It also completely presages the barely Alternative, barely exotic, Adult Contemporary music of Rob Thomas teaming up with Carlos Santana. Instead, the album attempts to reclaim ground that Mellencamp had ceded to Counting Crows and then the Gin Blossoms. The results bear little resemblance to their maker’s description. According to Mellencamp himself, “The idea was to take some of the Delta blues from the ‘30s and ‘40s and mix it with the beats from the ‘90s.” For this record, Mellencamp curiously decided that what he wanted to say, after his near death experience, had to be said with the help of Junior Vazquez, a producer best known for Latin-inspired beats in the work by Madonna, Janet Jackson and MC Hammer. It fared poorly on mainstream Rock charts and with previously sympathetic critics. It doesn’t sound like The Heartland and The American Dream is neither an explicit or implicit theme. It’s an outlier in his catalogue - the least tethered to American roots music. Happy Go Lucky” was Mellencamp stripped of pretense, eager to slow down and ready for his second half - however long it might be. I suspected that the truth about Mellencamp was somewhere in that overlooked, middle-aged bridge between life and death. Happy Go Lucky,” his post-heart-attack record. In that archeology, I rediscovered his 1996 album, “Mr. For that, I needed to dig deeper into his catalogue.
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But that homage is not a not a full reckoning. To hear some of the Americana artists talk about him, those comparisons seem unassailable. It is certainly true that Mellencamp brought the fiddle back into popular Rock music and that he shares some DNA with Steve Earle and Jason Isbell. In recent years, it has been suggested that Mellencamp should be remembered as a troubadour and an early influence on the No Depression scene. Would he be the “Jack and Diane” guy? The “Pink Houses” guy? Bruce Springsteen lite? Was Mellencamp an overrated heavyweight or an underrated middleweight? Would he even be remembered at all? But also, it was never totally clear what John Mellencamp’s legacy might be. By anyone’s standards, an early retirement would have been well-earned. He was forty three, beloved in the Heartlands, had a hell of a run on the charts, a bunch of kids and a supermodel for a wife. It was a fair moment to wonder if that was it for John Mellencamp. And then, in 1994, he gave us all a little scare when it was reported that he had a minor heart attack, brought on by a four pack a day habit.
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