was 17, he eloped with Priscilla Esterline, his pregnant girlfriend, and proceeded to try to support his family by working a series of blue-collar jobs. ![]() He formed his first band at the age of 14, and continued to play throughout his teens. As a teenager, he was rebellious, often getting in trouble with the law. As a child in Seymour, Indiana, Mellencamp had suffered a number of setbacks, including being born with a neural tube defect called spina bifida that necessitated a lengthy hospitalization as a baby. 2010's No Better Than This marks the point where he fully immersed himself in folk and roots music as his voice gained the grit of an elder statesman, and 2022's Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is a spare, forceful set that sees him collaborating with one of his most celebrated contemporaries, Bruce Springsteen.Ī prolonged, acclaimed career seemed an impossibility when Mellencamp released his first album under the name Johnny Cougar in 1976. Elements of folk, blues, and other roots rock music became more prominent in his arrangements, and his themes grew more introspective beginning with 1993's Human Wheels and became dominant in his work as the '90s gave way to the 2000s. As his career progressed, Mellencamp evolved toward socially conscious storytelling he co-founded the charity Farm Aid the same year he released his defining album, 1985's Scarecrow, which reflects the same kind of populist philosophies. His early hits, such as "Hurts So Good," "Jack & Diane," and "Pink Houses," are knowing sketches of small-town life accompanied by a crack rock & roll band, and albums like 1982's American Fool and 1983's Uh-Huh took him to stardom. Mellencamp's musical roots are in the sounds of the 1960s, particularly the muscular wallop of the Rolling Stones and their garage-y imitators, along with the folk-rock revolution pioneered by Bob Dylan. ![]() One of the cornerstones of the heartland rock movement of the 1980s, John Mellencamp's most famous music is full of passion, heart, and understanding the lives of ordinary folks living in the American Midwest, and his characters haven't changed much with time, even when his music did. ![]()
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