MEGAN MULLINS OWEN

                                                               "All American Family Band'" 

                                                               CCB Nashville

Megan Mullins Owen is no stranger to country music fans. Her singles “Ain’t What It Used To Be” and “Long Past Gone” helped put her name on the map as an artist in the mid-to-late 2000’s, but lately she’s often seen stealing the show with her incredible fiddle playing as she stands alongside such groups as Alabama, Cash Creek, and more!

With her first artist single of 2022, she dips into her back catalog and pulls out a newly recorded version of “All American Family Band,” a song which she has often described as “my life story in 3 minutes or less.”

Painted like a scene out of The Partridge Family, Mullins Owen wraps a toe-tapping, kicked up rhythm around lyrics that take us on a journey back to her youth when she’d hit the road as part of her family’s band.

Through the opening verses she taps into nostalgic vibes with lines such as “Momma’s got the map,” and tilts toward the humorous with the all-too realistic line that sings of how when they’re running late, if you can’t wait to go then you’ll be using a Dixie Cup in the car as your bathroom.

She drives into the chorus on the back of a line that sees them finally arriving at the venue they’re playing at that night, which is described as a “hay bale stage in the middle of God knows where,” as she then unravels all the different types of events and venues they’ve played as an All American Family Band – racetracks, state fairs, bluegrass Sunday morning gospel jams, etc.

The second verse continues striking the nostalgic and humorous vibes, with lines such as:

“When my brother has gas, he ain’t afraid to let it pass

Mom’s smoking with the window up, making us gag.”

However, where she really shines lyrically is when she brings the song full circle during the bridge and takes us into the present reality:

“Here I am signing all by myself

Family’s back home and they’re wishing me well

Sometimes I can almost see

daddy making faces

bubba hell raising

momma trying to keep the peace.”

Megan Mullins Owen is a true triple threat talent to the country music scene, but what I love most about her songwriting on this song is her ability to reach into her own life and put together something, that although may not be our own exact story as many of us weren’t in a band, can still hit on all the necessary nostalgic vibes to connect with any given road trip that us 40-somethings took with our family when we were kids. 

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)