A couple years after Dad’s passing in 2009, it struck me like lightning that I didn’t have him any more, but I had a treasure-trove of his life’s work. I began sifting through old 45’s and LPs, listening to his music that had been recorded by people like Hank Snow, Elvis Costello, Sinead O’Connor, The Wilburn Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jean Shepard, and so many others. I started pulling out the old cassette tapes and began the process of getting them transferred, and then I started sharing these old gems with area musicians, many of whom started playing songs written by Johnny Mullins.
I never really played guitar until shortly before beginning my musical legacy mission. It was after Dad’s disease started to progress that I realized I wanted to learn more of his songs, so I started plunking out some chords. I started playing Johnny-tunes around campfires at music festivals, or in living rooms at parties. People would ask me, “Hey, what’s that song you just sang?” I’d tell them my Daddy wrote it, and ask if they wanted to sing it with me. My initial goal, in addition to enjoying sharing his tunes, was to get others interested in playing his songs, and that continues to be a goal. That’s how a legacy lives on, because unless history and scientific data is incorrect, I won’t.
At this part of the story, I find myself regularly and joyfully performing songs and telling stories from the Johnny Mullins Collection. A little over a decade ago, I had no idea I’d be on such a busy and dedicated path of sharing Dad’s music, but now I cannot imagine NOT doing it. I’ve heard interviews of Dad where he said, “Things started really happening for me later in life.” He was 50 when he went to the Grammy’s, and I find it ironic that things are happening for me later in my life, all because of the legacy of music that he gifted me with.
In the Spring of 2013, the momentum and interest in Dad’s legacy put me on the edge of a cliff where I realized I could either stay put and just focus on archiving, or I could leap and begin a full-fledged mission that has turned into regular performances of the Johnny Mullins Collection. So I started to learn more songs and spent many Monday evenings in Bo Brown’s cabin on the hill where he enthusiastically helped me hone my musical skills and arrange Dad’s songs for shows. I played with Bo regularly for five years, and then formed The Layton Hollow Gals. I also shared “Johnny-songs” when performing with The Ozark Songbirds, a five-piece female band I was honored to be a part of, and have taken part in several shows highlighting original songwriters where they let me bend the rules and present songs from the shoebox collection. I also perform solo shows, and offer presentations with stories and memorabilia displays.
I do perform Dad’s “hits,” but my main goal is to continue to discover and share new/old songs with as many people as I can. I’ve played Dad’s songs on the stages of the historic Gillioz and Fox Theatres, on stage at the Folk Alliance International Conference, on KSMU Studio Live, Kansas City’s KKFI River Trade Radio, and television appearances on Go Bluegrass, Sound Check TV and Ozarks Live. I play solo shows regularly, but I’m also blessed to have accompaniment from some of the area’s most talented and wonderful musicians and collaborators. We play house concerts and listening rooms (my favorite type of venue), theatres, festivals, farmers markets, pubs, distilleries, coffee shops, social houses, churches, banquets, corporate parties, picnics, museums, group meetings, retirement communities, libraries and historical societies. You name it, I’ll probably sing there. I’ve played Johnny Mullins songs at Rose O’Neill’s Bonniebrook annual Open House, and at the Oldfield Opry and Luttrell’s Auction & Live Music Hall on Route 66. Every single show fills me with joy and I leave thinking I’m the luckiest gal in the Ozarks!
In 2017 The Johnny Mullins Collection, Volume One was recorded and produced by Jim Rea Music, with 18 tracks featuring some of the Ozarks’ best musicians lending their talents to the project, and also including a spoken intro and a song by Dad himself and an acapella duo of a gospel song with me and my sweet Mama Peggy! The making of that album was actually what got The Layton Hollow Gals together, and after performing together for a few years and having a planned album set-back due to Covid, we had a great time recording in Barak Hill’s Mid-Americana Sound Studio in 2024 and were thrilled to release our all-female adaptations of 14 more of Dad’s songs in The Johnny Mullins Collection, Volume Two.
I have so much to say about The Layton Hollow Gals that I’m going to do a separate blog post, and I’ll also post about playing with Bo Brown, The Ozark Songbirds and other collaborations and influences and people who have supported this legacy mission.
In releasing these albums, I think about how old these “new” songs are, about which part of Dad’s life they might have come from, or which country landscape he was looking at, or which broken-hearted lover’s story he was telling. I realize that the words and visions of Johnny Mullins matter. They affect people on a level that can bring tears, dust off memories from their lives or stories from their elders, or just evoke an understanding of a time gone past, and a reminder that things haven’t really changed very much. They are songs about being human; about love, longing, empowerment, rivers, creeks, animals, trees, the sky, tangled vines, honkytonks, faith, humor, family, and journeys. They bring us together and make us dream, if only for an hour or so, of a simpler or harder time. The songs of Johnny Mullins will make you think, and as long as I have something to say about it, they will continue to ring into the world!
“The music stopped, the people left, and he put the guitar back in its case. Then like a little girl will sometimes do, I got right up in his face. “I really liked your singin’ Mister, well, to me it sounded mighty fine. I could sit here all day long and listen to your songs; I’m not lyin’.” I could tell that he was very old as he placed a wrinkled hand in mine. “Sweet girl, would you like to have this guitar and learn these songs of mine? See, somebody’s got to keep singing ’em, and, well, I know I ain’t got long. So if I teach you some chords on this here guitar, will you sing my songs when I’m gone?” (“The Baby Lamb” by Johnny Mullins)
