Rand Bishop's Biography

I'm a writer, pure and simple -- of songs, of books, screen and stage plays, essays, stories, letters to the editor, you name it. Each and every day, I am compelled to toy with the Mother Tongue untill I've found the words to construct something that wasn't there before, something I hope embodies beauty, truth, humor, passion and light.

To this end, nearly 250 of my songs have been recorded -- by such diverse artists as rockers Heart, Cheap Trick and Vanilla Fudge, popsters the Beach Boys and Peter Noone, folkies the Indigo Girls and Richie Havens and country crooners Tim McGraw and Lorrie Morgan. I am a Grammy Nominee and a BMI Award Winner. My List, recorded by Toby Keith, was a 5-week Billboard #1 and ended 2002 as country radio's most played single. The success of that song inspired a companion book, My List - 24 Reflections on Life's Priorities (McGraw-Hill, 2003). The experience of authoring that book motivated me to stretch ou into other literary forms outside the confines of the three minute pop song. My screenplay, The Tin Roof, won first place in the National Screenplay Showdown in 2004. That and another original script have been optioned for feature films, as yet unmade. My stage play, The Viewing, enjoyed its premiere production at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre in 2006.

My novel/mock-memoir, Grand Pop (2010, Eloquent Books) is now available on Amazon and at:

http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/GrandPop.html

Makin' Stuff Up - secrets of songcraft and survival in the music biz (2008, Weightless Cargo Press), a "songwriting course wrapped in a memoir" is distributed exclusively by Alfred Publishing.The Absolute Essentials of Songwriting Success will be released by Alfred in August, 2010.