A few weeks ago, singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins played a show at Baton Rouge’s Red Dragon Listening Room which was nothing short of mesmerizing. With an aching timbre in his voice, hints of a southern accent he comes by naturally by way of Georgia inflecting into the emotional passages he is singing, Mullins has grown into the artist he always wanted to be: honest, passionate, soulful, bluesy, country holler twists with a Kris Kristofferson wink, with some joyful puns and everyday human actions all entangled in the storylines he weaves. Some of the songs are his, some he has written with others, such as Chuck Cannon. But when he stands on a stage with nothing but his acoustic guitar, whoever’s story he is telling becomes his because he pulls it so deep inside himself that when it circles back out, it’s with wisps of his own soul.
Mullins was once a pretty big star. He had a #1 song with 1998’s “Lullaby” and was nominated for a Best Male Pop Vocal Performance Grammy. He made some music videos that highlighted his youthful sensitive guy allure and sexy slow-cooking voice. But when he was ready to follow up that success with songs that leaned more towards the traditional singer-songwriter, the record company didn’t show a whole lot of interest, wanting hits that were similar to “Lullaby” and “Shimmer” from Soul’s Core. But Mullins had to follow his own path and eventually he has ended up twenty years down the highway with a better perspective on life simply by living it. He may have done a song with Elton John, “Border Song” on Mullins’ 2000 album Beneath The Velvet Sun, and co-written the Zac Brown hit “Toes,” but he has shared the stage with his musical idol Kristofferson and he counts his success in different ways.
With Soul’s Core hitting it’s twenty year anniversary this year, Mullins decided to re-record the album for Soul’s Core Revival, out now. But he didn’t just record it once, he recorded it twice: one version with his band, the second an acoustic rendering featuring stories about the songs. It could be labeled an ambitious project but it was more like giving those songs a new chance to shine at their new age, for Mullins, over the years, has changed and the songs have changed with him, gaining new meanings, even new lyrics.
Glide spoke with the Atlanta native before he hopped on a plane for the Baton Rouge show, spending some time talking songwriting, Soul’s Core, the influence of female artists, the burden of success and the excitement of a new project.
You are playing in Baton Rouge in a few days [show was December 7th]. Will it be just you and your guitar?
I’m bringing my bass player, Tom, who sings backing vocals with me. He’s really great. He’s known as Panda but Tom Ryan is his name. So it’s just the duo.
Do you enjoy playing in these more intimate settings?
Oh yeah, you really appreciate those kind of rooms when you’ve been doing it a long time. Most places I play now are like that. Those are the kind of places that I’m trying to play only really. Sometimes I’ll still play a loud room and I like to have my band with me if I’m going to do that so we can be louder than they are (laughs). But my thing is a singer-songwriter thing and it always has been kind of a folk singer thing really, so I can do it in any format. I can do it solo or with a duo or with a trio. It’ll rock sometimes but it won’t be like, you know, a rock band playing (laughs). There will be a lot more storytelling and the songs kind of flow but what’s the point if people aren’t listening. I mean, if you’re trying to tell a story, it’s the same thing as a storyteller or a poet reading a poem. To me, the kind of thing that I’m doing, it works a lot better if it’s a listening room because there’s a lot in the lyrics. So if you can listen and you can hear them and it’s pretty clear then I think people enjoy the show better. But at the same time, my band shows are a lot of fun too. I love doing it with the full band and you can still hear my lyrics because the sound guy always gets them to where you can hear them. It’s an interesting thing. I’ve gone back and forth and I love doing both really.
You know, Shawn, typically when an artist has a big record to celebrate they don’t usually re-record the whole album, much less re-record it twice. So tell us about that insanity.
(laughs) Well, the first thing was the engineer of Soul’s Core, Glenn Matullo, a great guy and friend of mine, and he was the engineer that recorded all that first record, he had recommended that I do something for the twenty year anniversary. I hadn’t really thought much about it. But because I’m in the middle of writing another record, it’s a good thing to do in between getting the next studio one ready and it also reintroduces the audience to it again. The normal thing to do is contact the label and have them remaster it and do everything that way. But because we’d been playing these songs for twenty years, and many of those years with the same musicians, even acoustically they’ve changed – I’ve done lyrics sometimes slightly changed and the melody certainly has changed over the years, just the way I perform the songs. So over the years they evolve and that’s what I wanted to capture on this, was how those songs were now performed and also the stories behind them with the acoustic album.
