This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
John Mellencamp can’t lay claim to inventing roots-rock, but he sure did his part to spread the gospel back in the ’80s.
On the rugged and rough-hewn Trouble No More, though, Mellencamp pretty much skips the rock and goes straight for the roots with a 12-song set focusing on blues and folk chestnuts from days gone by. Aided and abetted by biting National steel guitars, edgy electric slides, glistening pedal steels, crash ’n’ bash drums, lumpy basslines and the odd mandolin, fiddle and accordion, Mellencamp puts on a show midway between a backporch jam and a juke-joint tearup. You can practically hear him pour himself a shot and light up a smoke as he applies his weathered rasp to classics by Robert Johnson (Stones in My Passway), Son House (Death Letter), Woody Guthrie (Johnny Hart), Willie Dixon (Down in the Bottom) and Memphis Minnie (Joliet Bound), to name a few. Along the road there are a few picturesque sidetrips — Teardrops Will Fall and Diamond Joe get Mellencamp’s trademark jangly heartland-rock treatment, the traditional John the Revelator is a rich gospel duet, and the presence of Lucinda Williams’ Lafayette bridges the generation gap with a respectful nod to one of Americana’s greatest contemporary songwriters. For the most part, however, Trouble No More is nothing short of a welcome blast from Mellencamp’s — and America’s — musical past.
