Early life and education Richard Wayne Mullins was born to John Mullins, a tree farmer, and Neva Mullins, whose ancestors were
Quakers. He had two sisters and two brothers. The family called him by his middle name, Wayne, which he went by until college, when his friends called him Richard. Mullins grew up attending Arba Friends Meeting, a church in
Lynn, Indiana. The Quaker testimonies of
peace and
social justice later inspired many of his lyrics. When Mullins was in elementary school, his family moved and started attending Whitewater Christian Church, which he attended until he graduated. Mullins was baptized when he was in the 3rd grade. His great-grandmother taught him to play hymns and sing in
four-part harmony when he was very young, and he began to study classical piano with a Quaker teacher while in elementary school. He graduated from
Northeastern High School in 1974. Mullins was inspired when
the Beatles first appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. The event helped Mullins understand the influence of music. He was a fan of the Beatles music, and he was able to identify with
John Lennon in particular, despite philosophical differences. In his song "Elijah", written around the time of Lennon's murder, he included the phrase "candlelight in
Central Park." This was a reference to the
candlelight vigils held in the wake of the event.
Early career From 1975 to 1978, he was the youth pastor and music director at the
United Methodist Church in
Erlanger. Mullins was then focusing on his duties in the church, and performed minimally in public. He considered his music a hobby. His views on his music continued this way until 1978, when he took a group of teens from his church to the
Ichthus Festival in
Wilmore, Kentucky. He said that during this trip he witnessed the effect of music on the lives of young people, and decided to start pursuing music full-time.
Kansas and the move to Navajo Nation territory in the United States During the late 1980s, Mullins desired change and formulated a plan to leave Tennessee. In 1988, Mullins moved from Bellsburg to
Wichita, Kansas where, in 1991, he attended
Friends University. During this time he lived with his best friend, David "Beaker" Strasser. As part of his degree program, Mullins served as the choir director at West Evangelical Free Church. While in Wichita, he also regularly attended Central Christian Church. He graduated with a
bachelor's degree (BA) in Music Education from Friends University on May 14, 1995. His 1991 song "Calling Out Your Name" included a reference to
The Keeper of the Plains, a 44 ft tall sculpture in Wichita. After graduation, he and
Mitch McVicker moved to a
Navajo reservation in
Tse Bonito, New Mexico to teach music to children. Mullins and McVicker lived in a small
hogan on the reservation until Mullins' death in 1997. In 1996, at the Ichthus music festival, Mullins cited personal reasons for his move. He was asked if he made the move because God had called him to
proselytize and convert the
Native Americans. To this Mullins responded: "No. I think I just got tired of a White,
Evangelical, middle class perspective on God, and I thought I would have more luck finding Christ among the Pagan Navajos. I'm teaching music."
Music career Mullins had a distinctive talent both as a performer and a songwriter. His compositions showed distinction in two ways: unusual and sometimes striking
instrumentation, and complex
lyrics that usually employed elaborate
metaphors. Mullins did most of his composing and performing on piano and acoustic guitar, but he also had a prodigious talent for obscure instruments. He displayed arguably virtuoso skills on the
hammered dulcimer (in "Calling out Your Name" and "Creed"),
lap dulcimer (in "Who God is Gonna Use" and "Where You Are"), and the
Irish tin whistle (in "Boy Like Me/Man Like You" and "The Color Green"). Mullins formed his first band in 1976 to 77 while attending
Cincinnati Bible College. In 1983
Debby Boone recorded Mullins' "O Come All Ye Faithful", for her
Surrender album. In 1984, the song was also featured in a TV film,
Sins of the Past. Years later, Mullins shared thoughts about his relationships and personal life in a radio interview with Rick Tarrant:
Later recording career In 1987, Mullins spent time teaching conversational English in a South Korean seminary. He then served briefly as a
missionary in Thailand where he became involved with a ministry teaching trades and providing medical care to Chinese refugees. Neither album sold very well, but the Christian radio hit "
Awesome God" on his third album,
Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth, brought his music to a wider audience. The song "Awesome God" was written either at Rock Lake Christian Assembly camp in Michigan, or on the way to a youth conference in Bolivar, Missouri in July 1987. The details of the song's composition are sketchy. As is often true of the work of touring musicians, a song will incubate for several weeks, months, or even years, before it coheres into something recognizable to the writer. It seems this was the case for "Awesome God" as well. In the early 1990s, Mullins released a pair of albums entitled
The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume One and
Volume Two. These featured a more stripped-back, acoustic feel than his earlier work, with nods to
Irish music. "Step By Step", a song written by his friend
Beaker and included on volume one, and incorporated into "Sometimes By Step" with additional lyrics by Mullins on volume two, became an instant hit on Christian radio, and, like "Awesome God", it became a popular praise chorus. Both during and after Mullins' college years, Beaker was a substantial influence on Mullins and his music. Beaker co-wrote, performed, and toured with Mullins for several years. The first song they wrote together was "Boy Like Me, Man Like You", a 1991 hit for Mullins. Mullins wrote his hit song "Let Mercy Lead" for Beaker's son Aidan. In 1993, Mullins assembled a group of Nashville musicians (including
Jimmy Abegg, Beaker, Billy Crockett,
Phil Madeira,
Rick Elias, and
Aaron Smith) to form
A Ragamuffin Band, whose name was inspired by the Christian book
The Ragamuffin Gospel by
Brennan Manning. The band recorded
A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band, which was later named the No. 3 best Christian album of all time by
CCM Magazine.