Which songs would you say have evolved the most?
I would say “Soul Child” evolved a lot; also, “The Gulf Of Mexico” is different in that it’s extended now. And you know, “Lullaby” is not all that different. I just don’t use all that electronic drums, it’s all acoustic drums at this point. You know, that original loop thing was one of those things in a library of loops, certainly from James Brown’s drummer, I’m almost certain of that. And it was a quick beat, like what James Brown would say, “Make it sound like popcorn.” So we slowed it down with one of those fancy machines and it ended up having this really weird beat. I didn’t really think that would end up being the signature drum sound for the song (laughs). All these years later, I don’t typically use drum loops. I like live musicians. So that’s kind of how that happened and that’s why I didn’t do that again. It was a happy accident.
On “Anchored In You,” you sing, “The road is my home and my spirit is wild.” How would you describe the wildness in you then at that time to the wildness in your spirit now?
Well, “Anchored In You” is another big evolution song that is totally different with the band now. But, of course, as you grow and live longer and have life experiences, some of that will tame you. What I try for it NOT to do is to tame my spirit. Even though it can break your body down and sometimes break your mind down and your emotional state, I try to keep at least that spirit wild and like a child. It’s that feeling of being a kid again where you can imagine and use your full imagination to create something. And that’s what I really got out of it at the end.
Nowadays, do your songs start out wild and crazy but when you get down to the end version you’ve put more heart and soul into it, toned it down?
Yeah, but to me that is the wild though. To me, the wild IS that heart and soul. So if anything, the wildness in the way I would perform the songs, the freedom in which I would perform the songs, is actually much bigger. And it’s because of the evolution and the life experiences and the ups and downs that I perform that way with no worry of, okay, what note am I going to hit next? You know, I used to worry about that stuff and I don’t tend to now. I kind of get up there and just be in the moment and enjoy it and give it everything I have, which I think I always did; it’s just a bit more mentally controlled now. It feels a bit more like, okay, this is what you do, be here with it. Onstage it’s a completely different thing than trying to write a song or being in the studio. You’re performing so you want to entertain them. So I have to trust that I will entertain them kind of being in that art/child-like space. And that’s the struggle but I tend to do it pretty well these days.
“And On A Rainy Night,” especially the acoustic version, seems to have a lot more melancholy to it. What can you tell us about that song?
That whole record was journal entries, the whole Soul’s Core record. For the most part, that’s why sometimes the titles were what they were because that was the town I was in. “And On A Rainy Night,” that’s a tough one cause really what it’s about is my first marriage and how as a traveling musician you tend to be the one everybody thinks is the cheater and the drifter. There’s a lot of history with that, I get it (laughs). But I have always been a one-woman man and I’ve always been that way and I’ve loved every woman that I’ve been with very fully and very loyal. So I guess what that’s about is the kind of feeling of being out on the road, and in the acoustic version I think I was able to tap into that in a whole other way than I would completely surrounded by wonderful musicians. When you’re there by yourself, you’re in a very vulnerable place and I probably tapped into those original feelings a bit more. And that’s why I did that acoustic record so that that kind of stuff would hopefully happen. And the stories. I didn’t want to get into it too much but my first wife basically ran off with someone else while I was on the road (laughs). It happens. People fall in love with other people they spend time with when the other person is not there. You live and learn and that’s a long time ago now. But I think that’s what that is about.
Writing about such personal feelings, you never hesitated about putting them into a song?
They were more just these personal journal entries I would do and so they oftentimes would rhyme, as for some reason I would encourage myself to make them rhyme, probably to exercise the songwriter part. I don’t know if that was right or wrong in doing it but what it ended up being was an album of stuff. At that point in my life, and as a songwriter, I was already with someone else and very much in love and that wasn’t going well either so, you know, you write what you feel and put it out there and that’s kind of what I do. It’s still what I do, I just do it with a lot more craft than I did at that point.
