Jealous Haters Since 1998!
Home | News | Reviews | Day In Rock | Photos | RockNewsWire | Singled Out | Tour Dates/Tix | Feeds

John Mellencamp Goes Old School On New Album

05/25/2010
.
Rounder Records will release John Mellencamp's new album, No Better Than This, on August 3rd. No Better Than This is an album of all new original songs that was recorded at a variety of historically significant locations around the South. The album was produced by T Bone Burnett who earlier collaborated with Mellencamp on the much-lauded Life Death Love and Freedom.

No Better Than This was recorded over the course of a few break days afforded Mellencamp when he was on a tour of minor league ball parks last year, sharing the bill with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

The album was recorded on vintage equipment – a 55 year-old Ampex tape recorder with just one microphone -- in Savannah at the First African Baptist Church, in Memphis at Sun Studios and in San Antonio in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel.

Mellencamp wrote the thirteen songs included on the album during a thirteen-day span last spring. "I was tightly focused," he related, "I got up every day and wrote and wrote and wrote." The songs reflect various American traditions including blues, folk, western, gospel, rockabilly and country and address such themes as the need for hope, the nature of relationship and narratives that recount extraordinary occurrences in everyday life.

As far as the recording locations are concerned, they were chosen based on cultural and music history, each providing a sense of place for the respective sessions. About the experience, Mellencamp remarked, "It was absolutely the most fun I've ever had making a record in my life. It was about making music – organic music made by real musicians – that's heartfelt and written from the best place it can come from."

The First African Baptist Church is the first Black church in North America dating to pre-revolutionary times. The original congregation and ministry were slaves; the church, in fact, provided sanctuary to runaways before emancipation. Mellencamp, who has a residence in the area, has long been familiar with the church and the role it played in the Savannah community. He and his wife Elaine were baptized there before the sessions commenced.

While Sun Studios actually is a working recording facility, its equipment has been updated since the days of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis so Mellencamp's team used the Ampex machine and established a makeshift recording booth in a construction shed in a vacant lot next door. Mellencamp and his musicians did, dutifully, arrange themselves on the studio floor in accordance with markings that had been laid down by Sam Phillips many years before for optimal presence.

Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio is where Robert Johnson first recorded for Brunswick Records in November of 1936; Mellencamp's version of Johnson's "Stones In My Pass Way" was the first track on Trouble No More, an album of blues and folk songs released in 2003. The room has been carpeted in the intervening years so a hardwood floor was placed over the carpet to better approximate the ambience heard on Johnson's records. Mellencamp sang facing the corner of the room that Johnson had almost 74 years earlier.

After the sessions were completed, Burnett took the mono tapes back to Los Angeles and mastered them, per Mellencamp, "in a way that made them coherent." Sequencing of the album was accomplished by Burnett in a moment that could be likened to an epiphany. Mellencamp was present when his producer recited the running order of all 13 songs in a moment of inspired spontaneity.

Following the release of No Better Than This, Mellencamp and his band will embark on a lengthy tour of theaters throughout North America that will get underway in October and continue into the late spring of 2011. These performance dates will include a showing of It's About You, a film that Kurt Markus made during the album sessions and while Mellencamp was on tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. The concerts will showcase Mellencamp's music in the context of a small group as well as discreet solo acoustic and full rock band segments, reflecting the range of approaches heard on the new album.

No Better Than This tracklist (all songs written by John Mellencamp)
Save Some Time To Dream
The West End
Right Behind Me
A Graceful Fall
No Better Than This
Thinking About You
Coming Down The Road
No One Cares About Me
Love At First Sight
Don't Forget About Me
Each Day of Sorrow
Easter Eve
Clumsy Ol' World

Share this article on Twitter

[an error occurred while processing this directive]


Click here to read today's full Day in Rock report

Preview and Purchase John Mellencamp CDs

John Mellencamp Tour Dates/Tickets

John Mellencamp MP3 Downloads

Was it Good for you? Please Fark it!, Stumble It, Digg it or more!
Fark
Stumble Upon
Digg
Facebook

tell a friend about this article

know of a news item we should cover?

antiMUSIC News featured on RockNews.info and Yahoo News

.


...end


.
News Reports
.
Day in Rock:
Lamb Of God's Mark Morton Streams Chester Bennington Collaboration- Rush Members To Make Special Appearance- Unreleased David Bowie Tracks In New Collection- more

Day in Pop

B-Sides: Taylor Swift Reveals Her Mother Has Cancer- Rich Homie Quan Surrenders To Police Over Alleged Nightclub Assault- Justin Bieber Duets With Ariana Grande- Mumford & Sons- more

 Subscribe To Day in Rock

.
 
Reviews
.

Ladies Only: Jennie Abrahamson- Rachel Garlin- Nneka- More

Album of the Week: Led Zeppelin's When The West Was Won

Karyn Crisis' Gospel Of The Witches - Salem's Wounds

The Blues: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers- Arlen Roth, Mike Henderson Band- Slam Allen

Trauma Interview

December in Red - The Way Out

Battleaxe - Power From the Universe Reissue

SOKO Interview

The Compulsions - Dirty Fun

Rock Reads: Morbid Tales! A Tribute to Celtic Frost

Death Penalty - Death Penalty

On The Record: The Wild Beyond

RockPile: Minutian- Odin's Court- THEO

Michael Ubaldini Interview

Root 66: Cameron Mitchell- Stacy Jones- Greg Shirley


. .
.
Today's Rock News
. Lamb Of God's Mark Morton Streams Chester Bennington Collaboration

Rush Members To Make Special Appearance

Unreleased David Bowie Tracks In New Collection

Def Leppard Announce Summer Tour Dates

Avenged Sevenfold's M Shadows Guests On John Dolmayan Album

Aerosmith To Rock Steven Tyler's Grammy Awards Viewing Party

Tedeschi Trucks Band Streaming New Song 'Hard Case'

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Biopic Nominated For Seven BAFTA Awards

Behemoth Release Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica Video

Blues Music Awards Nominees Announced


Subscribe to Day in Rock Report by Email

.
.
Today's Pop News
.
.
.
Latest B-Sides News
.

More News
.
 
anti Worthy Links
.
AudioNationRadio.comThe Screen DoorA Journal of Musical ThingsLloyd Zeffler blogDemolish MagNightwatcher's House of RockCJ ChilversDeja VoodooThe 1st Fivethecopycat.bizHard Rock Memorabilia Day in Rock @twitter

.
  .
.

Click Here to Buy T-Shirts!
Click Here to Buy T-Shirts!

 

Tell a Friend about this page - Contact Us - Privacy - antiMusic Email - Why we are antiMusic

Copyright© 1998 - 2013 Iconoclast Entertainment Group All rights reserved. antiMusic works on a free link policy for reprinting of our original articles, click here for details. Please click here for legal restrictions and terms of use applicable to this site. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.