When Richard was ten, a drunk driver ran over and killed his fifteen-year-old eldest brother, James.Īfter World War II, Speck, who’d barely had the time to learn to read or write, but was as enterprising as he was unyielding, set up his own construction company. By the time the youngest boy, Richard, came into the world in the summer of 1931, the Great Depression had hit rural American families like a wrecking ball. Six children were born to them: four boys, James, Jerry, Joe, and Richard and two girls, Mary and Shirley. The newlyweds also got a hard, unforgiving start to their lives together. He worked as a carpenter he had left school in second grade to help keep money coming into the family. Young Speck wed nineteen-year-old Laura Nancy Nobliott the same year, and they set up home in Seymour. Speck’s father didn’t see sixty, dead of a gallbladder attack in 1924. The southern Indiana land was tough to work, back- and soul-breaking. Among their brood was a son born November 4, 1903, and named Harry Perry, “Speck” to all who got to know him this was John Mellencamp’s grandfather. With his wife, Carrie, the next Johan Mollenkamp had ten children and to each they gave a more Americanized surname: Mellencamp. Together they built up a farmstead outside of Seymour which passed to their eldest son, born to them in 1855 and also named Johan. Johan couldn’t speak English, Anna knew not a word of German, but somehow they managed. Yet Johan Mollenkamp married outside of this tight community, taking for his bride a Native American girl, Anna. Statewide, they quickly established German-language newspapers, German schools, and German social clubs. Germans soon made up more than half the foreign-born population of Indiana. Around this time, Johan Herman Friedrich Mollenkamp left his hometown of Anger, a suburb of Hanover, and pitched up in the rural south of Indiana, meaning to farm the land. From the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, they arrived from southern and eastern Europe, but mostly from Germany. From the north, they trekked downcountry from New England, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Pioneers ranged up south to north, from Kentucky and the Appalachians, across the Ohio River. It was an 1800 Land Act from the government in Washington that created Indiana Territory, and from the middle of that century, the new state began to be widely populated. Well, I got heart disease from my dad’s side and diabetes from my mom’s side. ExcerptĬhapter One: Small Town CHAPTER ONE Small Town From the Summer of Love to the growing divisiveness of American politics and beyond, his music has served as the backdrop to this evolving country for millions of fans.įeaturing exclusive interviews with friends, family, and colleagues, and exploring everything from the founding of Farm Aid to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is a fresh and expansive look at a true original. His coming of age as an artist and evolution into legendary status directly reflected the major changes of the last fifty years. Mellencamp’s story is also the story of the American heartland. Now, this fascinating biography fully charts the life of one of this country’s most important voices in American music. With music inspired by the work of William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and other giants of American literature, he has experienced a colorful career unlike any other. John Mellencamp is not your typical rock star. Perfect for fans of Janis and Born to Run. The definitive biography of John Mellencamp, the iconic American rock and roll original, featuring exclusive in-depth interviews and never-before-told details.
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