There Was Always Music in the House
At age twenty-seven, Scott Mullins is the youngest member of the Mullins Family Singers from Dickenson County, Virginia. The quintet includes his mother and father, Myrtle and Billie Gene; his sister, Anita; and his aunt, Anna Bell. Roadside Theater is currently collaborating with the Mullins to create a new musical play that will premiere in 1998. Following is a conversation the editor had with Scott about his family's music and the new collaboration with Roadside. Scott lives in Clintwood with his wife, Melanie, and their two-year-old son, Jonathan.
Yeah, Great Great Grandpa Enoch Mullins taught shape note singing in the 1800's. I don't know too much about him except that he passed the tradition on to Great Grandpa Dock Mullins who passed it on to Papaw Hie.
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Papaw taught Daddy how to play the guitar and mandolin when he was about eleven or twelve years old. Grandma played the autoharp. They called themselves the Mullins Family Trio. They sang in church and on the radio over at WNVA in Norton, and on WDIC in Clinchco. Dad grew up and married my mother, Myrtle, and they sang at revivals, church services, and at UMWA rallies. They recorded about fifteen to twenty 45-speed records.
So you were surrounded with music ...
There was always music in the house. I sang in the choir at church when I was ten or eleven, but earlier than that, I remember standing beside Grandma in the congregation. She would put her arm around me and sing her part, and we'd look at that old red song book together. One of the songs that stands out the most was "Blessed Light Shine On." Papaw Hie was pastor down there then, and he would sing:
There is a light, blessed light of love
That's shining down from heaven above.
Tis lighting up the glory road
That leads us to God's blessed abode.
Then Mamaw came in with her part signaling the whole congregation to join in. Those are sweet memories to me. Every time I get up there behind the pulpit I have a memory of Grandma standing there with me, singing.
Now music is such a big part of my life, and singing is an everyday thing with me. If I'm not doing it, I'm thinking about it. There's nothing, I guess, that could ever lift you up like a song. When somebody is pushing you around, you have some kind of everyday trouble, you can go and sing you a song and get it off your chest.
And you and your family are part of a community of song...
Whether it's us singing or whoever it is singing, it is such a vital part of the building up of our community. Sometimes if you can't reach somebody with the speaking voice, you can touch their life with a song. Just to give one example of this, there was a boy I grew up with who had a baby that passed away, and he asked us to come and sing at the funeral. We sang, and we did what we could do, and a couple of days later they came to me and said it had given them so much comfort. We sang a song the Isaac Family used to sing, "Is Not This the Land of Beulah," which goes like this:
I am dwelling on the mountain where the golden sunlight gleams
O're a land of sunlight beauty far exceeds my fondest dreams
Where the air is pure ethereal laden with the breath of flowers
That are blooming on the mountain 'neath the amaranthine bowers
You can picture that, the serenity of it, you know. We were on top of the mountain burying that child. You can see where it was a comfort.
Now you're writing songs ...
There were two things that prompted me to start writing music. One was that I had gone through some hard times. The other factor was Grandmother Frances' death. It's funny how it takes sometimes a death in the family to wake you up to what's really important. I've seen that happen a lot.
In my family, our singing and our faith have always kept us close together, tightly knit. I want that to be mentioned-- our faith and belief that God is going to watch over us and take care of us. I think the Lord gives us these songs. He inspires us. He gives us something to say to the people.
Since we started doing some work with Roadside, I've been inspired to talk a little more about what's on my mind and maybe think a little deeper about things around me. That has an effect on my song writing. I'd always talked to Ron (Roadside member and Scott's cousin) about bringing back the family sound, so we started trying the autoharp with a song I wrote, "Grandpa Was a Preacher," and it just fit and clicked. Since he's family, we just know how to work together I guess.
And now you and the family are collaborating with Roadside...
We've always been treated very well by Roadside Theater, and the people over at Appalshop have been open minded to what we do. Some places are not open to people making an expression of faith. Some people think we should just stick with the church. Our first love is the love of Christ, but I guess we came to an agreement that we wanted to somehow bring our message to a new audience-- to an audience that we ordinarily wouldn't be with. We wanted to share that sense of family with other people and bring that sense of fellowship and God's love to a new audience.
I hope that the spiritual journey of this new play will be as enriching to people as the other Roadside plays have been. People can go home and say, "That play was talking about my life too. That was my papaw. That was my mamaw, my mother and dad."
I hope that through this work I might be able to pass down a little bit of something to my children. I guess that's a dream of anybody who's ever been a parent.
