Bill Mullin has done a lot of things in his lifetime. He’s been a pulp-cutter, a truck driver, a salesman, a mechanic and more, but one thing has always stayed constant in his life: his love of traditional country music. And he comes by it honestly. Back in the 50s, he and his 10 brothers and sisters, and his mother and father, would gather around their battery-powered radio and tune into WWVA from Wheeling, West Virginia, to catch all the country music they could. Couple that with a mother who played guitar, and a collection of aunts and uncles who were always ready to strum along, and, as you can guess, Bill pretty well had to pick up a guitar too.
Bill doesn’t consider himself a musician though. “I’m an entertainer,” he says. “I can tell a good lie.” And that must be true, he has a plaque to prove it: “The Champion Liar” at Mule Days down in Colombia, Tennessee.
Like any true fan of country music, Bill wanted to get to the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, and he did . . . four times. And he was lucky there, “My uncle was a friend of Hank Snow’s when they were in the army,” said Bill. “I got invited back stage to meet Hank and then he introduced me to Roy Acuff and Stonewall Jackson.” That was just a start for Bill. He decided to build his own Opry. He even had the space - his years as a truck mechanic had left him with a 40’ by 40’ building with very high ceilings.
Along the shores of the mystical Miramichi, where his grandfather once guided sport fishermen to the perfect salmon pool, Bill transformed his truck garage into the Miramichi Country Music Opry. The stage is a replica of the Grand Old Opry’s. Guitars hang from the walls and signed photographs of all the greats of country music are everywhere, right up to the wraparound balcony on the second floor. And true to the spirit of the original, this is a family affair: no alcohol and no smoking.
If it’s Saturday night, Bill will be up on stage with his band, but if he isn’t playing you just might hear a Maritime fiddle legend like Ned Landry. It can be quite the party with 150 people along for the ride. If it’s Wednesday night, bring your guitar or fiddle and play along with the boys.
Bill isn’t sitting still though, he has plans to expand and include a museum as well; after all, he has quite a collection of guitars: one from the 19th century and a beauty from the 1920s that his mother used to play. Add to that a letter from Johnny Cash to Chet Atkins, another written by Hank Snow, and a photograph of Cash when he was just 24 years old that he signed and gave to a woman in Chatham.
It’s a long way from Nashville, but Bill has brought a little of that old-time country music and his life-long love affair with it, north to Red Bank on the shores of the Miramichi.
Bill Mullin
Miramichi Country Music Opry
1720 Route 420
Red Bank
506-836-9988
www.miramichicountrymusicopry.com