Born in '51 and today turning 51, our Hoosier hometown hero John Mellencamp was born October 7, 1951. Happy birthday Big Daddy!

For whatever reasons, John Mellencamp has never gotten the credit as a great artiste that Springsteen has, but he'll go song to song with the Boss, with nowhere near the hypocritical commercial crassness. If you don't own Uh Huh, Scarecrow, and The Lonesome Jubilee, your life just isn't complete.

Among lesser known Mellencamp work, you definitely should have the excellent eponymous John Cougar album, on which the hit "I Need a Lover" rates as actually one of the lesser cuts. "Small Paradise" stands out especially.

Also, almost no one has seen his movie Falling from Grace. That's too bad, but understandable. He didn't conjure up a commercial star vehicle, but a dark and utterly unglamorous meditation on his internal demons. It's not necessarily THE great movie of the year, but a real and thoughtful film. Fans should definitely see it.