Rich Mullins: 1955-1997

I did a entry about Jimi Hendrix on the day 28th year of his passing. The following day one decade and a half later, the music world lost a man who brilliance too many never heard first hand but may be familiar with his music. His name was Rich Mullins. He was a part of early days of what became Contempory Christian Music (CCM), trying to add a more modern touch versus "traditional" Christian music. The first time I heard him, my playlist was far from what he was playing (I should say WAY FAR). Anyway, I got home one night while in college (doing what typical college students do) and I turn on the TV. I notice the music playing was pretty soft (a good thing in the wee hours of the morning) and I noticed something different. I then heard the singer with his opening verse- "the other side of the world, isn't so far away." You might expect that the video was shot on some soundstage someplace, right? Wrong. Here's the kicker. The guy was singing in a garbage dump somewhere in Central America. That man was Rich Mullins, singing "The Other Side of the World." For the first time in my life, I was actually seeing how God's love was in action (in a way I had not seen before). Think about this. Who would go to a place like that to shoot a video? In other words, guitarist Adrian Belew's quote that a lot of today's music is "fashionable crap dressed as artistry" would not apply here. With Rich Mullins, what you saw is what you got.

I can recall going to Cornerstone, a music festival located in Bushnell, Illinois, back in the early 1990's (I believe it was 1993) where I actually got to meet this guy. I had met some musicians in CCM and those who weren't years prior. Some were very nice and actually appreciated that you came to see them. Others??? How can I put this as kindly as possible? Let's say they believed their own press a bit too much. Rich Mullins was doing a seminar, just speaking about his music, his life and things going on with him personally. He was not a big man in stature at all. Afterwards, I told him how I appreciated his music and he was very gracious to say the least. After the seminar ended, he took more time with people. As I heard his interviews, it never seemed like he cared about being famous at all. In fact, it was almost like he was making fun of fame. I'm curious what he would think about American Idol? His life ended on September 19, 1997, about 2 hours from where I live (less than one month from his 42nd birthday). I was on my way home from work when the news came on the radio. I was in total shock. He was struck and killed after being thrown from his jeep and hit by a tractor trailer (he was not wearing a seatbelt from what I understand). I decided to wait until now to do this because I wanted to do this right. I found this quote that summed up who this man was (as I see it): "One day it won't make any difference how many albums I sold, but I will give account of my life to God. What I think He'll be most pleased with is to see that we truly lived, that we were the person he created us to be." I'm not trying to be some death magnet, but I felt it would be good to remember someone as this.

Below are some of his songs I liked. I chose 5 but I could have easily added more. Enjoy:

This is one of his earliest videos. This was also on the same record as "The Other Side of the World", which I mentioned earlier.


This is a song I'm pretty partial to.


This song was made popular by Amy Grant. Many people don't know is that Mullins actually wrote the song. I like his version better (no disrespect to Amy Grant).


Him speaking on a few things. The guy playing the bass (or at the start of the video, sitting behind him in the brown shirt) is a guy I knew years back (nice guy). We attended the same church years ago:


His song that has been covered by many (which overlaps the prior video):


This video was recorded not long before his passing, believed to be the last concert video of him.