John Mellencamp decided to share a previously unreleased track from the extended version of his 1985 album Scarecrow that will be reissued through Mercury/UMe in a range of different editions on November fourth. A super deluxe box set including a 2CD version of the remastered LP and outtakes and alternative versions, a 2022 Atmos mix on Blu-ray, a 180g LP, picture sleeve “Small Town” single, photo book, lithographs, a poster and an essay.
Mellencamp told CBS News in 2017 that, “The reason we made that record was because we were noticing that the landscape of Indiana was changing, All the small towns were going out of business. Why? … Because everybody went to live in the city? No. It was because that corporate farming had moved in and run the small family farmer out of business. Which is why we started Farm Aid.”
Adding that he had no choice but to move away from his earlier pop-rock sound due to “the critics in the beginning hated me. … There was no place for John Mellencamp in the music business. I had to create my own job and create my own genre, and consequently do what I think they now call Americana.”
Mellencamp will have a 76 date tour of North America, that starts on February fifth at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN and ends on June 24th at the Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend, IN.
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