Record mogul Clive Davis held the second installment of his star-studded two-part virtual 2021 Grammy party on Saturday. The hours-long event featured various Zoom interviews, including a chat with John Mellencamp, during which the heartland rocker revealed some interesting news about his upcoming studio album.
Billboard reports that Mellencamp announced, “Bruce [Springsteen] is singing on the new record and is playing guitar. I finished the record a week ago today.”
In February, Mellencamp revealed that he was working on his 25th album, and also debuted a new song from the project, an acoustic track called “I Always Lie to Strangers.”
Before introducing Mellencamp, Davis played a clip of John performing “Pink Houses” at the first Farm Aid in 1985. Clive then talked with Mellencamp about how regretted that he once passed on signing John because the singer/songwriter hadn’t yet developed his sound. Mellencamp, who was being compared to Springsteen at the time, told Davis he was right for not signing him then.
Mellencamp also shared some information about the jukebox musical he’s been working on, which he revealed was titled Small Town and which he expects to open soon in Birmingham, Alabama, before it hopefully makes its way to Broadway.
John reported that he didn’t write any new songs for the production, noting, “I told them, I have 600 songs published. Surely you can find 12 to 15 songs that will work.”
Saturday’s event, which raised money for the Grammy Museum, originally was scheduled to take place on March 30, but was postponed when Clive was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy.
Among the many other A-list stars interviewed during the bash were Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Queen‘s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Dave Grohl, Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow, Slash and Carlos Santana.
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.