Vanguard Records
2008
Honeydew
About This Album
Call it a comeback or just a continuation. After a five-year sabbatical, Shawn Mullins' 2006 release was a somewhat unexpected gem that even yielded a minor hit in "Beautiful Wreck." That album not only coalesced all Mullins' strengths as a sharp lyricist, a winning composer, and a distinctive vocalist, but revived a career most would have left for dead, and was one of his finest collections. The 2008 follow-up titled honeydew, inexplicably spelled with a lower case "h," shows that the previous platter was no fluke. This dozen-song set kicks off with another should-be hit single in the ringing mid-tempo "All in My Head" that boasts an impossibly catchy, strangely familiar melody. Its "na na" hook is perfect for crowd singalongs, making the song as commercial and crossover worthy as any he has written. Although composed in 2002 and left to languish on the Scrubs soundtrack, this is timeless folk-pop given a fresh arrangement and a new lease on life. There's nothing as immediate on the rest of honeydew, but that's not a problem since Mullins' character studies, which dominate the track list, are wonderfully fleshed out pieces. The forlorn old black woman who dies alone in "The Ballad of Kathryn Johnson," the confirmed bachelor mama's boy named Harry of "Fraction of a Man," and the rest of the "Nameless Faces" are intricate, vividly detailed portraits of the forgotten folks who populate Mullins' work here.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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