Meeting Miss Moo

So what is the meaning of bittersweet?

Is it when you see the girl you had a crush on throughout most of your high school years looking beautiful as ever, and apparently happy in the arms of the guy who was something of a rival of yours way back then? Is it when you are sincerely happy for the both of them all the same?

Or is it when you find yourself sitting across the table from some very familiar (and some, not so familiar) faces that you haven't seen in decades, and you find yourself feeling the years in between slipping ever so comfortably away?

Or maybe it's when you come face to face years later with a person who had a profound impact on your life. Someone whose influence, profound as it was on a young, impressionable kid,--wide-eyed with both innocence and the thrill of possibilty--probably didn't even realize it at the time. And you find that despite this person being in her twilight years she is still as sharp as ever, and that she still has that twinkle in her eye.

That she'll probably live to be one hundred years old.

Well, I experienced all of those things and then some--as well as the wellspring of emotions accompanying them--today.

For those of you who enjoy reading my written pearls of whatever wisdom I have regarding music and the like, you are probably just going to want to skip past this blog entry.

This one is personal. Deeply so.

You see today, after something like thirty some-odd years, I met "Miss Moo".

Again.

Dorothy Mootafes (or "Miss Moo" as we all used to affectionately call her) was my high school journalism teacher. But she was not just any journalism teacher. Besides being the best damned teacher I can remember from my high school years (and West Seattle High had more than a few good ones back in the seventies), "Miss Moo" also was one of the very first people I met who convinced me that I actually had a talent for writing. She actually said I had a "gift".

And for Miss Moo, schooling a kid like me could not have been easy.

You see I was one of the "bad kids". By saying that, I don't mean that I was "bad" as in cruel, unkind, or anything of the sort. But I did have a knack for getting myself into trouble. Take the time I showed up to school drunk on my 18th Birthday. That day began when some of my pals from drama class took me out drinking that morning, and ended with me passed out over a type writer in the back room (or "City Room," as us young, aspiring journalism students called it).

By the time of my senior year, I already had enough credits to graduate and was basically slacking my way through anyway. But I could have been expelled for this.

Instead, after Miss Moo (at least to the best I can figure) saved my ass, I got a birthday cake in class the very next day. Can you say embarrased as hell?

The other thing was that in a class of kids who took this whole journalism thing pretty seriously, I had a rather unique way of making myself stand out.

As most of my written work in my adult life has subsequently bore out, I was a rock and roll junkie even back then. I wrote a column called "Rock Talk" for our high school paper The Chinook back then. And even though there is no possible way "Miss Moo" could have possibly understood what I was talking about in those columns most of the time (what's that line from the Lovin' Spoonful about "trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll?"), she not not only put up with me, but nurtured me as a writer. I don't know exactly how she did it, but she saw right through all of my "rock-speak," and did her best to develop what I believe she saw as a possible diamond in the rough.

Which again, couldn't have been easy.

As detailed in my article on the Doobie Brothers, I was one of those seventies rocker kids who embraced both the music and the accompanying lifestyle with equal gusto. Which meant I not only proudly wore the uniform of shoulder length long hair and platform shoes (hey, it was the seventies), but drank the booze and smoked the cigarettes (including that "wacky tobacky').

"Miss Moo" knew all of this of course (not that I made much of an effort to hide it anyway). Today, she even commented every time I went outside of the restaurant for a smoke. Damn. She keeps track even now.

Yet she took me under her wing anyway. Seeing that sweet lady today all these years later confirmed forever in my mind that hers were the wings of an angel. Which I've basically always known anyway. It was just nice for me to finally be able to say so to her face.

So speaking of that reunion, I've peppered this article with several pictures from that event earlier today.

You may recall that girl I said I had the mad crush on all through high school (and tough rocker dude that I thought I was, never had the balls to do anything about). That was Karen Anaka, pictured here with Mike DeFelice, her mate of some fifteen years now. "Deef" as we called him back in high school wrote a jazz column called "Jivin With Jazz", and was something of my arch nemesis on the old West Seattle Chinook. I'm sure there is some poetic justice in there somewhere that "Deef" finally got the girl I so pined for in high school (and at 50 still looks stunning). Nonetheless, I am sincerely happy for the both of them.

John Carlson is a guy who was schooled under "Miss Moo" a few years after me, who later went on to make something of a name for himself as a conservative commentator and Republican candidate for Washington State Governor. John and I have never seen eye to eye politically, but when he's not in front of a camera I've always found him to be one hell of a nice guy. Here, I have to give him a long overdue punch in the nose for being wrong about so many issues. But like I said, he's a hell of a nice guy.

