Dr. BLT, a man of many layers.

You might never expect a Ph.D, in anything to discover a passion for outdoor sidewalk busking. But for Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen — Dr BLT to the music world — it’s all part of the total package. “What I presently do started out as busking, but it blossomed into a regular busk-like gig,” explains Thiessen. “Sensing an opportunity to draw in more donut-eating customers, the family owners of Steph’s Donut Hole in Alpine have allowed that busking thing to transform into bi-weekly unplugged early morning gig. I perform just outside Steph’s, every Saturday and Sunday morning from 8 to 10 am. I call my current shows ‘Pen it and Perform It,’ because I write the songs on the spot, right there at the donut shop, and immediately perform them. I also go live on Facebook with those gigs, and occasionally perform on stage at local venues.”

Artwork for the single, High Society, by Hyperqctive.

Thiessen, who operates a psychology practice which specializes in music as a form of therapy, was born in Manitoba, and says “the majority of my childhood and teen years were spent on the prairies of midwestern Canada.” But he’s been settled in California some years now, beginning in Bakersfield, where he worked as a psychologist for the parole department. Then he started staying in La Mesa while commuting to work at RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, overlooking the Mexican border. “As a teen,” he says, “I daydreamed about living in San Diego; so my dreams eventually came true.” He set his sights on therapy work in high school, and earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, Fresno. But music has always been an important part of his therapeutic approach, including with his current patients.

“Just today, I was working with an outstanding artist: struggling to make ends meet, feeling disheartened, discouraged and disillusioned by the fact that his work has just barely been paying the bills. He was considering accepting a menial job that offered no viable opportunity to engage his creative skills. I played him a song by Jim Croce, ‘Working at the Car Wash Blues.’ It was an autobiographical story about Jim’s life before he became famous. I was a little reluctant to introduce the song to my patient. I did not want to tell him that Jim Croce had to wait until his tragic death to finally be recognized for his work, and to be afforded fame. But I wanted him to know that someone else was feeling just as undervalued and underappreciated as he was. Jim Croce took that lemon of an as-yet-unfulfilled dream, that felt more like a nightmare, and turned it into a hit song. Musical magic, and lyrical lemonade if you will.”

Dr BLT had a brief moment in the national spotlight thanks to a cameo appearance in Cake’s 2001 music video for “Short Skirt/Long Jacket.” He also writes and web-releases new original material. The Dr BLT song, “I’ve Never Been to Nashville (But I’ve Been to Bakersfield)” was recently heard on Bakersfield radio station KZFR’s Truck Stop Special, airing (according to him) “between Willie Nelson’s tribute to Merle Haggard and Bill Kerchen’s ‘Hounds of Bakersfield.’” A recently uploaded single called “I Got a Nova” b/w “Trace” was created in collaboration with his 17-year-old daughter and his wife Roxie T.

One of his latest online tracks, “High Society,” traces its origin back 35 years. Back in the day, a patient of Thiessen’s, passionate about her work with him, mentioned the song in a letter read by Casey Kasem on American Top 40. The re-tooled anti-drug tune features the auteur’s daughter Hyperqctive, who goes by that name at all times now. “Being aware of the dangers out there, especially on the internet, our daughter prefers to stick with the moniker. I happen to love the name her mother and I gave her at birth, but I understand and fully support her choice. The one thing she chooses to reveal is that she suffers from ADHD. As a psychologist, I find it refreshing that she, and many other artists, are becoming more and more transparent about their mental health challenges.” He describes the finished track as “a vocal song that fuses folk-Americana with rock. My daughter did the album artwork, and my wife Roxie produced a video incorporating my daughter’s art and her own.”