My Stupid Heart

Personnel: Lari White (vocals).
Audio Mixer: Mills Logan.
Recording information: The Holler, Nashville, TN; Yes Master Studios.
Photographer: David McClister.
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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine