On The Rural Route 7609

On the Rural Route 7609 is a four CD set that chronicles, in a most unique way, the arc of John Mellencamp's career, with a focus on his songwriting. The package, unlike typical box sets that tend to slavishly offer a chronological presentation of hits and near-hits, is programmed as if each of the discs were a freestanding album. The fifty-four tracks included in the collection are presented, in essence, as four albums with songs juxtaposed in a manner that offers the listener the experience of hearing them in a context that sheds new light on the themes and artistry that have made Mellencamp's music so cherished by so many over the course of four decades. While On the Rural Route 7609 offers a wealth of well-known material, a significant number of the tracks included are less familiar but equally compelling, especially in terms of providing an in-depth picture of Mellencamp's spectrum of creativity. The concept behind the four "albums" of the collection is to give long-term Mellencamp fans, and newer listeners alike, a more complete and insightful view of the artist's role as a writer and artist whose catalog of songs and recordings resound with substance and nuance. The songs selected reflect the artist's pop idol origins through his ascent to the ranks of America's most respected and socially active writers and performers. On the Rural Route 7609 also offers seventeen tracks previously unreleased on any John Mellencamp CD including guest readings of Mellencamp's lyrics by actress Joanne Woodward and best selling author/educator Dr. Cornel West. The discs are packaged within a 72-page book that includes an exhaustive essay and comprehensive track-by-track annotation by award-winning writer Anthony DeCurtis. His marathon interviews with Mellencamp were conducted in Bloomington, IN where DeCurtis, coincidentally, earned his PhD in American literature at Indiana University. Mellencamp tells the story behind each of the songs included in the set and there's a scholarly introductory essay by DeCurtis as well. The package, a truly lavish assemblage, includes rare and evocative photos printed on heavy stock that make On the Rural Route 7609 a distinctive set of albums, in the sense that albums - as originally conceived in earlier times - are cohesive collections of music.