Pop singer

Why New Englanders love Mellencamp

by Don Fluckinger

Moving to the East Coast from the flatlands of northwestern Ohio a few years ago, I was sure some things would have to be left behind: big hair, steaks the size of manhole covers, and John Mellencamp, a musician some boys back home still refer to as "John Cougar." That Jack-and-Diane stuff? I lived it. I screamed along to "Small Town" in the back of a school bus on the way home from football games until my lungs bled, proud as heck. I played "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." in pep band. When I transplanted myself here, it turns out I didn't have to give up Mellencamp, who brings his folk-rock roadshow to Great Woods summer after summer and will perform there next Monday.

What is it about him that appeals to New England? After all, he's the same musician whose tune "Crumblin' Down" was the perfect soundtrack to many nights' worth of riding 75 miles an hour down straight, dusty, country roads in the bed of a rattly, green '72 Chevy pickup and swinging a baseball bat at every mailbox we were sober enough to spot. His "Pink Houses" was a slow-dance tune at high-school dances, sporting more flowery lace on cheerleaders' backs than on your grandmother's windows. Far, far away from this place.

New Englanders have a place in their soul for Mellencamp, just like they do for his fellow Indiana farm boy Larry Bird. A couple things come to mind to explain the phenomenon: Mellencamp's got a folky tinge to his sound, fueled by fiddles, banjos, dobros, and mandolins, which echo the English, Scottish, and Irish traditions that run so deep here. His lyrics are well-grounded in common sense, a well-respected trait east of the Hudson.

Mellencamp's social conscience garners him way more points here than back home. He was instrumental in setting up the Farm Aid concert benefits and still sings passionately about the disparity between rural haves and have-nots. Fans who attended shows on his current tour report that when he performs "Rain on the Scarecrow," the throng still sings along.

Like the best crusty old New Englanders -- from the Minutemen all the way up to Ted Kennedy -- Mellencamp is a survivor. Not only has he lived through three marriages and 14 albums, he's come back from a heart attack suffered on his last tour. Best of all, he's got an open mind. Following it has taken him through many career phases: the brash youth screaming, "I need a lover that won't drive me crazy"; a serious, intelligent defender of the American family farm; someone who dismissed all things related to fame and celebrity (remember "Pop Singer" from 1989's Big Daddy?); and his current incarnation as a chirpy dance-pop purveyor.

His latest album, Mr. Happy Go Lucky, features, of all people, New York dance mixmaster Junior Vasquez, who in Mellencamp's admission, "doesn't know from guitar." This, coming from the guy who once sang "Got nothing against a big town/still hayseed enough to say, `Look who's in the big town.'"

This hayseed cranks out some pretty urbane, sophisticated guitar-pop -- listen to his Vasquez-looped-and-mixed hit single "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)" and picture Jackie sayin' "Hey Diane, we oughta run off to the city." And Diane sayin' "Baby, you ain't missin' nothin'." Doesn't seem like the same guy singing, does it?

Besides having an eminently recognizable husky tenor, he also paints. Paints. Like, on canvas. Trivia buffs will note that Lou Reed makes reference to Mellencamp as "my painter friend Donald" on his album New York. That's one distinction Larry Bird never garnered. Having lived in the silo country of northwestern Ohio, and now in the comparatively earthy-crunchy land of Mass., I can vouch for the fact that there are a wicked lot more painters per square mile here than in the Midwest, with the possible exception of a few isolated art-school outposts between here and Dubuque. New Englanders are more equipped to appreciate the artist type.

So what? There's another, more compelling thing he does that all the great bands from Boston like J. Geils Band, Boston, and Aerosmith never forgot to do: he rocks out. "Hurts So Good." "Cherry Bomb." "Authority Song." Even "Jack and Diane."

Despite all the club-producer gloss, despite the trials and tribulations of his 45 years, and despite the decidedly artistic bent he's taken this decade, the man still belts out power chords like he's Duane Eddy at a Saturday-night hoe-down. Peel away the rest of the argument and that alone explains why John Cougar Mellencamp goes over big wherever he performs, whether you're a native New Englandah or you come from a place where they still call a leg cramp a "charley horse" and a two-pound steak's a lot easier to come by than a two-pound lobster. See you at the show.

John Mellencamp performs at Great Woods, in Mansfield, at 8 p.m. on June 16, with special guest Amanda Marshall. Tickets are $42.50 and $28.50 (lawn). Call (617) 423-6398.