HONEYDEW
Shawn Mullins
Vanguard Records
ASIN: B0012X9KLY
Song list:
01. All in My Head
02. Home
03. Ballad of Kathryn Johnston
04. Homeless Joe
05. Leaving All Your Troubles Behind
06. Fraction of a Man
07. See That Train
08. For America
09. Cabbagetown
10. Nameless Faces
11. Song of the Self, Chapter 2
12. Rewind the Years

Shawn Mullins’ new album Honeydew is folk and rock in genre, with a bit of Atlanta-brand country. It blends all three and should please fans of those styles. My favorite song on this album, though, is See That Train, which is an upbeat country sort of offering. In a world of rap and hip hop blaring from cars at every stoplight, Honeydew is a refreshing change. The album is a modern rendition of American and musical folktales. In See that Train, a hobo’s girlfriend leaves him asleep beneath a water tower between whistle stops and moves on to Birmingham. How sad it is to be homeless and also abandoned by a lover. Some of my ancestors worked their way West on the railroad lines and this song reminds me of their hard work as well.

The Ballad of Kathryn Johnston is another favorite song from this album, and one to be taken seriously. The haunting melody and lyrics of this folksong tell the true story of an elderly woman form the American South. She felt she needed to go buy a gun for protection in a high-crime Atlanta neighborhood. After she purchased her protection, someone broke into her home at night and she started firing. She was shooting at policemen that had targeted the wrong house in a drug raid. So it seems that she needed to protect herself form both sides of the law. This number makes you think about real life about America and how it needs to be fixed.

Homeless Joe describes some actual homeless street musicians in Atlanta, Georgia. They are disrespected, misunderstood, and shunned but each follows their own life’s calling. In that, they are likely happier than Middle or some of Upper America and they make good music. The song reminds us that the homeless are people, many talented and drifting with the wind of music the rest of us cannot hear.

The song Home reminds my of my Irish-British ancestors in 1800s America, looking for a better living in the States. Atlanta and other large hometowns nearly all have had ethnic ghettos in which each nationality developed their own style of industry at the beginning, out of their needs and special talents, including survival. 

Fraction of a Man points at Mid-Life Crisis and connects it with doing non-useful work. In this case, it is traveling sales and reminds me of Death of a Salesman. Seeking solace in alcohol, Shwan’s traveling salesman still cannot escape the loneliness of the road.  Each of the songs in this album offers up American characters that we cannot ignore. It is a sort of folk-rock summary of America and where she has been for the last fifty to a hundred years. A US Army Veteran, Mullins has seen the homeless, forgotten, crime-plagued neighborhoods, but also the hope in peoples’ eyes. His songs and this album should become a classic to be remembered along with those of Peter Paula and Mary, and Bob Dylan.

Shawn Mullins: http://www.shawnmullins.com/

Patty Inglish, MS