YEAR
2008
INDUCTED BY
Billy Joel
CATEGORY
Performers
The candid voice of the heartland.
No artifice, no affectation. John Mellencamp gives it to you straight. He muscled his way up from humble roots, giving a voice to the everyman with his blend of garage- and folk-rock.
John Mellencamp
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Debra Frost
As legends go, John Mellencamp’s is more in tune with the Little Engine That Could than the gods of those pantheons from Olympus to Cleveland.
His life itself has been a sheer triumph of will, an uphill battle against formidable odds. Diagnosed at birth with spina bifida, a neural tube defect with often devastating consequences, Mellencamp was hospitalized frequently throughout childhood.
Given his early prognosis, his merely banging on the gates of the music industry, never mind surmounting all its obstacles, seems fairly miraculous.
