According to the No Better Than This Songfacts,Mellencamp and producer T-Bone Burnett recorded the 13 mono tracks for No Better Than This during the summer of 2009 using a 1955 Ampex portable recording machine and only one microphone, requiring all the musicians to gather together around the mic. The album was recorded while Mellencamp was on the road with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. It features members of his band plus guests such as guitarist Marc Ribot and former Johnny Cash upright bassist Dave Roe. The tracks were laid down at various historic locations, such as the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia, the historic Sun Studios in Memphis and the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where blues pioneer Robert Johnson made his first recordings in November of 1936.