★★★★★
Best known for his Grammy nominated hit "Lullaby" which contained his classic line about Hell-A being "...Nashville with a tan..." but the fact is, Mullins has been cranking out endearing and engaging folk rock for years. This new collection-his twelfth album-is more poignant, tight tunes about people experiencing too much drama in desperate little towns you're glad you're not stuck in, "Cabbagetown," maybe...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
A sense of place has been inherent in the songwriting of troubadour Shawn Mullins's most recent recordings. 2006s 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor is heavily in debt to the city of New Orleans and the famed studio much of it was recorded in prior to being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The 2008 follow up, Honeydew, found the Georgia native returning to his roots; recorded in Atlanta and featuring a guest appearance from Georgia blues legend Francine Reed and songwriting rife with Georgia influences...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
A sense of place has been inherent in the songwriting of troubadour Shawn Mullins's most recent recordings. 2006s 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor is heavily in debt to the city of New Orleans and the famed studio much of it was recorded in prior to being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The 2008 follow up, Honeydew, found the Georgia native returning to his roots; recorded in Atlanta and featuring a guest appearance from Georgia blues legend Francine Reed and songwriting rife with Georgia influences...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-12-06
★★★★★
honeydew is Shawn Mullins' second release for Vanguard Records and sees him finding a niche that suits him rather more than the overnight success which came his way following the smash-hit success of his major-label debut,Soul's Core, back in 1998...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Despite being best known for the 1998 smash hit single "Lullaby," there's undoubtedly much more to singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins than just that one song. The success of "Lullaby," it seems, was both a blessing and a curse for Mullins: the pay dirt of a Top Ten single brought the reward his years of hard slog in coffeehouses and clubs deserved; but equally, major-label life conflicted with his organic, DIY spirit forged during years as an indie artist...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Storytellers, especially good ones, are fading faster than Taylor Hicks' career. There is one in particular that has been playing for almost two decades, creating and performing stories to hundreds of thousands of people. But it took until now for Shawn Mullins to release his first live album...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Sincerity was smug long before irony was, and while Mullins devoted a long, honorable folk-circuit career to reinventing the feeling before he stumbled on his very own "Taxi"--six indie albums in the trunk of his car and he could still muse, "I don't know what I've been lookin' for, maybe me"!--I figure he'd rather be called smug than dumb or, heaven knows, insincere...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10