![]() In contrast to DeFries’ original judgment, it turns out a lot of people would buy records from a guy named Mellencamp. It was also borne out on the LP’s cover, which featured the “new” name of John Cougar Mellencamp. It would be the last album of Mellencamp’s career to not feature his real last name.īeing an MTV and radio star helped the singer-songwriter gain some more creative control, which showed in the sly songcraft and rougher sound of his next album, 1983’s Uh-Huh. In 1983, he opened the vault and finally put out The Kid Inside, in a bid for cash from new Cougar fans hungry for more music. Plus, DeFries decided to re-enter the Johnny Cougar market after American Fool. As John Cougar, Mellencamp had fame, fortune and a Grammy, but he still wasn’t himself, literally. 1 single and album on the Billboard charts (Mellencamp’s first and only chart-toppers) was both a blessing and a curse. Still, Mellencamp would remain John Cougar through his 1982 breakthrough, American Fool, with its smash hits “Hurts So Good” and “Jack & Diane.” Having the No. ![]() “But after that Johnny Cougar debacle, I pretty much rejected about everything they ever said.” “There were always managers wanting to put their two cents in,” Mellencamp reflected in 2005. Watch John Cougar Perform 'I Need a Lover' on 'American Bandstand' in 1979 single for the singer, as well as a radio hit for Pat Benatar. album (titled John Cougar) and began a modest U.S. “I Need a Lover” was added to his next U.S. A Biography didn’t see release in the States, but scored an unlikely hit in Australia with “I Need a Lover.” Success, even down under, breeds opportunity, and the newly christened John Cougar got another shot at American rock stardom. He signed with new management and made a record in England. “But I knew if I delivered a song that could get on the radio, I had a shot.” “I was washed up and over by my mid-twenties,” he said. He needed a name that wouldn’t drive him crazy. Despite the fact that Mellencamp had only begun to write songs, DeFries was comparing him to one of the greats: “He’s so American, the most American artist I’ve seen since Bob Dylan, and I think he will capture the same kind of thing Dylan did.”Īfter MCA walked away, so did MainMan, leaving Mellencamp with a flop, an unreleased album and a “pretty silly” name.īut rather than ditching the moniker, Mellencamp would alter it to simply John Cougar he had always bristled at the idea of being “Johnny” anything. Listen to Johnny Cougar's 'Chestnut Street'Įven though Mellencamp would admit the album wasn’t great, he blamed Johnny Cougar’s initial flame-out on DeFries and his rampant over-hyping of his new client. In the short term, the deal didn’t look so great for “Johnny Cougar.” When his debut album, 1976’s Chestnut Street Incident, moved only 12,000 copies and he was excoriated in the press as a slight Bruce Springsteen substitute, Mellencamp’s second LP, The Kid Inside, was shelved by MainMan. “I would have signed anything – I would have signed the bottom of a shoe,” Mellencamp told Rolling Stone in 2013. ![]() Mellencamp didn’t agree, but he went along with it to get his debut album released. “Johnny Indiana was one of our choices, Puma, Mustang – but nothing was as hot as Cougar!” “We wanted something uniquely American, something hot and wild,” MainMan associate Jamie Andrews told Seventeen magazine. The manager was convinced that no one was going to buy a record from a singer named Mellencamp. What he didn’t care for was his strange German last name. DeFries ran MainMan management, and his clients included David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.
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