And John, as far as your very early early connections to the "liberal media" in the form of "Miss Moo's" particular think tank, your secret is safe with me.

Oops, I guess I just published it on the Internet.

Sorry, dude.

But back to Karen Anaka.

Before she finally found her true soulmate in Mr. Deef (and I really do believe that), she dated this guy named Scott Janzen all through high school.

Scott was that all-around sort of great guy that real men gravitate towards as drinking and sports buddies. He was also my first editor at the Chinook.

Scott was also a guy I just couldn't escape for my first few years out of high school. In my one year of college I commuted with him from West Seattle to Highline Community College daily. When I later dropped out to pursue my dream job at the time of managing Penny Lane Records in the West Seattle Junction, Scott was right there doing the same at the paint store just up the street.

And when Karen Anaka divorced her first husband, damned if Scott wasn't the first guy to call me to let me know she was free and to go for it. Scott my brother, your heart was in the right place. But unfortunately my attempt to capitalize at long last on my high school crush just wasn't meant to be.

Bev Hauptli, pictured here with Scott on the other hand -- well damn, how can a girl still look that good at 50? I always liked Bev in high school, but I guess I never really, well you know "noticed" her. She is currently a producer and writer for the Northwest Indian News and may just be my future wife. Just kidding there of course. But Bev, if you're reading this -- call me and let's do lunch or something okay?

Finally, lest I neglect it--we have the obligatory group photo up above. Most of the players seen elsewhere on this page have already been covered there, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Al Bornstein, who is the other guy you see in the group shot. When I was"Mr. Rock Talk" at the Chinook, Al and I would go round and round about the fact that I loved the music of David Bowie (Al favored the Doors at the time). Al eventually came around, as I knew he would. But we used to have some great debates before he did.

But the other thing I remember Al for was the great investigative piece he did on the JFK assasination as a freaking high school journalist! Not only did that take considerable balls back in the seventies, but some of the things he pointed out in that original high school paper article have long since proven true.

Al also more or less picked up the tab today, which being between jobs myself right now (I start my new one on Thursday), I was quite grateful for.

So today was a great day, and to anyone who was there, may I suggest this become an annual event as long as "Miss Moo" is still with us?

You already know the lady was and is a saint.

Big "ups" to Mark Neuman for putting this event together as well (likewise to Scott Schaffer--and I hope I have the spelling right here--for playing chauffeur today to our beloved Miss Moo). Mark's a guy I bump into occasionally these days playing trivia at the Rocksport. Mark is also one of the very few writers I know (again, from Miss Moo's class) who have interviewed no less an iconocastic figure than Richard Nixon.

So how do you color "bittersweet" again?

Prelude To "Meeting Miss Moo":
The History, The Music...The Doobies

This weekend I plan to attend a reunion, along with several of my old classmates, with my high school journalism teacher from way back in the seventies. I haven't seen Miss Mootafes (who miraculously is still alive) in something like thirty five years, and I'm actually very excited about the meeting.

You see, Miss Mootafes (who we affectionately used to call "Miss Moo") was one of the first people I can remember that had a significant influence on my decision to pursue writing, encouraging me that I actually had what she called a "gift." The thing is though, in addition to being the best damned teacher I remember from high school, she also had to be something of a saint to have put up with my type of shenanigans. Because "gifted" as this particular student may have been, I was also somewhat incorrigible and quite prone to getting myself in trouble.

I ran with the group of kids anyone who went to high school in the seventies will remember as the "rockers." We were that long-haired, loutish bunch who blended with the stoner crowd, but seperated ourselves by the music we listened to. Where the stoner kids preferred the spacier sounds of Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead, rockers were all about the volume championed by bands like Zeppelin, Sabbath, and Alice Cooper. For those in need of a reference point, I would highly recommend renting a DVD of the scarily accurate film, Dazed And Confused.



So on a typical Friday night, as a bunch of us would pile into our buddy's 65 Mustang for the weekend cruise, it was bands like this that were in heavy rotation on the 8-track tape deck. Every once in awhile however, the tape broke and you had to rely on the AM radio.

This is where the Doobie Brothers come in.



During the early seventies while Tom Johnston was still the engine driving the creative bus, there was simply not a rock band on earth whose songs played better on AM than the Doobie Brothers. In the seventies, when the 8-track tape broke, the Doobies were golden.

