John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp went through a few names before he settled on his own. The singer from Seymour, born in 1951, came up as Johnny Cougar, then John Cougar, then John Cougar Mellencamp. Early records like A Biography, with "I Need a Lover", and Nothin' Matters and What If It Did, with "Ain't Even Done with the Night", were the sound of a scrapper finding his feet.

Then came 1982 and American Fool, and the scrapper started swinging. "Hurts So Good" struts, and "Jack and Diane" is all acoustic strum and a thunderclap of drums. Uh-Huh, Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubilee followed with "Pink Houses", "Authority Song", "Small Town", "Rain on the Scarecrow" and "Cherry Bomb": heartland rock built on traditional instruments, plain-spoken and dusty and proud of it. Nobody working alone has put more songs at number one on the mainstream rock chart.

He put his money where his mouth was, too, helping to found Farm Aid in 1985 to keep family farmers on their land. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 2008, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame followed in 2018.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.