Once upon a time, I was a young bride and brand new mommy living in Colorado Springs. For extra
cash I nannied. My charge, a precocious toddler named Tori, absolutely adored the Shawn Mullins song “Lullabye.” Every time she heard it she would grab her favorite dolly, crawl up into the big rocking chair, and croon “Everything alright. Rock a bye bye bye bye bye…” I’d have dug this two-year old’s taste in music even if it had not provided me respite from endless hours of Barney videos. Now here I am a million years later, living in Columbus, GA, with a chance to see that same artist live at The Loft.
Shawn Mullins is a bard, a poet, a story-teller. He is equal parts hippy folkster and honky-tonk bluesman. He spins tales – some comedic, some pensive, some even sad. His soothing baritone weaves spoken narrative over lilting guitar riffs as often as it winds tuneful melodies. His lyrical portraits and landscapes make me homesick for places I’ve been in this life and surely past lives too as they feel so familiar they could not possibly be new to me.
When light-hearted, Mullins performs with a wink in his voice, as though we are all in on some grand private joke. He sings what he terms “a redneck waltz”, tinged with irony but completely free of condescension. And really, who doesn’t love a redneck waltz?
When dealing with more serious themes, Mullins embodies activism without a hint of preachiness. He expresses pain and heartbreak without sappiness. He infuses angst with bliss. He glamorizes the artistic slacker – that individual who is simply too sensitive and gifted to deal with mundane, ordinary life. He makes me feel ever so much better for being such a delightfully creative loser myself.
An evening spent with Shawn leaves me with mental pictures shot in sepia tones and flush with sunlight. These images are full of smiles, captured forever so that they can be revisited years later on rainy afternoons through a filter of age and wisdom, like looking back at photos of little girls in big rocking chairs, singing lullabies to dollies.
