JOHNNY COUGAR
John Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. Mellencamp rose to superstardom in the 1980’s with a string of Top 10 singles, including “Hurts So Good”, “Jack & Diane”, “Crumblin’ Down”, “Pink Houses”, “Lonely Ol’ Night”, “Small Town”, “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.”, “Paper in Fire”, and “Cherry Bomb”. He holds the record for the most tracks by a solo artist to hit number-one on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with seven, and has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, winning one. Mellencamp is also one of the founding members of Farm Aid, an organization that began in 1985 with a concert in Champaign, Illinois to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land. Johnny Cash called Mellencamp “one of the 10 best songwriters” in music. Mellencamp was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008. (More from Wikipedia)
John Mellencamp is just John Mellencamp these days; but in the beginning, it wasn’t like that at all. Early on, he was signed by David Bowie’s manager Tony Defries, who put out his first album in 1976. Mellencamp was infuriated to find out that the album, Chestnut Street Incident had been released under the name Johnny Cougar (he was already 25 by then and seems a little old to be a “Johnny”). To add insult to injury, his label MCA Records dropped him; and his second album, The Kid Inside stayed on a shelf for several years until he was able to break through. He released another album in 1979 under this name, A Biography that included a Top 40 song, “I Need A Lover”; Pat Benatar also included “I Need a Lover” on her debut album, In the Heat of the Night. Now that he had a little moxie from his record sales, he set about to reinvent himself, well, back to being himself: I still hear “I Need A Lover” on the radio from time to time, though if the DJ said “Johnny Cougar” or even “John Cougar”, almost no one would know who they were talking about anymore.
John Mellencamp’s name was rightfully a point of pride with him; and eventually people began to realize how incredibly unfair the whole Johnny Cougar thing was. As far as I know, that has never happened to any other musician since.
(July 2012)
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Last month I discussed the curious case of John Mellencamp, a/k/a John Cougar Mellencamp, a/k/a John Cougar, a/k/a Johnny Cougar.
(September 2012)
