Shawn Mullins - My Stupid Heart (2015) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist
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01. The Great Unknown
02. It All Comes Down To Love
03. Ferguson
04. My Stupid Heart
05. Roll On By
06. Go and Fall
07. Gambler’s Heart
08. Never Gonna Let Her Go
09. Sunshine
10. Pre-Apocalyptic Blues
On his first album in five years, Shaw Mullins releases what is perhaps his best album. “My Stupid Heart” is a virtual dead heat with 2006’s “Ninth Ward Pickin’ Parlor” as his career best. “My Stupid Heart” exhibits a diversity of styles. The core of the album, as always, is Mullins melodic songwriting. There is a Pop foundation from which all of these songs are built. From that base, the songs are layered with his other influences from New Orleans style Jazz, Gospel, Folk and even a little Country. As diverse as the musical styles are, the subject matter of the songs is just as varied. There is no overriding theme on this record. Instead you have everything from love songs to social commentary and he mixes in a little humor along the way.

Produced by Lari White (Toby Keith), and recorded at The Holler in Nashville, Tenn, My Stupid Heart features appearances by Michael Rhodes (bass), Gerry Hansen (drums, percussion), Jerry McPherson (electric guitar), Guthrie Trapp (mandolin, bazouki) and Dan Dugmore (steel guitar.) Mullins was also joined by Chuck Cannon (acoustic guitar, vocals) and Max Gomez (vocals), who helped to co-write several of the songs this release.

My Stupid Heart addresses some of the perceived relationship failures Mullins was experiencing when he wrote this album. The result is Mullins’ most revealing record yet. A collection of 10 deeply personal songs, it explores themes of love and loss. Mullins says, “This record came out of all that; all the feelings, all the heartache.”

Throughout the album, Mullins deftly balances songs of suffering — from the title tune and “Go and Fall,” to the powerful, yet subtle social commentary of “Ferguson” — with songs such as “Roll On By,” which strikes an upbeat note of hope.

There’s humor, too. “It All Comes Down to Love” targets preachers, politicians, the NRA, Wall Street, and street dealers; and “Pre-Apocalyptic Blues” hilariously lampoons the doom-mongers arming themselves against Armageddon. The Levon Helm-influenced “Never Gonna Let Her Go” reveals the thrills of riding that relationship roller-coaster, and even the sigh of resignation that is “The Great Unknown” contains lines so striking, you can’t help but smile at their brilliance and depth.

The theme of this record, he says, is summed up most succinctly by another song title: “It All Comes Down to Love.” In that respect, Mullins says, it’s not all that different from most of his discography, including his last release, 2010’s Light You Up. Mullins has garnered acclaim and amassed a devout fan base with his previous releases, including 1998’s Soul’s Core, the album that shot him to fame on the strength of its Grammy-nominated No. 1 hit, “Lullaby,” and 2006’s 9th Ward Pickin’ Parlor, which contained his AAA/Americana No. 1, “Beautiful Wreck.”

„Unbeknownst to the average listener who never heard anything beyond his 1998 AAA hit "Lullaby," Shawn Mullins spent the better part of the next two decades deepening, undergirding his sighing melodicism with an underpinning of country-rock. Such Americana leanings mean he's at home on Sugar Hill, the renowned folkie label that released My Stupid Heart in the fall of 2015. Despite this connection, My Stupid Heart isn't a simple singer/songwriter record, one where he supports himself with nothing more than an acoustic guitar. It's a fairly full-blooded album, one where Mullins is as at ease with burnished ballads and shuffling showtune blues as he is with broken-in country-rock and elegant tunes that echo his big hits. Despite a protest song for Ferguson, Missouri, what's striking about My Stupid Heart is how it doesn't feel explicitly connected to its time: it draws from Americana traditions and finds new elements to explore within that vein.“ (Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

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