For us rocker kids, the Doobie Brothers were kind of like that perfect middle ground. While they were never as loud and adventurous as Zeppelin, or as bizarre (for the time) as Alice, they had perfectly servicable guitar riffs. These were mostly played by Johnston and fellow guitar slinger Patrick Simmons. Plus they had a biker's sort of edge about them, which gave them the necessary sort of outlaw cred they needed--despite AM radio being their primary medium.

The other thing about the Doobies was that despite their songs being hooky enough to get them all over the AM band, they were never as sappy as the bands they shared the dial with. Where the soft AM rock of Bread and Three Dog Night catered to the chicks, and the formerly great Chicago Transit Authority had devolved into something my friends called "Shit-cago," the Doobies songs like "Runnin Down The Highway" and the great "China Grove" just plain kicked ass.



Disc one of this great new hits compilation from Rhino is basically all about those days in the early seventies, commonly refered to by Doobies fans as the "Tom Johnston era."
The Doobies had so many great, riff fueled songs back then you practically can't count them. But they are all here. In addition to "China Grove" and "Runnin Down The Highway," you've got the single that for many started it all (and remains an anthem today), "Listen To The Music." From there we have "Jesus Is Just Alright," a Byrds cover that the Doobies rocked up a little and made their own to the point that few even remember the original.

Showing themselves as no mere one riff pony, the Doobies musical diversity is displayed most prominently in their biggest hit ever (at least from this era), "Black Water," a tune so down home New Orleans in it's flavor that it could just have easily have come from someone like Dr. John himself. On one of their most under-rated songs, "I Cheat The Hangman", they begin by wrapping themselves around a haunting lyric with eerily similar harmonies, then end with a wallop of frenetic crash and burn guitars. The rush is as heady as that "wacky tobacky" celebrated in their choice of a band name.


By the end of disc one however, things start to go a little south--at least for diehard fans of the rock oriented "Johnston era." By the time of the album Takin It To The Streets, the musical winds of this band were clearly shifting, as was the identidy of man steering the creative boat.

Micheal McDonald brought not only a jazzier direction to the Doobie Brothers--with slickly produced horns and charts dominating where the riff had once been king--he also brought his voice front and center. Where Tom Johnston's vocals displayed a cleaner version of the shrill, high end typical of so many of the rock vocalists of that era, McDonald's deep, resonant voice had more in common with Philly R&B.

Although it was a rude awakening for many of the Doobies fans back then (and still is for some), many of the songs of the so-called "McDonald era" hold up surprisingly well here, especially those at the end of disc one. The craft and musicianship of songs like the title track of Takin It To The Streets are of course undeniable. "It Keeps You Running" also still has a very nice haunting sort of quality to it all these years later.

Of course by the time of the Grammy blockbuster Minute By Minute all bets were off as the Doobies pretty much abandoned all connections to their rock past, and fully embraced commercial pop. A pretty convincing argument can be made that the McDonald led Doobies of this era would pave the way for such later horrors as Christopher Cross. This was also the time many longtime fans--myself included--pretty much got off the bus.



Not long after, with albums like One Step Closer, that "Long Train Comin" of the Doobie Brothers was headed for it's final stop. It is these songs of the so-called "McDonald era"--as well as the eventual reunion with Johnston--that make up the second disc of this collection.

For Doobies completists, you simply can't beat this collection for having it all neatly summed up in a nice two disc package. And even for those who favor the earlier stuff as I do, the second disc provides a great perspective to how this band evolved musically, even as they eventually sold their rock and roll hearts out to the greener pastures of pop commercialism.

But when I drive out to meet "Miss Moo"--that dear old seventies high school journalism teacher of mine--this weekend, I definitely know which disc I'll have on the CD player.


If only they still had 8-Tracks...

Stay tuned for my actual meeting with "Miss Moo".

Rediscovering Dylan's "Don't Look Back"



What strikes you most immediately about this newly repackaged version of D.A. Pennebaker's landmark documentary film on Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England is just how cool the package actually is. It comes in a gorgeous box which folds out into a gatefold of sorts, housing two DVDs with graphics that look like little film cannisters. It also has a couple of pockets containing two of the great little extras that come with this set.

First, there's a cute little cigarette lighter sized "flipbook" of the original "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film. This recreates the film by flipping through it's pages in "old school" animation style. The larger side pocket however contains the real find here--a paperback book containing tons of photos and stills from the film, along with it's complete transcript. So for those of you Dylan fans more prone to analyzing the man's every word, you now have the ability to follow the dialog even as you watch the film.



