Shawn Mullins’ vibrant new album, honeydew (released March 11th on Vanguard Records) is teeming with humanity — hobos, railroad workers, traveling salesmen, homeless troubadours, fearful old people, youngsters yearning to escape from a dead-end existence, and several generations of family members, living and dead. There’s a ton of heartache in this record, and a ton of hope as well, as Mullins explores the dark corners of contemporary existence while also delving back into the past, capturing vivid pictures of his native Atlanta and the surrounding South in a voice of plainspoken eloquence and uncommon genuineness. This richly interwoven, character-driven work is at once the most panoramic album of Mullins’ distinguished career and the most intensely personal. “These new songs are character sketches of people I’ve come across and places I’ve traveled through,” says Mullins. “Some of my earlier records were set in specific parts of the country; like the West Coast on Soul’s Core [his 1998 platinum album featuring the indelible hit “Lullaby”]. This one is about the South, what has changed and what hasn’t changed. It has to do with what I’m seeing around me, and telling stories that haven’t really been told.” In its richness of detail and sense of place, honeydew has the feel of literature. But this work has less in common with the Southern Gothic tradition of Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor than it does with the recognizable, everyday South of contemporary writers like Walker Percy and Pat Conroy. “I called the record honeydew,” Mullins points out, “because our family ate a lot of honeydew when I was a little kid. It sounds like home in the South to me.” A song cycle in 12 parts, honeydew took shape organically out of a series of devastating events in Mullins’ life, beginning with the death of his mother in October 2006. “It was a tough year,” he acknowledges, emitting a brief, rueful laugh before continuing. “And this is like a bad country song, but then my dog died. Roadie had been with me for almost 17 years. I was halfway finished with writing the record when all this devastation went down — I felt like death was all around me, and the process of writing helped me get through it.” Mullins had another setback early in his creative process, when his house was burglarized, and the thieves took not only his favorite old guitar but the computer he used for writing songs. “Fortunately, I got this little micro digital recorder about the size of a Pez dispenser, and I never left the house without it; I sang ideas and lyrics into it as they occurred to me. So it wasn’t about compiling ideas the way I’d always done before — this was really direct. It allowed me to get down exactly what I was thinking, so the finished song stayed close to the original idea.” The sessions took place way out in the country, about halfway between Atlanta and Athens, at Creekside Station, the home studio of Gerry Hansen, Mullins’ longtime drummer, who engineered and mixed. Along with other regulars, including bassist Patrick Blanchard, multi-instrumentalist Clay Cook, B-3/Wurlitzer specialist Marty Kearns and mandolin player Kip Conner, Mullins managed to snag guitarist Peter Stroud during a break in the touring schedule of his employer, Sheryl Crow. That move has paid off handsomely, as the Atlanta-based musician turns in some smoking performances like his extended soloing on “The Ballad of Kathryn Johnston,” which recalls Neil Young in Crazy Horse rapture mode. “I said, ‘Just let it go, brother,’ and man, did he ever,” Mullins marvels. “Peter is such a song-based player, and he really delivered. I borrow him whenever I can.” Also making strategic appearances are Atlanta blues and soul legend Francine Reed (Lyle Lovett), who brings her low-down wail to “Homeless Joe” and a dash of southern gentility to “All in My Head,” and Australian alt-country artist Kasey Chambers, whose backing vocal underscores the elegiac tone of “Cabbagetown.” While the performances from Mullins and his fellow players are enthralling in their naturalness and subtlety, honeydew’s most revelatory aspect is the songs themselves. “The artists who inspire me are incredible songwriters with a way of painting a picture — it sounds cliché, but that’s the way it is,” says Mullins. “More than anything, I’ve always aspired to write great songs, and I think I’ve grown a lot as a songwriter. Part of it stems from the fact that I finally feel complete artistic freedom, and because of that, the songs on this record say exactly what I wanted to say. These are my own pictures.”