Rich Mullins

    Rich Mullins

    Richmond, Indiana8 reviews across 5 releases

    acoustic rockccmfolk rockworship
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    Rich Mullins was an American Christian singer-songwriter from Richmond, Indiana, whose public career grew out of church music and the band Zion in the late 1970s. After moving to Nashville, he began recording as a solo artist in the early 1980s. His songs joined folk-pop writing to Celtic and Appalachian colors, with the hammered dulcimer often carrying arrangements built around piano. The music could be dense and baroque, but it was also willing to sound plain. By 1993 he had assembled A Ragamuffin Band. The group's changing personnel did not erase his authorship, though Brother's Keeper shifted toward a quieter guitar-and-organ sound and a reflective mood. His writing could place a prayer beside a joke, as in the song title "Quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil," while his concerts moved from serious teaching to laughter without leaving the subject of faith.

    On September 19, 1997, Mullins died in an automobile accident in Illinois while traveling to a fund-raising event. The Ragamuffin Band then completed The Jesus Record from his cassette demos, adding studio performances by band members and guest singers; one disc preserved the rough home recordings while the other supplied polished arrangements. The record came out on Myrrh in 1998. Before his death, Mullins had moved from Nashville to Wichita, where he studied music education at Friends University while pursuing work with Navajo communities. His brother David directed The Legacy of a Kid Brother of St. Frank from 1998 to 2002, carrying that Native American outreach forward. The 2003 CD/DVD Here in America later assembled early demos, rare live material, and video from Mullins' final years.

    5 releases reviewed