Fifty years ago, singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop released his debut album Careless. It generated two hit singles—“Save It for a Rainy Day,” which reached the number twenty-two spot on the charts, and “On and On,” which climbed all the way to number eleven.
1976 marked the public recognition of a major new songwriting talent on the Los Angeles scene, with Bishop’s songs attracting attention from the likes of legends Art Garfunkel and Eric Clapton. Both of whom made guest appearances on Careless—along with Chaka Khan and the who’s-who of LA’s best studio instrumentalists of the ’70s: Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, and Jim Gordon.
Immediately, Bishop’s songwriterly reputation became one of quirky, wry humor, sensitive and intelligent depictions of romantic situations, and delicate character portraiture. The sonics were somewhat typical of the Southern California songwriter of the mid-1970s—acoustic guitar-driven, with gentle, emotional vocals. Bishop co-produced his debut with veteran Henry Lewy, who had worked with Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and CSNY.
The fiftieth-anniversary re-release of Careless arrived in stores last Friday, with the vinyl edition featuring two previously unreleased tracks from the album’s original sessions. But just one year ago, Bishop released his self-dubbed “Final Album” called Thimk. Like his debut, it featured a slew of guest artists, some of whom were on Careless—and an outside producer’s hand—this time, guitarist Marcus Eaton.
Before working with Bishop, Eaton’s best-remembered project was his ongoing collaboration with the late, great David Crosby, for whom he served as lead guitarist during some of Crosby’s last musical adventures. Eaton’s brother, A.J., directed the critically acclaimed (and Grammy-nominated) 2019 documentary on Crosby’s life, Remember My Name.
For Bishop, Marcus Eaton was the answer to the questions and conundrums he’d been up against when contemplating his last album project. “Working with Marcus on my final album Thimk was an incredible experience,” Bishop confessed. “He’s not only a deeply talented producer, but also one of the most unique guitar players I’ve ever worked with. He brought patience, creativity, and great suggestions.”
Throughout his compositional trajectory, Bishop has been attuned to the cornucopia of possibilities for characters in his songs, often aligning his own narrator with the archetype of the lonely “modern” city-dwelling male of the late 1970s and ’80s, heartbroken—but not for long. “Bish’s Hideaway,” the self-pitying lament of solitary retreat after romantic disaster, and “Losing Myself in You”—playing the hopeless fool continually in love, sometimes the requited kind, sometimes not—are two ideal examples of this phenomenon.
The same figure is found in work by other pop artists of the mid ’70s—perhaps most notably in Hall and Oates’ “Alone Too Long.” The female counterpart would be the “sophisticated lady”—beautiful but elusive, always alone and well-suited to the city’s nightlife, harboring an unfathomable loneliness behind a sleek, poised exterior. This feminine figure appears in Sheila E’s “The Glamorous Life,” “Simone” by Boz Scaggs, and, of course, in the original Duke Ellington classic “Sophisticated Lady.”
For Thimk, deciding which songs of Bishop’s to cut, and precisely which famous friends to reach out to for help, was a process all its own. “Stephen definitely had some songs that hadn’t been released that he knew were great tracks,” Eaton expressed. “Then he had a couple that he’d actually previously recorded. They’re really good songs, but he felt he could do better versions of them. Including one that I think is one of the most beautiful songs he’s ever written.”
Leah Kunkel, vocalist who’d worked with everyone from James Taylor to Art Garfunkel, and younger sister of “Mama” Cass Elliot, was very instrumental in helping Bishop when he was first starting as a songwriter. Over the years, she’d often expressed interest in recording a duet with Bishop, but for one reason or another, it never happened, and Kunkel passed away in 2024. In recent years, Kunkel had cut a version of “Only the Heart Within You,” with pianist John Jarvis, a recommendation from Bishop. When it came time to assemble Thimk, Bishop urged Eaton to build a duet of Kunkel and himself around the recording, as an homage to their decades-long friendship.
It was also a way to honor Bishop’s own history by bringing in all the supporting characters from his past musical sojourns into new recordings. A celebration of an artistic life well-lived, with a marvelous supporting cast. Thimk opens with Bishop’s tribute to his mother, “Now That I’ve Hit the Bigtime,” an ideal example of how Bishop applies humor, authenticity, and the human element to so many of his songs.
