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If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Forker, a Beatlemaniac and elementary-school music teacher in Maryland, singer-songwriter Bill Bowman might never have had that hyphenated identifier preceding his name. And the Arlington musician almost certainly would never have gone on to record the two albums whose titles — 2001’s Believe and the just-released Living To Dream — indicate what making music has come to mean to him. Actually, Bowman, who goes by just his last name on his albums, first learned to play Dobro as a kid so he could jam with his father, who played banjo with a bluegrass band. But his focus quickly shifted when Mrs. Forker made an announcement to the then-11-year-old Bowman’s music class.

"She was awesome, a big Beatles fan, and I remember the first week of sixth grade when Mrs. Forker said she was going to start a rock band after school," he recalls. "My goal right then was to figure out how to make that Dobro into an electric guitar." He says he loved singing songs like "Day Tripper" and "Help," and he loved the applause of the PTA parents. Just like that, Flatt & Scruggs were replaced by Lennon and McCartney.

The enduring influence of Mrs. Forker (whom he credits after his mother in the thank-you section of the disc’s liner notes) and — more explicitly — the Fab Four is all over the self-released Living To Dream, filtered through such descendant popsmiths as Matthew Sweet, Jason Falkner, Brendan Benson, and Will Owsley, whom Bowman himself makes reference to in the course of our conversation. But as everyone knows, when it comes to melodic guitar pop yoked to classic verse-chorus-verse structures, pretty much all roads, no matter how long and winding, lead back to the Beatles.

The first and perhaps best track on Dream is a bracing, 2:29 headrush called "Save Me" that bolts out of the box with a clenched-jaw jolt of distorted electric guitar that would fit nicely alongside anything by, say, Loveless or the Gentlemen and quickly hits dynamic rhythmic stride. (In fact, Gents bassist Ed Valauskas contributes to several of Dream’s tracks, sharing the duties with Rick O’Neal and former Wheat bassist Bob Melanson.) The abundance of savvy pop-rock songs — "Enemy," "Get Some," "Upside Down" — seems to target modern-rock radio. They’re a far cry from the more acoustic and folkish material that defined Believe and made up Bowman’s set list when he busked in Boston’s subways. The presence of three electric-guitar players on the opening cut tells you something about where he wanted to take Dream: it’s an unabashed power-pop recording. If anything, the album’s weakest moments are the big, broadly brush-stroked ballads, "So Many Ways To Say Goodbye" and "Give You My Heart Tonight." Watch those wind up on The OC and make Bowman a star.

"When I played subways, a lot of the material from Believe would go over really well," he says. "But I noticed that as I was trying to get more of a draw in the local rock clubs, I wanted to have more rock songs in the catalogue. ‘Save Me’ just sort of snuck out, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is perfect. This is what I was going for.’ " The positive critical response he received from Believe (also self-released) emboldened him, he says, to aim higher and louder with his next project. A few offers from prospective producers came in, but the fledgling singer-guitarist felt he had yet to make a name for himself on his home turf, much less conquer it. "I wanted to get my own back yard a little bigger first, and what better way to do that than work with someone locally?"

Bowman enlisted former Letters to Cleo producer Scott Riebling, who helped him make the bright, lush-sounding pop album he heard in his head on a modest budget. "One of the reasons I was able to release a major-label-sounding record on an indie budget was that I did the drums at the big studio [Q Division] and then Scott taught me how to use equipment like the Pro Tools Mbox — it’s cheap, around $500, and it’s simple. Literally half of the record, including all of the vocals and guitars, were recorded at my house, all through this little Mbox. Then I would take a hard drive over to Scott and he would put it on his big $50,000 Pro Tools rig and then mix it somewhere else. It was cool to embrace the vintage gear we had with new technology, because if I had just embraced the vintage gear, I’d be bankrupt by now. I cannot believe I finished the album and it came out exactly like I wanted it to. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and probably the most fun."