But it gets even better.

A second one hour DVD contains rare, never before seen footage (including many scenes taken from the original negatives) that never made the final cut of the film. This includes many near complete live performances of songs from the '65 tour. If ever there was a complaint about the original Don't Look Back film (not that there are or ever were too many complaints about it), it was the frustrating cuts away from these pivotal performances.

The original Don't Look Back is of course a landmark in the way it so uniquely captures one of the sixties generation's truest icons at what can only be described as an iconoclastic moment in time. Only one other rock documentary film from the same period--the Rolling Stones Gimmie Shelter--documents history no one seemed aware at the time was even being made, as raw and nakedly as this film does (and in the Stones' case, ever so darkly).

In the decades since, several films have of course been made or otherwise come to light which reveal more about the notoriously guarded Dylan. Most notably, there is of course Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, a film which remarkably verifies much of what had been previously regarded by many as myth (somebody really did cry "Judas" when Dylan went electric). More recently, the Dylan Speaks DVD of an infamous San Francisco press conference reveals Dylan letting his notorious guard down in some rare moments of candor (and even humor).


Both make great companion pieces to this film, but neither top it for uniquely capturing a specific moment in history. The still young Dylan is shown here to be what some view as an arrogant prick. What I've always preferred to think it shows is an artist just begining to realize who, or more importantly what, he actually may really be, and doing his best to come to terms with it.

Some of these moments reveal unique things about Dylan the artist. Here, he seems most comfortable in his own skin, seated at an old fashioned typewriter in a hotel room surrounded by friends and confidants like Joan Baez.

Other moments are genuinely humorous. Such as when the Animals obviously gushing Alan Price still manages to tell Dylan that his so-called British counterpart Donovan is a better guitar player (Dylan's reaction is equally priceless). For those interested in learning how the rock music business could actually be successfully run by what most believe to be hippies and beatniks during it's golden age, the backroom dealings of Dylan's infamous manager Albert Grossman are essential viewing.

Among the more telling of the other extras you'll find in this deluxe edition is the "alternate take" of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film -- which is arguably the very first true rock video. We all know the world famous scenes of Dylan flipping cards in a back-alley sort of setting. The alternate version follows much the same script, but is shot in a park. As Dylan flips through the cards displaying those unforgettable lyrics, Allen Ginsburg completely changes his clothes in the background. Which in my opinion, for whatever reason, I find to be just priceless.


Even if you've already seen the original version of this landmark film, extras such as these alone warrant a second look. As for any serious student of history--be it rock, cultural, or otherwise--my only question is what are you waiting for?

Don't Look Back - 65 Tour Deluxe Edition is nothing less than an essential purchase for any serious Dylanologist, Rockologist--hell, any "ologist" period. It comes out next week.

The Rockologist On Embracing ABBA And Other Guilty Pleasures


Being the textbook sort of musical snob I like to think of myself as, I have a hard time admitting to some of the more decidedly "un-hip" sides of my music palette. At least in public anyway.

Some would call my continuing fondness for overblown, pretentious seventies progressive rock bands like Yes, Marillion, and Peter Gabriel era Genesis a flaw in my taste for example. Hell, for that matter they would probably nail me for the fact that in this past year alone I've written about a disproportionate number of seventies classic rock bands period.

And what about that Springsteen guy, some may find themselves asking. You know, the guy whose continuing "relevance" was a subject of some debate recently over at Blogcritics Magazine? After all, isn't Springsteen--the guy whose songs champion the values of the working class--a bloated millionaire liberal himself?

Well, why some might find themselves a little ashamed to admit to enjoying artists such as these, I myself choose to wave that fact as a flag of some honor. But for me, there is no guiltier pleasure in all of music than that of the perfectly constructed three minute or so pop song. I here and now confess that I am an absolute sucker for this type of sugary sweet ear candy.

You know the sort of songs I'm talking about. Many of them by one hit wonders such as The Raspberries ("Go All The Way"), and The Outsiders ("Time Won't Let Me") on the rock side, or a guy like Lou Christie ("Lightnin' Strikes," "Rhapsody On The Rain") on the more pop sounding side. Okay, so Lou Christie had more than one hit (actually so did the Raspberries).

