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Maintenance chief
in Wrentham also
a bass guitar player
BY MICHAEL GELBWASSER
SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
WRENTHAM -- Several Wrentham elementary
school staff members are in treble after school.
Others are in bass.
Third-grade teacher Kathy Danielson sings and
writes songs in her spare time, says Maintenance Supervisor Kevin
Sheppard. And music teacher Cindy Jones has her own band, B.C. and
Company.
Custodians Dan Lawyer and Greg Muse are
musicians, too. Lawyer plays the guitar and Muse the drums.
"We all ought to get together some day and
do a show," said Sheppard, who has performed with most of them.
Thursday night, two girls danced in the hall
while Sheppard played bass guitar with his band, Mark Pollock and the
Big Spenders, in the Vogel School Auditorium.
Sheppard's staff had swept that hall earlier
that day.
Many children and parents in the free concert's
audience know Sheppard as the elementary school's maintenance
supervisor. But in his spare time, the only breaks he responds to
are after sets, to rest fingers tired from tweaking one of his guitars.
Sheppard is primarily a free-lance musician,
playing at functions. He also performs about three times a month
with the Spenders, which he helped form nearly three years ago.
And he thrives on chances to perform for the
school community that knows him best as a Mr. Fixit and Mr. Clean.
He has played at several school concerts during his 15 years here.
"They looked at it as a positive," he
said on Thursday when asked about his first performance while working
here, playing with the Local Dance Band at the 1987 spring fair.
"I think it's very good that young people know you do other things
with your life."
"I think music is something that's
important for kids. When I was younger, back in the '60's, you
were discouraged from being a musician."
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An experience at
age 10 inspired Sheppard to learn to play music. He watched the
Beatles' debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Paul McCartney's
manipulation of his bass guitar entranced the youth. He bought a
bass guitar right after that.
"I've just always liked the way Paul
McCartney played," Sheppard said. "He was actually a
forerunner in modernizing bass playing."
A Christmas ornament showing the Beatles
playing sits in a corner in Sheppard's office. The display was a
gift from a friend.
One of Sheppard's guitars resembles McCartney's
instrument, too.
It's a violin-shaped bass," Sheppard
said. "I just wanted to have one."
Three decades of performing
Such a bass has come with him, in memory if
not onstage, to numerous nightclubs, parties, and other functions where
he has entertained over the last 30 years.
The Spenders are the latest band he has played
with regularly. The Phone, the Union Brothers, and the Local Dance
Band are also on his resume.
Popular during the '70's, like the Cars the
Phone ("We just decided that was something everybody used every
day, like a car") was a cover band. The group folded without
cutting a record. But Sheppard and another former band member
later created a CD from the original master tapes.
"I save everything I've ever done,"
Sheppard said.
"Everything" includes music from pop
to Celtic. The Celtic tunes aare one way the Cape Breton Island
native has remained true to his Canadian roots. He once played
with fiddler Ashley MacIsaac, among "the biggest Celtic players in
Nova Scotia."
Tuning up boilers and such has been Sheppard's
day job for about 20 years, though. He has taken courses on boiler
repair, and is certified in asbestos removal.
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Big Spenders Mark Pollock, Kevin Sheppard, Emily
Barrett
But his job involves filing papers, not picking
them up, far more than it did when he came here in 1986.
"I was actually operating all three
buildings by myself," Sheppard recalled.
Thursday night, Sheppard operated his guitars
very precisely.
His hips swayed and his head bobbed minimally
through the Spenders' first three tunes, 'Borrowed Time,' the country
'Flying Down the Wind Gap,' and 'Finger on the Trigger,' the latter from
the band's new CD, "Mark Pollock and the Big Spenders."
But when the band cranked its intensity for
"Long Hard River," Sheppard's movements sharpened. He
jolted back and forth, paralleling the notes.
Some students in the audience might someday
remind Sheppard of his performance.
"There are young people coming in and
saying, 'I remember the time when you came and did that in my
classroom,' " he said, referring to a guitar playing and recording
demonstration he once did here.
MICHAEL GELBWASSER can be reached by
calling 508-236-0336 or via email at mgelbwasser@thesunchronicle.com
Enough of this self-aggrandizing nonsense!
Take me back the Spenders, you fool!
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