Bill O’Hanlon has been playing guitar, piano and writing songs for over 50 years. In recent years, he’s gotten more serious about songwriting and has co-written more than 300 songs a year for the past few years and over 1,400 songs total. Bill has gotten 77+ cuts of his songs with independent artists and several sync placements. He writes many different genres of music, from singer-songwriter to country to pop to rock to jazz and even some hip-hop, since his co-writers bring musical influences that aren’t his main strengths or interests.
He has also written 40 books, the last three of which are about songwriting. Song Building: Mastering Lyric Writing (https://www.amazon.com/Song-Building-Mastering-SongTown-Songwriting-ebook/dp/B07WJWQB78/),The Songwriter’s Guide to Mastering Co-Writing (https://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-Guide-Mastering-Co-Writing-Techniques-ebook/dp/B07N6N4L23/), and Mastering Melody Writing (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Melody-Writing-Songwriters-Repetition/dp/1098364333/) co-written with hit songwriters Marty Dodson and Clay Mills.
Bill was formerly a psychotherapist and speaker, traveled throughout the world for 30+ years before putting his work online and staying put at home most of the time. One of his books (Do One Thing Different) was featured on Oprah.
Bill’s story
Bill has been writing songs since he was a teen. Inspired by his older brothers, who played guitar and entertained at parties and seeing The Beatles as his first live concert, he was hooked on both music and songwriting.
In 2015, after mostly retiring from a career as a psychotherapist, author and traveling public speaker and workshop presenter, Bill decided to get serious about songwriting.
Bill has been mentored by successful songwriters such as Beth Nielsen Chapman, Gary Burr, Georgie Middleman, Chuck Jones, Marty Dodson, Clay Mills and Tom Douglas.
He loves writing songs and co-writing. In 2021, he wrote 344 songs and routinely writes four or five songs a week. He travels to Nashville to do in-person writes, songwriter rounds and to meet with music industry professionals.