Anyway, for me these sort of perfect little pop tunes can represent every bit the sort of audio bliss that something as meticulously constructed and put to tape as say, Born To Run or Pet Sounds does. And over the past thirty years or so, nobody but nobody has made a greater string of these largely unheralded little pop masterpieces than Abba. That's right, I said Abba.




So for this edition of The Rockologist, I am going to remove that particular hat, and replace it with that of the Popologist. Let's talk about Abba for a few minutes shall we?

First of all, what a lot of people don't realize about Abba is that they have more than a few fans amongst the more "respectable" members of the rock community. I remember meeting Nick Lowe for example backstage in the seventies at a concert, where I noticed he was wearing an Abba button. Lowe at the time was one of the most sought after producers in music, in addition to crafting his own little pop gems such as those found on his album Pure Pop For Now People. So when I remarked about his Abba button, Lowe gushed about how he was then producing an album for Elvis Costello and that the sound he was looking for would be to make an "Elvis Costello Abba album." That album tuned out to be Costello's brilliant third album, the pop masterpiece Armed Forces.

What Abba did so flawlessly for most of the seventies was crank out hit after hit after hit in the form of these beautifully crafted great pop singles. Many of them you know of course--there's "Dancing Queen," "Take A Chance On Me," "Mamma Mia" and all the rest. A lot of these great songs owe more than a little to Phil Spector, such as "SOS" with it's swirling production resembling nothing so much as it's own "wall of sound."

Other songs you may not know as well, as not at all of them were near the big hits in America that they were in Europe. Take "Honey, Honey" for example. Notice how, in the video for the song, Agnetha and Annifrid (or "Frida" as those of us who love her know her), sing the lyrics in such an innocent sort of way, even as they coyly sway their hips in what is damn near a "come hither" sort of suggestion.

The song itself cleverly disguises itself as a sweet sort of little "I love you," while still managing to mask it's more erotic intent. On the one hand theres a line like "I'm gonna stick to you boy, you'll never get rid of me," while on the other there's "Honey to say the least, you're a doggone beast." So you tell me what they are really singing about here.



Simply put, Abba's best songs were about sex. But they were so cleverly packaged as sweet, innocent little pop songs--with Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida themselves the very embodiment of such wholesome innocence--that the majority of the world never got it, even as they gobbled up this ear candy to the tune of something like a billion records sold. Again, take another song like "Knowing Me Knowing You." Now you tell me what this song is really about.



Well okay. Maybe "Knowing Me Knowing You" isn't about sex. But have you ever heard a song about breaking up sung in such an erotic way? The way Agnetha sings the backup vocal as a breathy sort of whisper makes you want to skip past the breakup altogther and get straight to the makeup part.

If it sounds I'm fixating on the sexuality of Abba's two female singers here, I actually have a confession to make. In my twenties, and supposedly all grown up and past such things, I actually had something of a teenybopper's crush on Frida. You think I'm kidding? Try this on for size.

When Abba finally toured America in what I want to say was about 1979, I scored third row tickets and took the girl I was seeing at the time to the show. Well, when Frida would make her way over to our side of the stage, she kept making eye contact with me. This actually caused me to squirm in a way not at all unlike that of a teenage girl at a Clay Aiken (or back then, Shaun Cassidy) concert. As I went on and on about how "Frida was looking at me," my date's anger rose just as steadily. I never saw her again after that night.



So these days Abba finally appear to be getting some respect. Touring Abba tribute bands like Bjorn Again do pretty big business on the concert curcuit, and the musical "Mamma Mia," based on Abba's songs, has been a box office smash all over the world.

But more importantly, the bands songs and the way they were produced are also finally getting their rightful due. People finally seem to have come around to the fact that Bjorn and Benny share as much with people like Brian Wilson, John Phillips, and Phil Spector as they do with Barry Gibb and the other disco songsmiths they were lumped into a category with back in the seventies.

So go ahead and dust off that copy of Abba Gold you've been keeping in the closet and give it a spin. Go ahead and admit it. You love it.

It's okay. Honest.

John Mellencamp: The "Little Bastard" Takes Us Down "Freedom's Road"

CD Review: John Mellencamp-
Freedom's Road

Poor old Johnny Cougar.

You see that's what they used to call him way back in the day when he was first managed by Mainman's Tony DeFries, whose other big name client at the time was a guy named David Bowie. Cougar's problem at the time was respect, or more specifically the lack thereof.

The way around the problem? Dump the manager. Change your name. Change it several times actually, first shortening the Johnny to John, than adding your birthname of Mellencamp, then finally dumping the Cougar moniker altogether.