I tend to really think about personal against what the audience is going to take in. Twenty years ago I wasn’t even in a place to understand about the craft of songwriting enough. I just got lucky. So for me, it’s been twenty years of like learning how to really craft a song so that an audience will resonate with it, cause you don’t always luck out. And the songs I really am into are the great songs. Everything that I love, if I really look at the structure of it and the lyric and the melody, if it gets down to just that, it’s a great song, perfect. That is what I am always wanting to do now. I think back then I was just lost and on the road and lonely and journaling.
I understand that you’ve had a lot of influence from female artists. How did they shape you? Was it their songwriting?
Absolutely. Emily Saliers and Amy Ray from Indigo Girls, they’ve been big influences from the beginning with their writing and performing, their acoustic style of production and kind of putting that voice and acoustic guitar forward of everything else and letting that be THE thing. That started when I was in the ninth grade. That’s when I first met them and they weren’t even called Indigo Girls yet. So they were really helpful early on. They walked the walk. They would get a lot of benefits, they did a lot of really good cause type free shows and they seem to still be that way. It seems to have not changed. Michelle Malone is another one. Michelle has been an influence since the beginning, a do-it-yourself type of artist, and just a great, great American treasure, as far as I’m concerned. Danielle Howell from South Carolina, I don’t know if you know her but she’s really low-key. So there are a lot of them out there and some of these brilliant artists they are so into what they are doing at the moment that they don’t have someone promoting them.
But there are just some great artists out there, both male and female. But yeah, everybody from Billie Holiday to Big Mama to Sister Rosetta, all those kind of artists with that gospel/church background singing that kind of becomes R&B and blues and all of that, I love that. Ray Charles. And Bill Withers is one of my favorite artists ever. But then on the songwriting side, I tend to lean towards Kristofferson or Rodney Crowell or some of these great writers like that; Townes Van Zandt. And these are all marks that are extremely hard to hit but that’s the fun of it for me, to try, you know.
Has this type of music always been what you wanted to do? You never maybe wanted to be more on the country side or the southern rock side being that you are from the south?
My problem is that I’m influenced by many things. Kristofferson, he’s very country but he’s also got this kind of funky folky other thing going on. I don’t know if you are familiar with those records but they are not straight-up country records for sure, not a lot of them, but he’s considered a country & western artist or a country artist. What do you consider Randy Newman? Can you put your finger on what that is? Or Tom Waits? What do you call Tom Waits? You know what I mean? You don’t want to categorize it. I guess, even though I’m not on that level of any of those guys, for me, that’s kind of how I look at it. It’s not really a music that is meant to be put into a thing. It’s mixed with a lot of different stuff. It IS country, it IS R&B; it’s blues, it’s folk, it’s storytelling.
There is so much music out there and I know in order to sell it, I suppose to get people’s interest, you have to put it into some type of thing. But even though I’m probably not going to do a reggae record or whatever, one of my favorite albums of all-time is Exodus by Bob Marley; it’s like one of the greatest records ever. I love Willie Nelson so much and Merle Haggard – he’s the greatest of all the country singers, male ones as far as I’m concerned. It didn’t get any better than Merle Haggard. I grew up listening to him with my grandfather; and Jimmie Rodgers with my grandfather; and Jerry Clower with my grandfather. And all that stuff is stories, you know, and that’s the way I developed. So it was a mix and I ended up being kind of a mix too.
Why didn’t you become a railroad man like your grandfather and father?
Well, I guess I just always wanted to do the music thing. From when I was really little, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I got sidetracked a little while cause I had to pay the Army back for some college money, and I was glad to serve, and I was able to pursue music during that time too. But I didn’t really have any interest in working for the railroad so much. I heard a lot of stories about it which made me want to sing songs about it, I guess (laughs).
Did songwriting come before or after you got your first guitar?
Before. I was trying to make up little songs before that.
Was there a piano in the house?