Two of his past collaborators, featured in the closing track on 1989’s Bowling for Paris called “Hall Light,” returned for Thimk’s opener. Eric Clapton and Sting, both friends of Bishop’s, add a further layer of musical gravitas. “The way that he (Bishop) delivers the track is really unique,” Eaton reflected. “Hall Light”’s drummer, the inimitable Phil Collins, didn’t join Clapton and Sting here, though Collins’ son Nic does appear on the album, drumming on “One More Night.”
Eaton was the ideal producer to work on Thimk, primarily due to his knack for fixing what’s broken while honoring the work’s original form. “There was one track we almost gave up on, it was an old demo from the early ’70s with a lot of issues,” Bishop remembered. “Marcus stepped in and somehow made it sound brand new, even mimicking the original feel in a way that was just remarkable. He has a real gift for solving problems that seem impossible. If I were ever to make another album, he’d be my first call.”
Eaton, well-versed in working with musical legends from his days with the iconic and sometimes difficult David Crosby, did the delicate dance of guiding Bishop’s overall project and its ambitions through a producer’s lens, while managing a plethora of musical legends’ contributions (and egos) and keeping the lead artist—Bishop’s—intentions at the project’s forefront. Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell of America, Jimmy Webb, Steve Gadd, and Art Garfunkel, among others, also make appearances.
“Stephen’s got really great ears,” Eaton explained, “so he was really clear about what he wanted, and he was really clear about what he didn’t like. And that makes it very simple. He is not somebody who overanalyzes things. He just knows how he feels about it, and he can articulate it, and that’s it. There are people who get so sucked into the process… You start getting into those micro details, and you’ve literally lost the picture. You’ve lost the whole thing.”
Eaton insisted on bringing his own mixer, Billy Centenaro, on board to see the album through. But all along the way, Bishop was the dominant creative force. “Stephen was really, really engaged, and he was listening to it all the time. It was a great experience, and I think Stephen really is happy with how it turned out, and that’s the most important thing. He’s really proud of it.”
At the outset, guest appearances were not a grand part of the album’s plan. But following the productive success of Bishop’s duet with Kunkel, and sensing the exciting possibilities of opening the project to contributors, Eaton adapted his original blueprint to roll with them. “My vision shifted when we began to involve guests, because the original plan was not to have a bunch of guests. That was actually very serendipitous, because that made it even more special. But my vision actually didn’t change. The idea was just never to take away from the heart of the song. And the heart of the song is the guitar and the voice. Stephen has always been the guy with the guitar, and that’s what makes him really special, and you can’t get in the way of that. Of course, if a track needs something, it needs something. But my idea was really to keep his vocals as the centerpiece, and the guitar.”
Eaton, an impeccable guitarist himself, played the instrument for nearly every song featured on Thimk. “On some of the older tracks, we were able to keep and use some of the guitar; it was a matter of the initial recordings’ quality. But for the new stuff, I retraced the identical parts Stephen had. That was another challenge, because he’s a really original guitarist, great chords, and really great quality to all the changes that he creates. And actually, in many cases, very similar to my dad’s music that I grew up with too.”
Eaton’s father, Steve Eaton, is a songwriter who penned Art Garfunkel’s “Rag Doll” (Breakaway, 1975) and The Carpenters’ “All You Get from Love is a Love Song” (Passage, 1977). “There’s a lot of crossover there, and there are similarities. So I’m familiar with those types of changes. But that was another thing that was a unique responsibility.”
When pressed for an answer on whether Eaton will serve as producer again on another legacy artist’s project, he says he would like to. After all, he is busy with his own original music; his most recent full-length album, What is Real, came out in June. “I’d love to, that’s the answer. There are some artists that I’d really love to work with, of course. I just have to see what unfolds. Thimk is my first foray into a big production, but it was something that actually really boosted my confidence in a lot of ways.”
Though Careless was released fifty years ago, the artistic creed and musical identity first established in it still hold strong for Bishop in Thimk. And the legacy left in the wake is one of quality songs, a writerly understanding of romance’s full spectrum of possibilities, and an original, humorous point of view that only comes around once in a lifetime.
