Live Facebook concert on April 1 at 11 a.m.; quarantined truck driver shares his music

Steve Mehal, a former professional guitarist, is performing a live concert on Facebook on Wednesday, April 1.

Mehal will play his acoustic guitar from his home, while being quarantined. He is a long-distance driver of a tanker truck, who returned from a three-week trip to Texas two weeks ago. He then learned that a mechanic at a terminal had tested positive for COVID-19, which put Mehal in a two-week quarantine.

Mehal was a young professional musician who started performing with Alex Bevan about 40 years ago. He later managed the sound and became a “roadie” for the Michael Stanley Band and opened for Dan Fogelberg concerts.

Mehal gave up being a traveling musician when he had a young family and became a truck driver.

Now, as a long-distance driver, he has logged over 3 million miles.

In 2009, Mehal wrote the song for the Richfield bicentennial celebration. The words to the song are buried in the community’s time capsule.

On Sunday, March 29, Mehal sang and played his guitar for an hour-long concert from his home on Facebook.   He will play different songs for another hour on April 1 beginning at 11 a.m.

His quarantine should end on April 2, and Mehal should be back on the road early the following week.  He hopes to play his guitar from the cab of his truck while at a future rest stop.

Thanks to all of our truck drivers and to Steve Mehal for adding some musical enjoyment to the world.  Also, thanks to his wife, Carol, who is an emergency room nurse for Akron General Hospital.