On the Beat: Overalls, mannequins in an intimate Omaha show from John Mellencamp

Although his name never comes up, there’s an argument that can be made that, when he incorporated the violin and accordion into his “Heartland rock” in the mid-1980s, Mellencamp was among the first popularizers of Americana, even though the designation didn’t exist four decades ago. That certainly resonated with particularly “Rain on the Scarecrow,” by far the best song of the family farm crisis of the ’80s, “Check It Out,” and a solo acoustic guitar/harmonica “The Eyes of Portland” that plugged directly into the Woody Guthrie tradition. That song that...