Yeah, there was an old upright Spinet Baldwin, a little out of tune, but my mom would play “Spanish Eyes” and different things on it. She would sit with me and play a little bit and then I kind of took it from there. My brother and sister both played guitar and a bit of piano as well. I was just kind of around it a lot and loved it. I took to it more than anyone else, any of my siblings anyway.
So I think the piano was first and then the guitar came and as I was learning “Freebird” and “Gimme Three Steps” and songs like that, that was the beginning, cause my brother was learning the Skynyrd and the Eagles and stuff like that. “Ramblin Man” may have been one of the first ones as well. I loved singing those songs but then I kind of always wanted to make my own things up too. So I just slowly developed. It wasn’t anything real fast but I probably wrote ten or fifteen or twenty songs in the first couple of years, just messing around. I can’t say they were really great songs (laughs). The first one I really felt proud of that I felt like was a complete song was “The Drumming Clown” and I was probably nineteen when I wrote that. So it was years later that I felt like, okay, this is what I want to do, this story kind of thing, you know.
You won a high school talent show. What did you do?
Well, I wrote a song for the girl I was seeing, my girlfriend in high school, and it was on the piano and it was just a little ballad, a little love song, but somehow it won the talent show and I won a hundred bucks. I was fifteen and I remember thinking, man, I can’t believe this! I don’t make this much money in a weekend working at Wendy’s (laughs).
You didn’t really work at Wendy’s did you?
I worked at all those places and I even worked at the very first Home Depot ever. But once music took hold and I was able to get enough gigs, I didn’t really need to do other work. I made decent money, sometimes it was more money than I made later when I first kind of got out on my own and I was back to tips again. But for a few years in college, I would have these weekly gigs at the local little bar there and it was awesome. I had beer drinking money (laughs).
When you re-recorded these songs for Soul’s Core Revival, how faithful did you stay to the original guitars that you had used back then?
One of the guitars I used a lot that was the same guitar was my old Larivee that I recorded a lot of that on. Then I used another one as well but I think the Larivee was the main one I used; real similar if not the exact same instrument. I’ve got a bunch of them and I don’t always remember what I recorded on but I think this one was recorded on the same Larivee. The acoustic one was. The full band one was not. It was recorded with a Martin D28 of John King’s, the same Martin that has been on REM records and Indigo Girls records; a great acoustic guitar and he has it set up perfect. And I’m not a real Martin guy, I’m more of a Gibson guy now, but that guitar was perfect for me and he knew as an engineer – he’s kind of one of the best around – I had to just trust that I could play that guitar and I could. That was a wonderful instrument and easy to play. But the acoustic record I used one of the old Larivees that I did Soul’s Core.
You bring up that record and it was such a big record for you. Did it ever become an albatross when you tried to make new music after that?
Absolutely. All of a sudden I was on a big major label, and kind of the biggest one at the time. So Columbia, it’s a whole other deal and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into (laughs). It’s wonderful in a lot of ways and it’s terrifying and there were a lot of things I had no idea I’d be doing, like trying to come up with a Billy Joel song like last minute right before I’m to sing it live on national television. Weird stuff like that. With Dick Clark, you know, with a megaphone out there yelling at everyone, it was just terrifying (laughs). They did want to dress you up a little bit, Columbia does. That’s kind of one of their old-school things is they like to take the artist and kind of spruce them up a bit. But that was okay, I didn’t mind having nicer clothes, that was fine. I don’t think we went too far. They seemed to pretty much get my vibe.
But yeah, the next record was hard for me, knowing that they were going to want another hit, at least one, they wanted as many as they could get, and I wasn’t sure if that was the kind of record I was making. It didn’t really have what I thought were hits on it. And neither did they. So they had me go back and write more songs.
Was that kind of deflating?
Oh yeah, of course it was, cause you feel like you delivered something that is complete even though it’s not a hit record it’s a singer-songwriter record. And Columbia Records you would think, well, gosh, they’ve had almost all the great singer-songwriters over the years and you’d think they would be okay with it. I mean, how many James Taylor records were made with no hits on them? A lot, that’s how many. Bob Dylan had so many records that didn’t have necessarily hits on them. Bruce Springsteen, the same way. So I figured they could give me some good artist records to put out for my fans but they really wanted to go to radio, that’s where I started with them and they didn’t want to lose that. So I got it but it did hurt and that’s just part of the business.
