Born in the town of Seymour, Indiana, the singer and songwriter John Mellencamp would get off to a rocky start in life having a few run ins with the law. His first instance would be for breaking and entering at age eight. However, by fourteen years old he had already formed his own band and was playing local garage style gigs shortly thereafter.

John Mellencamp

A lot of record company people, even though they're our age, want to be perceived as young hip guys, and they're hurting the business.

Hometown Indiana

Born in the town of Seymour, Indiana, the singer and songwriter John Mellencamp would get off to a rocky start in life having a few run ins with the law. His first instance would be for breaking and entering at age eight. However, by fourteen years old he had already formed his own band and was playing local garage style gigs shortly thereafter. Not wanting to stay in his home town, he ran away with his girlfriend and had his first child in 1970.

Mellencamp would attend Vincennes University, the school he would eventually graduate from. After college and a brief experimentation with drugs and alcohol, Mellencamp began to pursue a career in music. He was back and forth from Indiana to New York where he would eventually meet the old manager of David Bowie and release his first album. His first album Chestnut Street Incident, was a bevy of covers and loose originals and would only end up selling a little over twelve thousand copies, which was considered a commercial failure at the time.

Another album release in 1977 called The Kid Inside faired hardly better than his first and he was dropped form MCA records. From this lack of success, Mellencamp decided under the instruction of Riva Records, that he should get a change of audience, which prompted his move to London where he would release A Biography and quickly set up a tour in support of the album. The album contained one hit single although the song I Need A Lover was a hit in Australia.

However, with Pat Benetar covering the song, it gained in popularity in the U.S. and Cougar returned to release another album called Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did, which had two top 40 hits. Although these were his biggest hits to date, Cougar would later say that he really didn’t like those songs.

The Break

It wasn’t until the release of the album American Fool did John Mellencamp find his stride with the hits Jack and Diane and Hurts So Good. These two hits would propel Cougar to the top of the charts and did wonders for the album as well. These two songs became his signature songs and are still getting copious air play even in the present. The album gave more a roots garage style sound, which Cougar would go on to say that was pleasing to him.

This success was enough to push him further and 1983 saw the release of  Uh-Huh, which had to two hit singles Pink Houses and Crumblin’ Down. This was enough to solidify John as a modern rock n’ roll star and his tours began to draw thousands of people to hear his unique sound. After his touring he went back to the studio to release his next breakthrough album titled Scarecrow. This also proved to be a success and had a few singles that would again crawl up the rankings on the To 40 Charts.

This album sort of changed gears for Mellencamp with a little more of a country influence on his records. He even went as far to add a violinist or fiddle player who was named Lisa Germano although her stay was brief. Although her stay was brief, it solidified the sound that Cougar was looking for and is still present in his music of today. Still touring occasionally, John Mellencamp had a solid following of fans that is evident by the many web sites on the internet. Some of these websites may even have free music downloads of some of his music.

Did You Know

• Mellencamp was a telephone installer as one of his first jobs out of college.

• John did not start playing under his full name until the mid 1970’s.

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