Jim Bulleit has long been a creature of habit.
For about three and a half decades, he taught English to students at Kempsville Junior High and High Schools, and more recently, Tidewater Community College.
Year after year, his schedule bulged with lesson plans, grading assignments and, often using his background as a musician, trying new ways to keep kids engaged in the classroom.
Forget reading poetry. Bulleit’s students had to perform it – whether spoken-word style or singing the words to their own tunes.
“I’d also bring in my guitar and we’d look at songs like Don McLean’s ‘Vincent,'” he said. “It just made it fun, being able to do more creative stuff.”
He’d often create a soundtrack of sorts to accompany books the students were reading.
Take “Alas, Babylon,” a novel about a nuclear holocaust ripping through the United States, for example.
“I used to bring in Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science,’ which was about nuclear war and dropping bombs,” he said. “Any time I could incorporate a popular song, I’d use it.”
Though he routinely used music in his classrooms, his profession made it hard to focus on his passion for songwriting.
Bulleit recently retired, though, and is using his new-found excess of free time to get back to creating and performing his material.
Little bits of his strict routine lifestyle creep into his daily life. Though he tries to write the music as it comes naturally, he still sets aside a block of time most days to sit down with his guitar.
Strewn around his living room are music instruments – guitars of all kinds sit in each direction you look. One acoustic sports a handpainted replication of artwork from one of his albums.
Upstairs, he has a modest home studio.
“It’s nothing serious, but enough to let me get some good ideas down while I have them,” he explains, as his curiously friendly black and white cat, Marley, hops around and rubs his head against the underside of Bulleit’s hand.
As Bulleit talks about his process, a computer screen sits atop a small counter a few feet away. On it, a song he’s still fleshing out glows brightly. The chord progression is all figured out. All that is left is figuring out how to say what he’s feeling that particular week.
He is no stranger to the stage. Now 59, began playing and singing in bands when he was in middle school. After graduating from high school in Bethesda, Maryland, he headed off to North Carolina’s Duke University.
Post Duke, he found a teaching gig in Hampton Roads and has been here ever since, schooling students in English and playing music.
Bulleit got married and had two sons, which meant his music was put on the back burner, though he did begin writing songs when he could carve out the time to do so.
He released his first album, “A Family Album,” in 1999, which featured members of his family, including his sons Matt and Nick, who were 3 and 5 years old at the time.
As his kids got older, Bulleit was able to shift his focus back toward creating once more. He and some other musically-inclined teachers formed a band of sorts and played cover songs regularly at places like The Reef in Virginia Beach.
He and his wife separated around 15 years ago. Their eventual divorce followed a few years later. True to form, Bulleit translated the experience into song, writing material that would later make up his second album, “Prufrock’s Blues.”
“Prufrock is all about being alone at age 45,” he said. That vulnerability, though, gave way to Bulleit giving himself more credibility as a songwriter.
Songs like “Losing You” and “Pity Party” delve deep into what it’s like trying to make sense of the unexpected end of his marriage.
“Have I lost my mind, or am I losing you?” Bulleit sings. His downtrodden words are in stark contrast to the upbeat melodies they float over.
The same is true for most of the album. Bulleit quite literally uses each track to dissect what he believes are his own shortcomings and his feelings of insecurity and striking out into the unknown over chords and beats that suggest he might know the answers already.
After the album came out, he started playing shows again. Some of his songs made it onto the WHRV airwaves, too.
More recently, his music has found a way back to his lifelong career. He might have left the classroom, but he can’t leave caring for students behind.
On Feb. 14, 2018, as the nation watched the aftermath of another deadly school shooting, Bulleit was among the many pouring over the news. He summed his emotions up in song, entitled “Parkland.”
Columbine to Parkland, how many more must die? How many signs and vigils? How many parents must cry?
Local radio DJ and music aficionado Paul Shugrue dubbed the song one of the best from the region last year.
“Gun violence is something that really frightens me,” Bulleit said. “And I can remember after other shootings, students would come in and they’d be upset about it for days. It was in our consciousness and on our radar, you know? And it was a constant thought in the classroom, and it still is. Just last year, we had an armed individual on TCC’s campus. It’s always a thought.”
Parkland hit too close to home, and Bulleit decided it was time to do more.
In 2017, he had been included in the lineup of the local “Concert Across America to End Gun Violence” event. The concerts started in 2016, and there are dozens each year across the country.
Their goal is simple: to make gun violence prevention the issue people care about most when it comes time to visit voting booths each election season.
Last year, he ended up hosting the event, and this year, he’s continuing to run the show.
On Sunday, Bulleit will lead another concert at Old Dominion University’s Chandler Hall in the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center. Several local artists, including Dustin Furlow, Narissa Bond and Bulleit himself, will fill the two-hour show with songs that bring unity and peace to the forefront.
“I’m not really a political guy. If you listen to my song, it’s not offering any answers, but just saying we need to do better to figure this out. Somehow, we just have to do it.”
Amy Poulter, amy.poulter@pilotonline.com, 757-446-2705.
If you go:
What: Concert Across America to End Gun Violence, including music by Dustin Furlow, Narissa Bond, Roberta Lea, Absalom O’Neil, Jim Bulleit, Kristi K, JLuv
When: 3:30-5:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Chandler Hall, Old Dominion University. 1339 W. 39th St., Norfolk
Tickets: Free. 757-423-8801
