THE KID INSIDE
The Kid Inside is an album recorded by John Mellencamp in 1977 for MCA Records. It was intended to be the follow-up to his debut album Chestnut Street Incident, but MCA declined to release the album and dropped Mellencamp from the label. The recordings remained on the shelf until 1983 when Tony DeFries, Mellencamp’s former manager, released the album on his own MainMan label. DeFries was attempting to capitalize on the recent success of Mellencamp’s breakout album American Fool, which had sold over two million copies and spawned two #1 singles. This was Mellencamp’s last album to be released under the name John Cougar. (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.
(July 2012)
