Monument Circle, downtown

John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp will headline a special, free, all-day concert Sunday, April 2 at Monument Circle. The show is expected to attract as many as 100,000 music and basketball fans to downtown Indianapolis during the NCAA Final Four.

The concert is part of the citywide celebrations for the April 3 championship game at the RCA Dome.

During his nearly 30 years as a musician, John Mellencamp’s music has sold millions, earned him a fortune, gained him respect from his peers and has made him the most famous Indiana songwriter since Cole Porter.

Born Oct. 7, 1951, in Seymour, Mellencamp began playing music as a teen-ager and moved to New York City in his early 20s. After a disastrous partnership with music svengali Tony DeFries, who renamed him “Johnny Cougar,” Mellencamp released albums on MCA and Riva Records, none of which were commercially successful. It wasn’t until his move to Mercury Records in 1982, and the release of the singles “Hurts So Good” and “Jack and Diane” from his American Fool album, that he became a fixture on rock radio stations and MTV.

Known at that time as a party rocker (“Springsteen without substance,” said one early review), the release of his album Scarecrow in 1985 reinvented Mellencamp as a socially aware songwriter with a strong empathy for the working man and the family farmer. Along with Willie Nelson, Mellencamp helped organize the first Farm Aid concert in 1986.

Even after becoming a superstar, Mellencamp continued to live in Indiana, stubbornly refusing to move to New York or Los Angeles.

“There was nothing for me in those cities but trouble,” Mellencamp told NUVO’s Steve Hammer in 2001. “It was better for me to come back here. As a young man, I was very cavalier and seemed to find trouble very easily. Whenever I was in those cities I was in some sort of trouble, so I at least had the good judgement to stay out of them as much as I could.”

Other albums and hit singles followed, but by the early 1990s, Mellencamp’s music was no longer being played on Top 40 radio. He turned his attention to making the music he wanted to make, and with the people he wanted to make it with. He collaborated with Me’Shell Ndegeocello and Chuck D., among others, occasionally landing a song on pop radio. He held exhibitions of his paintings and received positive critical response.

And, even as his music became more deeply rooted and politically charged, he disclaimed any role as a political leader.

“I care about America deeply, but I don’t want to have the responsibility to have someone hang something on me,” he told NUVO. “I care about small towns deeply, but I’m not the keeper of the small towns. I obviously care about rock music deeply, but I’m not going to be the one to save it.”

Nevertheless, he was one of the most prominent voices in rock music to oppose George Bush in 2004.

After releasing his last album, Trouble No More, in 1993, Mellencamp has concentrated on his family and the occasional tour, although he’s been writing and recording material for a new album, to be released later this year. His recent exhibit of paintings at Herron (through Jan. 7, 2006), our visual arts reviewer said, is “one that speaks to a personal evolution and an artistic one.”

“There’s nobody who’s had a better life in the music business than me,” Mellencamp told NUVO. “I’m very thankful and very happy with the songs of mine that people still play. I’m very happy and excited about the people I’ve met in the music business. I feel very blessed.”

To learn more about Final Four: www.ncaasports.com/basketball/mens/story/8092426