John Mellencamp is coming to play at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and judging from recent reviews, it’s time to see and hear this iconic rock and roll poor man’s storyteller.
The reviews indicate that Mellencamp is approaching 60 with grace and greater perspective, perhaps a bit more mellow and resigned to a less mainstream role in the future. He told Andy Green at Rolling Stone Magazine:
“I don’t expect to sell records or hear them on the radio. These records are just calling cards to say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing now.’ That’s the way music started out originally. The only money people ever made was playing. That’s what I’m going to do. Go out and play.”
Voice Is “More of a Growl”
Recent reviews and schedules indicate that he is indeed out there playing and is still a strong, superb entertainer, musician and singer, although a bit more gravelly. In Richmond, Hays Davis referred to his voice as “more of a growl.”
Age and decades of non-stop smoking can do that to a voice. Mellencamp estimates he has smoked 680,000 cigarettes and wonders whether he can get his money back.
“Age has worn on his voice, but it has also added strength, providing a new sound to his well-known classics,” Sarah Houser wrote in The Raleigh Telegram.
However, his 2011 tour confirms Mellencamp’s strength, even as he approaches 60 in October. In April alone he is scheduled to do 18 concerts in 15 cities in seven states and four Canadian provinces, performing two hours non-stop at each stop. That’s not the kind of schedule that all baby boomers can follow, even on vacation.
No Better Than This
The tour has been coordinated with the release of his latest album, No Better Than This. Greene refers to it as Mellencamp’s “raw, stripped-down new LP.”
The current tour might be described the same way. Photographer Kurt Markus, who has produced a documentary that opens the Mellencamp shows, says he admires Mellencamp’s approach. He told Lee Zimmerman of the Broward Palm Beach Music Blog that Mellencamp is ”trying to survive in a tough business. Yet, he's stripping it down rather than flowering it up."
Houser agreed. She wrote: “Unlike some megabands who feature fireworks on stage, there were no ostentatious displays of fame here. Mellencamp’s stage setups seem to harken back to a simpler time.”
Indiana Preacherman
Ben Crandell of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel called Mellencamp’s concert a “traveling revival show,” adding that “a packed house was joyfully immersed in the elixir that the Indiana preacherman has been peddling for three decades now: straight Americana.”
But Sam Dobrow writes that Mellencamp seems to be straying away from his “anti-government, politically fueled songs about rural farm life, middle class strife, and racial tensions” and now seems more concerned with “questioning his own mortality.”
Zimmerman reports that Mellencamp did allow himself one “below the surface” political statement in Florida. "It says in the preamble to the Constitution that the government must provide for the defense of the country and the welfare of its citizens," Mellencamp said, "so why does the government always seem to have money for defense and not for the welfare?"
That’s mellow for the Mellencamp that his fans remember.
No One Cares About Me
On his current tour, he is updating his old favorites and mixing them with new songs like "No One Cares About Me" and "Easter Eve". Hays says the “sound continues to push further toward roots in folk and blues.”
That should play well in Memphis, the birthplace of the blues, where Mellencamp and his six-piece band end their grueling April schedule. They will perform at the Beale Street Music Festival, April 30.
The next day, they come to New Orleans for a headline gig at Jazzfest. Can Mellencamp, as the city is inclined to do, let the good times roll?
Sources:
Lee Zimmerman, Broward Palm Beach Music Blog March 4, 2011
“John Mellencamp Brings His Raw New Sound To Radio City,” by Andy Greene, Rolling Stone Magazine, March 4, 2011
“John Mellencamp Spins His Magic At Durham’s DPAC,” by Sarah Houser, The Raleigh Telegram, March 7, 2011
“John Mellencamp Rocks Packed Broward Center,” by Ben Crandell, The Sun Sentinal, March 4, 2011
“Mellencamp Concert Offered A Mix Of Old And New,” by Hays Davis, the Richmond Times Dispatch, Feb. 28, 2011
Atlanta's Examiner.com: “John Mellencamp at Atlanta's FOX Theatre - Outstanding!” by Sam Dobrow, Examiner.com, Feb. 28, 2011
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