I know you didn’t write the “Ghost Of Johnny Cash” song but you do it so powerfully. What got into your soul about that song that you had to record it?
It’s so well-written. I’ve heard my friend Chuck Cannon do it and he is one of the writers, so I was inspired specifically by him, listening to him do it on his record and live and then I would sing it with him live sometimes when we were touring together. And I thought to myself, I really want to record that song. I do it a little differently than Chuck but that is kind of what happened. Once in a while I’ll cover a song and it’s usually one song per album that will be somebody else’s that’s fun for me to do and I feel like I can do as if I wrote it, if that makes sense. I’m not really looking for other songs. I want to write my own music. But yeah, sometimes one will come along that I’ve just GOT to sing and put it on a record. And you hope that it will help the writer, whoever they are.
Do people come up to you a lot after shows and talk to you about how your songs have affected them?
Every single night, if I go out afterwards, cause sometimes I’ll be too tired or whatever. But I’ll get kind of the range from, “Oh your music is great to travel to. We love to take road trips and listen to your songs. It’s perfect to travel to;” to something as simple and sweet as, “My children grew up on your music and they’re at the show and they’re like twenty-something now and they’ve kind of grown up either being forced to listen to it or they started to like it after a while and now the whole family are fans;” and that’s really nice.
Then every couple of shows, someone will say, “Your music really got me through a really difficult time” and a lot of times they are in tears and I am too and it becomes a little bit of a personal thing for them and I have to kind of get in there with them. And you know a lot of musicians don’t want to do that. It’s hard. You have to be able to just kind of open it up and open your heart up to each person and I think it’s good for me to do that.
What are you writing about now?
You know, the latest songs I am working on right now is for a movie actually. I’m working on a movie soundtrack and it’s really fun. I’ve never done that and I’ve always wanted to do that. I’m working with Terry Rossio, who was the screenwriter for Shrek and all of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, a lot of Johnny Depp stuff. But he is just a wonderful songwriter as well and so what he does is he sends me lyrics, I create melody, and sometimes I work on the lyrics too a little with him, but most are really, really great already. I mean, obviously, he is a great writer. Songwriting is a different medium so I am very careful cause of who he is and how good he is but at the same time I’m like, “Hey man, you got 300 words here and we need to get it down to 150 for a four minute song.” (laughs)
So that has been fun but what is wonderful for me is I’m able to create melody without worrying about the lyrics for once, cause typically the work for me is the lyrics. So lyrics are pretty much done. I tend to help make them phrase better or maybe work on a certain rhyme or a way to say something and we talk about that a lot, he and I, through email or phone. So I’m kind of freed up to do music a lot right now and it’s not related to a record. I’ve got that on the backburner as this stuff is more film-oriented. It’s a lot of fun challenges for me. And that’s what it’s about for me, I think, is just being able to make music. If I can do that I can stay pretty happy.
Do they give you a lot to go with, like storylines and scenes?
They give me lots. At first I was a little lost and I was like, hey, you guys got to give me something to go from. What’s the idea? Who is singing it? And they were like, “Of course but we’re still writing it.” (laughs). So yeah, I’m getting a ton of information, which is really, really fun. It’s kind of like putting together a puzzle.
So will you have any time to go on the road in 2019?
Yeah, some. I’ll be working on this movie a lot. Then I will be working on the new studio record after that. But, you know, we’ll be working Soul’s Core Revival for months just trying to sell some records that are hard to sell these days.
And what defines success to you today?
That’s changed a lot cause the money thing was so part of it for a while, you know. But now that I am a dad at almost the age of a grandad really it’s different, you know. Of course being a dad is making me very happy and I love my son. He’s nine and that’s a huge part of my life, as of course it should be. As an artist, it’s leaving people with something they can go home with, like a great feeling. Hopefully they feel good (laughs).
Live photographs by Leslie Michele Derrough; portrait by David McClister
