By Martin Scholz (Die Welt).
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The interview begins with a clearing of the throat, which soon turns into a cough.
"
Excuse me
", slips the hoarse voice of John Mellencamp, at the beginning of our telephone interview: it sounds like a mixture of Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits.
The 70-year-old singer-songwriter is proud of his voice inherited from cigarettes.
Even after the heart attack he suffered at the age of 42, he never wanted to give it up.
On the other hand, he stopped alcohol long before that, believing that the danger actually lay in the combination of alcohol and nicotine.
In more than 40 years, he has written many international hits like
Jack and Diane
,
Scarecrow
or
Small Town
.
In his songs, he evokes the distress of the peasants, the Amerindians and the Blacks.
The nickname "
poor man's Springsteen
" which has often been given to him in the past amuses him.
He has just answered it in his own way by sharing the microphone with Bruce Springsteen on several songs from his new album, "
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