EL teacher Brian Flynn has released a collection of original songs titled “Follow the Arrow.”
AUBURN – In the hours and minutes before his first gig, Brian Flynn sweated.
The 46-year-old teacher worried he might never sort the jumble of wires and plugs that run his electronic keyboard.
Or he might run out of songs. He’d written 26, but he had four hours to fill. He might even bore the audience.
“Before the evening started, I was in a panic,” Flynn said, recalling the scene last fall when he set up his equipment in the pub of Bethel’s Sudbury Inn.
Then, somebody from the audience helped him plug in the newly purchased equipment. Friends and family came in and sat nearby.
When he played, the nerves vanished.
He’d put aside his music for more than two decades. He had played an original composition at his own graduation from Edward Little High School, earned a degree in theater and planned a life on the stage.
Instead, he fell in love, married, had children and began teaching at his old school.
But when his daughter, Megan, finished high school last year, he pulled out some of his own afterschool activities and once again sat at his piano.
“I delayed my dream for 20 years,” said Flynn.
Since that first public performance, he has expanded his repertoire to almost 70 songs, formed a trio, begun performing regularly at local night spots and released his first CD.
Titled “Follow the Arrow,” the music collection features 12 songs: from the lead-off romp, “No No Daddy” to the angry “Paparazzi” to the more contemplative title track.
The songs represent years of listening to singer-songwriters such as Jackson Browne and James Taylor and R&B folks like Diana Ross and Bill Withers.
“I like anything with soul,” he said.
It comes out at the piano.
In the practice room he created out of his daughter’s bedroom, the soft-spoken teacher becomes a soul singer, swaying in his seat like Ray Charles and coloring his voice with a growl.
Sometimes the world disappears when he sings.
“You can pour your heart out and leave it on the table and not hear the clink of glasses,” Flynn said.
There are also times when it seems like he’s living the Billy Joel song, “Piano Man.”
He’s become comfortable behind his keyboard in a room full of people, singing his collection of originals and covers. A friend even gave him a brandy glass to collect donations, a piano man signature.
“I still haven’t got the guts to put it on the table,” Flynn said.
Comments are no longer available on this story