It was his last record to contain Cougar in his name. When the follow-up, Big Daddy was released–the earthiest yet, he called it–ever the contrarian, he elected not to tour it, staying home and painting instead. He was a natural for the run of Farm Aid concerts that took place, often performing alongside the likes of Willie Nelson and Neil Young. Given Steve Earle was then treading his opposite path from country into rock, it was said that The Lonesome Jubilee, Mellencamp’s 1987 masterpiece, was where they might meet, Mellencamp headed the other way. Drawing fiddle, mandolin and accordion into his band, yet retaining the thunderclap drums of Kenny Aronoff, this certainly wasn’t country and western, or even country rock it was an altogether different hybrid, helping to beget the later Americana movement. And this was in a very specific amalgam of rock with roots, initially the roots of rock’n’roll and ’60s pop for Uh-Huh and Scarecrow, with, gradually and more significantly, an array of rural traditions creeping in.
The ’80s saw him embrace his given name, Cougar now relegated to a middle name, and the string of albums he then produced saw him at last begin to deliver the songs the way he himself heard and wanted them to sound. “There’s three good songs on that record, the rest is just sort of filler,” he later said. That year saw him win a Grammy for best male rock vocal, but it still wasn’t right for Mellencamp.
This contained his still widest and best known songs, with “Hurts So Good” hitting number 2 and “Jack and Diane” doing one better, taking the pole position for four weeks. More success came with his next disc, from which came a further brace of singles, even if Mellencamp has subsequently dismissed them as “stupid little pop songs.” It wasn’t until his 1982 album, American Fool, that he began to feel comfortable about his persona, if still far from fully content. Johnny Cougar became John Cougar, and he got his first taste of chart success with “I Need a Lover,” a number 28 single in 1979. As to the name, Mellencamp later said that the first he had heard of it was as the record sleeves first were printed: “I thought the name pretty silly.” A second album was made and discarded, only later to reappear, later, when Cougar was no longer his name.ĭropped by the record label, Mellencamp moved to London, having been taken on by another unlikely patron: Rod Stewart manager Billy Gaff. To be fair, given Mellencamp’s first band had been a glitter and glam-rock outfit called Trash, maybe not such a stretch, but the first album, under the Johnny Cougar moniker, failed to gel. Starting his career off in the unlikely setting of Tony DeFries’ Mainman management roster, the erstwhile Bowie manager spotting Mellencamp as someone he could engage with and influence. How much traction, for instance, is there between the effervescent Johnny Cougar in his sequined satins, and the grizzled dustbowl road warrior of only a few years later, let alone the renaissance man of musician, artist and actor he is seen as now? Today’s answer: Precious little, yet more than you may think. Then it hit me: whose radar could John Mellencamp possibly be under? It’s true, but, equally, his spotlight has always veered from mass appeal towards the niche, albeit to different niche audiences at different times, encompassing different genres and different tastes. I wanted to put this in the Under the Radar category.
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