John Mellencamp- Whenever We Wanted 35th Anniversary

By the time John Mellencamp released October 1991’s Whenever We Wanted, containing the hits “Get a Leg Up” and “Again Tonight”, his record-making not only made him one of the Eighties’ most popular singer/songwriters, he had already influenced the sound of his peers in Rock and modern Country music…twice. But when Mellencamp released Whenever We Wanted thirty-five years ago, already his eleventh album (!), John admitted that being the Conscience of the Eighties sounded better on paper than in reality. “I was turning into this serious no-fun guy. I had really been taking myself too seriously.”

In 1982 John Mellencamp and producer Don Gehman broke through with a “drums upfront” approach on hits like “Hurts So Good” and “Jack and Diane”, which influenced greatly the sound of Pop and Rock for the remainder of the decade. Then with the addition of fiddle and accordion prominently carrying the lead melody lines, Mellencamp did it again with 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee on perennials “Paper in Fire” and “Check It Out”. And this time the evolving modern Nashville record makers were listening, as well.John Mellencamp’s farewell to the Reagan Eighties in 1989, Big Daddy was his male mid-life crisis exercise with “Pop Singer” and “Jackie Brown”. He then took an almost three year sabbatical, learning fine art painting and, surprisingly, directing and starring in a film with Mariel Hemingway and Kay Lenz, Falling from Grace.  The hard-to-find soundtrack gem “Sweet Suzanne” is included here, a veritable Americana singer/songwriter summit meeting as “The Buzzin’ Cousins” blending the voice of John Mellencamp with that of the late John Prine, dearly missed Joe Ely, James McMurtry (whose father Lonesome Dove legend Larry McMurtry wrote the screenplay for Falling from Grace), and batting cleanup, Dwight Yoakam.

In October 1991 John Mellencamp’s human wheels once again found the blacktop highway of his mainstream music career with a new wife, a new life, and a looser, lighter attitude on Whenever We Wanted, including “Get a Leg Up” and the imminently boot-scootin’ dance-abilly “Again Tonight”. In my classic rock interviews, John Mellencamp interestingly raises just as many questions as answers. –Redbeard