USA Today: Premiere: "John The Revelator" Live from Trouble No More Live At Town Hall
On July 31, 2003, roughly eight weeks after releasing his acclaimed Trouble No More, John Mellencamp performed the entire album for a sold-out audience at New York's Town Hall.
That performance is finally surfacing on July 8 as part of a newly inked agreement with Universal Music Enterprises to curate and release material from Mellencamp's vault.
The freshly mixed and mastered concert recording, John Mellencamp Performs Trouble No More Live At Town Hall, will be available in CD, digital and vinyl formats. All three include a new liner-notes essay by Bob Merlis.
The set tackles folk and blues classics, from Robert Johnson's Stones in My Passway and Willie Dixon's Down in the Bottom to Son House's Death Letter and Woody Guthrie's Johnny Hart. Trouble was recorded and mixed in 17 days.
Before an audience of 1,500 that included members of Woody Guthrie's family, Mellencamp and his band (guitarists Mike Wanchic and Andy York, violinist Miriam Sturm, drummer Dane Clark, bassist John Gunnell and keyboardist Michael Ramos) recreated the album's fire and grit, adding pared versions of Small Town, Paper in Fire, Pink Houses and Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited.
Here's their haunted take on the traditional John the Revelator.
Mellencamp will release his 22nd full-length album, Plain Spoken, this fall on Republic Records. For more information, visit Mellencamp.com.
John Mellencamp Performs Trouble No More Live At Town Hall (CD, digital)
1. Stones In My Passway (Robert Johnson)
2. Death Letter (Son House)
3. To Washington (John Mellencamp/Traditional)
4. Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
5. Baltimore Oriole (Hoagy Carmichael/Paul Francis Webster)
6. Joliet Bound (Kansas Joe McCoy)
7. Down In The Bottom (Willie Dixon)
8. Johnny Hart (Woody Guthrie)
9. Diamond Joe (John Mellencamp/Traditional)
10. John The Revelator (Traditional)
11. Small Town (John Mellencamp)
12. Lafayette (Lucinda Williams)
13. Teardrops Will Fall (Marion Smith)
14. Paper In Fire (John Mellencamp)
15. Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)
John Mellencamp Performs Trouble No More Live At Town Hall [vinyl]
Side One
1. Stones In My Passway (Robert Johnson)
2. Death Letter (Son House)
3. Joliet Bound (Kansas Joe McCoy)
4. Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
5. Baltimore Oriole (Hoagy Carmichael/Paul Francis Webster)
Side Two
6. Diamond Joe (John Mellencamp/Traditional)
7. Down In The Bottom (Willie Dixon)
8. Small Town (John Mellencamp)
9. Paper In Fire (John Mellencamp)
10. Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)