I HAD A FACE SO CUTE
MADE A YOUNG GIRL CRY
AND I COULD
BLOW THEM AWAY
WITH JUST
A WINK OF MY EYE
Cherry Red’s
Lemon imprint
issued an exciting
new compilation
that takes things
back to the beginning
of Mellencamp’s career
under a different name,
and with some
enticing unreleased material.
American Dream
(The Mainman Recordings 1976-1977),
is a Great Set
that’ll features
both albums he recorded
for the MCA-distributed
Mainman
under the somewhat
confounding sobriquet
“Johnny Cougar.”
Chestnut Street Incident
(1976)
and
The Kid Inside
(recorded in 1977)
(but unreleased for five years)
will be accompanied by
bonus tracks aplenty:
featuring a
RARE compilations
from
the late ’90s
and early ’00s,
Also from a
1978 EP
making its CD debut,
and further
demos and
alternates
released here
for the first time.
The set is augmented
with liner notes
(author as-yet unidentified)
that’ll include insight from
Tony Defries
the U.K.
record impresario
who guided
Mellencamp’s career
at the time
and
co-produced the albums
The Seymour,
Indiana native
who’d turned
25 years old
around when
Chestnut Street Incident
was released
had been pursuing music
for many years,
eventually deciding to
journey to
“the big town”
of New York City
in search of
a record deal.
He’d link up with Defries,
by then well-known as
David Bowie’s manager
(though the pair had split a year before)
and the founder of Mainman,
who’d manage
friends and collaborators of
Bowie’s including
Iggy Pop,
Lou Reed
and
Mott The Hoople.
Mellencamp,
whose last band Trash
was named after
the New York Dolls song,
was a seemingly
good fit for Mainman,
and before long,
the rocker would split
his time between a
Bloomington, Indiana studio
and
New York’s prestigious
Hit Factory
cutting originals
(including co-writes)
(with longtime partner George M. Green)
and covers
(“Oh, Pretty Woman,”
“Jailhouse Rock,”
“Hit the Road, Jack”
and even Bowie’s own
“The Man Who Sold the World”)
with an assortment of
killer session players,
including
Mick Ronson
and Mike Wanchic
who plays live
with Mellencamp
to this day
on guitar,
future film score
Michael Kamen
on keyboards
and Sparks’
session drummer
Hilly Michaels.
Before
Chestnut Street Incident
hit stores,
Mellencamp was surprised
to find something missing
on the album sleeve:
his name.
Instead,
Defries had rechristened him
“Johnny Cougar,”
a name he felt would
more likely sell records.
“We wanted something
uniquely American;
something hot and wild,”
he’d tell Seventeen.
“No one’s ever called me
‘Johnny’ in my life,”
the singer later lamented.
The album’s dismal sales
(reportedly around 12,000 copies)
and inevitable comparisons
to another classic
rock-worshipping
troubadour
from New Jersey
mooted the debate
and unfortunately
stopped Mellencamp’s
momentum cold:
another batch of
self-produced,
self-penned sessions
in 1977
were shelved,
and the singer
was cut loose
from his contract.
Undeterred,
Mellencamp moved to London
after attracting interest from
Rod Stewart’s then-manager,
signing with the local label
Riva.
A quartet of
pre-Mainman tracks
would be released by
the Bloomington,
Indiana label
Gulcher
before his move
was public,
under the name
U.S. Male,
included on this set
in its CD debut.
Sophomore album
A Biography
offered the single
“I Need a Lover,”
a Top 5
in Australia
and eventually a
Top 40 in America,
helping Mellencamp
(who at least convinced Riva
to credit him as
“John Cougar”)
gain the momentum
he’d sought.
When 1982’s
American Fool
yielded the No. 2
Grammy winner
“Hurts So Good”
and the chart-topping
“Jack and Diane,”
it seemed he’d finally
corrected course.
So record buyers were
surprised to see a
purported follow-up
in stores
the next year:
The Kid Inside,
taken from the
aborted second
Mainman sessions
and released to
capitalize on Defries’
former client.
The cheesecake photo
on the cover
did the album no favors,
and when Riva issued
proper follow-up
Uh-Huh
that same year,
it was the first credited to
“John Cougar Mellencamp.”
(He’d finally drop the feline moniker in 1991.)
American Dream
finally puts all
this early Cougar material
in its proper context,
additionally offering tracks
released in the late ’90s
and early ’00s
as bonus tracks
on CD copies
of these albums
as well as its own
third Mainman “album,”
Skin It Back.
Unreleased extras
include alternate versions of
“Jailhouse Rock,”
“The Man Who Sold the World”
and a provocatively
titled original,
“I Just Wanna Be Black.”
TRACKLIST
CD 1
Chestnut Street Incident and extras
- American Dream
- Oh Pretty Woman
- Jailhouse Rock
- Dream Killing Town
- Supergirl
- Chestnut Street
- Good Girls
- Do You Believe In Magic?
- Twentieth Century Fox
- Chestnut Street Revisited
- Sad Lady
- 2000 A.D. (U.S. Male EP)
- Lou-ser (U.S. Male EP)
- Hot Man (U.S. Male EP)
- Kicks (Gulcher Version) (U.S. Male EP)
- Skin It Back (Acoustic Version) (Skin It Back)
- The Man Who Sold the World (Skin It Back)
- Little Heroes (Skin It Back)
- Hit the Road Jack (Skin It Back)
- Kicks (Skin It Back)
- Jailhouse Rock (Demo Mix/Alternate Guitar Solo) *
- Chestnut Street (Alternate Version #1) *
- Chestnut Street (Alternate Version #2) *
- Sad Lady (Alternate Mix/Alternate Vocal) *
- The Man Who Sold the World (Early Version) *
- Little Heroes (Early Version) *
CD 2
The Kid Inside and extras
- Kid Inside
- Take What You Want
- Cheap Shot
- Sidewalks and Streetlight
- R. Gang
- American Son
- Gearhead
- Young Genocides
- Too Young to Live
- Survive
- Last of the Big Time Spenders
- I Need Somebody Baby (Skin It Back)
- The Whore (Skin It Back)
- When I Was Young (Skin It Back)
- Skin It Back (Instrumental) (Skin It Back)
- I Just Wanna Be Black *
- Gearhead (Alternate Electric Version) *
- I Need Somebody (Demo Mix/Scratch Vocal) *
- I Just Wanna Be Black (Demo Mix/Alternate Vocal) *
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