Liturgy was a
concept album that drew its inspiration, in part, from the
Catholic liturgy. The Ragamuffins also appeared on Mullins' 1995 record ''
Brother's Keeper and his 1998 record The Jesus Record''.
Mark Robertson joined the Ragamuffins as the band's bass player for touring and
The Jesus Record. In 1997, Mullins teamed up with Beaker and Mitch McVicker to write a musical based on the life of
St. Francis of Assisi:
The Canticle of the Plains. Shortly before his death, Mullins had been working on his next project, which was to be a concept album based on the life of
Jesus Christ and was to be called
Ten Songs About Jesus. On September 10, 1997, nine days before his death, he made a rough
microcassette recording of the album's songs in an abandoned church. This tape was released as disc 1 of
The Jesus Record, which featured new recordings of the songs on disc 2 by the Ragamuffin Band, with guest vocalists Amy Grant,
Michael W. Smith,
Ashley Cleveland, and
Phil Keaggy. "Heaven in His Eyes" was not a new song, but had been written more than two decades earlier, and was a beloved favorite of Mullins'. Mullins recorded the duet "I Believe" with
Hokus Pick on the album
Brothers From Different Mothers in 1994. In addition to vocals, Mullins performed on the lap and hammered dulcimers.
Catholicism Mullins's interest in the life of
St. Francis of Assisi led to an attraction to
Catholicism in his final years. There was no daily Protestant service on his area of the Navajo reservation, so Mullins frequently attended daily
Mass. In 1997, Mullins declared:A lot of the stuff which I thought was so different between Protestants and Catholics [was] not, but at the end of going through an RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) course, I also realized that there are some real and significant differences. I'm not sure which side of the issues I come down on. My openness to Catholicism was very scary to me because, when you grow up in a church where they don't even put up a cross, many things were foreign to me. I went to an older Protestant gentleman that I've respected for years and years, and I asked him, "When does faithfulness to Jesus call us to lay aside our biases and when does it call us to stand beside them?" His answer to me was that it is not about being Catholic or Protestant. It is about being faithful to Jesus. The issue is not about which church you go to, it is about following Jesus where He leads you. "If God leads you to the Catholic Church, follow Him. So, the last couple of years now, I have been in Limbo about the whole thing. For me, it all comes down to the Eucharist. Is it really Jesus and is He present there? I think, after some pretty honest searching, I’ve come to a few dead ends that I am not going to be able to bridge by getting more information. It will just require a little more faith on my part, and it is not there yet."The night before his accident, Mullins spoke to his spiritual director, Fr Matt McGuinness, on the phone and made arrangements to formally enter the Catholic Church that weekend. He stated "This may sound strange, but I need to receive the Body and Blood of Christ."
Death On September 19, 1997, Mullins died in a traffic accident near
Lostant, Illinois, while traveling from Chicago with his friend, singer
Mitchell McVicker, to a benefit concert in Wichita, Kansas. Multiple reports said the vehicle went out of control on
I-39, ejecting both Mullins and McVicker, after which Mullins was struck and run over by a
tractor-trailer. He is buried at the
Harrison Township cemetery in
Hollansburg, Ohio, alongside his brother, who died in infancy, and his parents. == Personal life ==