Whatever works.

Yet even with the numerous name changes, respect would be a long, hard fought battle for John Mellencamp. The biggest problem dogging him was the constant comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, and the perception (at the time) that Mellencamp was little more than the poor man's Boss. I'll even confess that for the longest time, I was one of those who snickeringly referred to John Mellencamp as "the Employee."

Whatever works.

That all changed with the release of Scarecrow in 1985, an album even I begrudgingly had to confess at the time painted a more accurate portrait of the problems facing working class America--or more specifically in this case, the American farmer--than anything on Springsteen's then current Born In The U.S.A.. The songs weren't half bad either.

Now before I'm engulfed by the howls of protest I already hear coming from my fellow Boss fans, I'll also admit that Springsteen's message was widely misunderstood (and misappropriated by certain opportunistic politicians) at the time. But what do you expect when your wrap your album sleeve in an American flag smack dab in the middle of the Reagan era? The thing that makes Scarecrow the better record for my money is it's honesty and straight forwardness. There's no mistaking what the title track there was all about. None whatsoever.

So with Scarecrow, Mellencamp was finally taken seriously as an artist. And for awhile there, he took the ball and ran with it. Scarecrow's followup, the mountain-folk (okay, hillbilly) inspired The Lonesome Jubilee added an Appalachian flavor to the mix, brimming with fiddles and accordians a full twenty years before Springsteen explored similiar instrumentation on The Seeger Sessions.

Unfortunately, Mellencamp's catalog gets very spotty after that, with the last really great album being Human Wheels in the early nineties. Which, unfortunately sold less than half what Scarecrow did.

Which brings us to the present and John Mellencamp's new record, Freedom's Road. And damned if Mellencamp hasn't gone and done the exact same thing Bruce did with Born In The USA. By allowing the real message of this records most visible song, "Our Country," to be obfuscated by linking it to a damn car advertisement, Mellencamp paints himself into a picture straight out of a Toby Keith redneck tailgate party.

The thing is, do lyrics like "theres room enough here for science to live, and room enough here for religion to forgive," and "poverty will be just another ugly thing, and bigotry is seen as just another fiend" sound like they were written by a George Bush worshipping, gun-toting neo-conservative to you? I didn't think so. Just to be clear, those are just some of the lyrics you won't hear on that damned commercial.

It's too bad, because this is also Mellencamp's catchiest melody since "Smalltown" and taken on its own, outside of it's commercial use, the song evokes similiar images of rural populism. I understand an artist like Mellencamp has to do what he's gotta do these days to get his song heard. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done there.

The good news is aside from it's questionable marketing, Freedom's Road is John Mellencamp's most consistent record since Human Wheels, and his most direct and straight forward--both lyrically and musically--since Scarecrow. Like those records, the songs are pretty damn good too.

This is basic, rootsy Americana style rock and roll like Mellencamp hasn't done in what seems like ages. With the guitars front and center in the mix throughout the record, they chime like bells when necessary, but also rumble with a Link Wray sense of urgency when the lyrics turn toward the darker subjects here.

Because make no mistake, this "Freedom's Road" is paved with "Ghost Towns Along The Highway" where "no one wants to live here anymore." There's even a "Rural Route," the scene of an unspeakable crime which prompts "an amber alert all over the nation" and "someone predicts a young girls death." But for all of those darker side streets found on Freedom's Road, the hope of America never lies too far beneath.

In the album's opening track, Mellencamp yearns for a "Someday, I don't when..." and then never really even answers the inherent question. But the contrasts are clear. On the one hand this is "the road of madness and trouble, paved with intolerance, ignorance and fear," yet Mellencamp is still able to "look at your face, you look just like me" and conclude "hey brother, I'm not your enemy."

If there is an overall theme to this album, it is in fact that tolerance is an American family value. In fact, Mellencamp could just have well titled the album "Tolerance." He puts it simply and succinctly on the track "The Americans" with it's refrain of "I'm An American, I respect you and your point of view. I'm An American. I wish you luck with whatever you do."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but on "Jim Crow," he enlists America's favorite folkie liberal Joan Baez to drive it home.

If Bruce Springsteen represents the conscience of America to many, John Mellencamp is a prime candidate as it's illegitimate little bastard son. So great as this record is (and it is a very early candidate for best of the year in my view), I just cant stop thinking of that damned car ad.

Yes, poor old Johnny Cougar.

His best record since Scarecrow could well end up being his least politically understood since that of another certain patriotic rock star.