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Nashville hit songwriter Rand Bishop has something to offer artists who would like to check out the Nashville scene - he is converting his charming home into a home-away-from-home for visiting songwriters. Two rooms on the ground floor of his Paris Ave. abode - one with twin beds, one with a queen sized bed - will be available at very artist-friendly rates for folks who would like to hang out in "a home in which hit songs have been written" and commune with one of Nashville's finest talents, an award winning author of songs, books and screen and stage plays.
A native of Portland, Oregon, Rand started his career in Los Angeles, when his first recording contract was signed in 1969. L.A. was pretty much his home until 1995, though he and members of his band, The Wackers, did squeeze in 4 years as "landed immigrants" in Montreal, during the Trudeau regime. Bishop's oeuvre includes songs in French written with his Quebecois collaborators.
Somewhere along the way, one of Rand's song catalogs was picked up by London-based Music Sales Corp, which also has offices in L.A. and New York. They started pitching his songs and then one rep, a dude named Flip Black, decided that there were songs in the catalog that were right for the Nashville market. Regular L.A. to Nashville commutes led to a cut by the hottest act in Music City, Tim McGraw, on a song called "Don't Mention Memphis," in 1994. The McGraw cut sparked serious interest in Nashville, so our hero met with with over thirty potential publishers, finally signing with Island Bound Music. After a year with Island Bound, he moved over to Curb Music, one of the premiere companies of Music Row.
Music Row, by the way, is to Nashville what Broadway is to New York. It's our "mystique" 
and the objective of the tribe of songwriters who spend their life chasing songwriter nights around the city, hoping that someone from "Music Row" will be there. And sometimes that happens. Like Broadway, Music Row is both geographically identifiable and infuriatingly elusive. But it is a magic place.
The magic happened for Rand, as so often happens, just at the moment when he had decided to retire from the music business in 1999. A song he had written with collaborator, Tim James, hit pay dirt - "My List," recorded by Toby Keith, became the most played country song of 2002. As of today, Rand counts over 250 cuts by such artists as The Beach Boys, Indigo Girls, Heart, Cheap Trick and Lorrie Morgan.
Rand brings this experience to his work as a songwriting coach, speaker, workshop facilitator, and the author of two books on the subject: Makin Stuff Up (Weightless Cargo Press, 2008) and The Absolute Essentials of Songwriting Success (Alfred, 2010) - and visitors to Rand Bishop's House will have the opportunity to take advantage of Rand's hard-earned knowledge of the business and the craft of songwriting.
Guests of Rand Bishop's House will find themselves "a song and 1/2 away from Music Row," and within walking distance of the fabulous Belmont University, some of the city's most intriguing restaurants and, especially, our favorite Nashville coffee house, Bongo Java. Also available are a ProTools Studio, a beautiful acoustic piano, kitchen access and a spacious great room.
For more information about Rand and Rand Bishop's House, please visit www.randbishopshouse.com.
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