CoronaVinyl Day 303 (B): Careless by Stephen Bishop

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "B," and among my vinyl acquisitions a couple months ago from my neighbor were a few Stephen Bishop albums, so I'm going with his 1976 debut album Careless.

Bishop is a singer-songwriter who got his break by writing a couple songs for Art Garfunkel's 1975 album Breakaway.  Thanks to Garfunkel's endorsement, Bishop got a record contract and released Careless the next year.  

It's mostly standard mid-'70s singer-songwriter soft rock, which isn't particularly my bag, but I will say that when I was looking at the back of the album and seeing all of the major artists who contributed to the album, I was pretty impressed.  Among others, Eric Clapton plays guitar on a few songs, Garfunkel and Chaka Khan provide backing vocals on several songs, former Derek and The Dominos' drummer Jim Gordon drums on three tracks.

The album went to #34 on the Billboard album chart, and it netted Bishop his first two Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, "On and On" (#11 -- his highest-charting song ever), and "Save It For a Rainy Day" (#22).

Bishop has continued to release music throughout the nearly five decades since then, and I was most familiar with him because of the songs he wrote and performed for the Animal House soundtrack.  I discovered today that he also had a cameo in the movie, playing the guy singing "I Gave My Love a Cherry" on the Delta Tau Chi stairwell whose guitar Bluto (John Belushi) grabs and smashes.  Bishop kept the smashed guitar, as he should have.

He has also appeared in small roles in several other movies, almost always as a "charming" character.  For instance, he was "Charming Trooper" in Blues Brothers (the one who breaks his watch in the mall chase scene), and he was "Charming Guy" in the notorious "Catholic School Girls in Trouble" sketch in the Zucker Brothers' hilarious cult classic Kentucky Fried Movie.

In addition to his songs for Animal House, Bishop also wrote and/or performed songs in various other movies in the '80s and early '90s.  Two of his songs were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song:  "It Might Be You" (which he performed, but didn't write) from 1982's Tootsie and "Separate Lives" (which he wrote, but which was performed by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin) from 1985's White Nights, which Bishop wrote about his breakup from Karen Allen, who played Katy in Animal House (and, more famously, Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Sinking in an Ocean of Tears"
This one borders on yacht rock, and it features Clapton on guitar.  It's a little peppier than the other songs on the side.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Save It For a Rainy Day"
This is another one where Clapton plays guitar, although only the solo apparently.  Chaka Khan provides backing vocals.  It's another yacht rocky song.