Making Music Night and Day

His workdays start in mid-afternoon. With some regularity, they run into the very early hours of the next day. And he’s worked at this profession full-time for 17 years.

Meet Bill Meehan, professional musician.

By day, Meehan teaches guitar at the on Main Street.

 Several nights a week, he makes music for an audience. He plays in three bands.

Meehan has played guitar for 30 years. As a kid, in Burlington, he was more interested in the drums.  But a good friend took up the drums, he said, and two drummers in one neighborhood would have been one too many.

He got a guitar as a Christmas gift when he was in the ninth grade, around 1980. He took some lessons. “I wasn’t ready,” he said. The music he was learning to play didn’t sound at all like what he listened to:  the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Grand Funk, courtesy of his older sisters’ record collection.

Meehan got more into music as he moved through high school. He went back to his first teacher, came prepared for his lessons. “He started to have confidence in me,” Meehan said. The teacher also let Meehan bring the sheet music to what he liked to listen to in to his lessons.

In college, at Northeastern University, Meehan majored in electrical engineering with a focus on computers. He kept playing in bands and studying music.

He thought about following the career path of a musician in the band Boston, an engineer by day and musician by night.

Meehan got a job at a computer company and did just that:  simultaneously worked full time as an engineer, played in bands and taught at the music center. In 1993, he played 239 band gigs while working full time as an engineer and teaching at the music center.

Then came his turning point. It was 1994, April 15, to be precise, he said.

“I walked into work and said, ‘I can’t do (all) this anymore.”

His father, Francis (“Mickey”) Meehan, had just died. Mickey had encouraged his son to pursue a career in music. Mickey said, “It’s nice to love what you do,” according to Bill.

“I couldn’t let go of the music.”

One of Meehan’s music teachers, the late Michael Turner, formerly of Woburn, also encouraged him to be a musician full time, Meehan said.

Meehan started to play in the band Slushpuppies in 1992. They still play rock:  cover, classic and new.

He also plays in a progressive rock tribute band, Tool, with two other musicians from Slushpuppies.

And he plays in the MaryBeth (Linehan) Maes band. Vocalist Maes is from Woburn. That band plays more blues, soul, and pop—from Janis Joplin to Kelly Clarkson, he said. They play regularly on Wednesday nights, next on Feb. 16, at.

Meehan started to teach at the music center, part time, in 1988. In the 22 ½ years he’s worked there full time, he’s calculated that he’s taught around 45,000 lessons. Music Center owner Joe Mullens “gave me my original opportunity,” Meehan said. Meehan was a customer there, he said, and knew a teacher who taught there.

“I always loved teaching,” he said, and had a lot of influential teachers himself. “Teaching keeps me on my toes.”

His students range in age, he said, from 8 to 70. Some people take up an instrument in their late 60s, Meehan said. One of his students just retired. He always wanted to play guitar, Meehan said, but never had the time to learn how.

One of Meehan’s students is Michael Mullens, son of music center owner Joe Mullens.

Many of Meehan’s students have gone on to further music studies at Berklee College of Music, UMass Lowell and the University of Miami, the senior Mullens noted.

Meehan spends about 30 hours in an average week teaching guitar; about 12 hours a week performing, from set up to pack up; three or four hours a week rehearsing and some more time practicing by himself.

“I still work on my own craft,” he said.

Meehan does have some music-related regrets. No, he never wanted to become a rock star. But he does regret not playing in his high school (Burlington) band. He was intimidated, he said, by jazz band music. He also regrets not taking high school classes in music theory and composition. At the time, he took honors courses instead, he said.

The schedule of a professional musician “never bothered me,” Meehan said. But his “out of phase” work schedule makes relationships hard, he said.

“When you love what you do, you just do it,” he said. Quoting a former teacher, Meehan said, “You’ll be dead a long time. You’ll sleep when you’re dead.”