In John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages, a survey of the artist s large-scale oil portraits and mixed-media pieces documents America s heart and soul, revealing unsettling but beautiful truths with a kind of anti-establishment frown and a rich sense of narrative. A foreword by Dr. Lou Zona, Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Butler Institute of American Art, and an essay by New York Times critic and cultural writer David L. Shirey put Mellencamp s work in context as a true American painter. As his musical career flourished, Mellencamp began to paint in the 1980s with an early affinity for portraiture influenced by the works of Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. His kinship with the German Expressionism of the early twentieth century, with its existential focus on the human condition, serves as the foundation for the development of Mellencamp s oeuvre. An interview by SPIN magazine founder Bob Guccione Jr. further delineates the connection of Mellencamp s music and art, both carefully composed through the structural requirements of harmony, rhythm and order, and imbued with the small-town, earnest voice of America s Heartland.

Tom Weschler spent more than ten years from the late 1960s through the 1970s in the Bob Seger camp, working as tour manager and photographer during Seger's hard-gigging, heavy-traveling, reputation-making early days. Weschler's behind-the-scenes photographs document the frustrations and triumphs of recording, performing, songwriting, and building the Seger empire before the breakthroughs of Live Bullet and Night Moves. Travelin' Man collects Weschler's early photos with additional images leading into the present. Weschler and award-winning music journalist Gary Graff annotate the images with Weschler's recollections of the events and Graff provides additional background on Seger's career in an introduction, timeline, and cast of characters section. Weschler's photographs and stories pull back the curtain on seldom-seen aspects of Seger's career, including time in the studio recording Mongrel, early struggles to get radio airplay, and small shows at schools and shopping malls. Weschler captures Seger's personality on stage and at home and reveals the colorful personalities of those people he worked and performed with, including Alice Cooper, Bruce Springsteen, Glenn Frey, and KISS. He takes readers inside Seger headquarters in Birmingham, Michigan, and practice space in Rochester, Michigan, introducing them to renowned manager Punch Andrews and the various members of Seger's bands. Weschler's photos feature highlights like Seger's show at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1976, his first gold record in 1977, the first meeting between Seger and Bruce Springsteen in 1978, and Seger's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. Travelin' Man also contains art from eight Seger album covers that Weschler designed, a foreword by John Mellencamp, an afterword by Kid Rock, and a comprehensive discography. Seger fans and readers interested in music and biography will enjoy the one of a kind story in Travelin' Man.