Stephen Bishop (1978) Losing Myself in You - LOST 70s GEMS

These lilting Jazz arrangements are the definition of mellow yacht rock, Stephen Bishop relies on laidback love songs and acoustic guitars and soft keyboards. The closing track When I Was in Love has wonderful lyrics such as "When I was in love, life was easier to be around each day went by without a care", while the misspelled but cool, I've Never Known a Nite Like This, features a slick groove full of jazzy funky chords that the Doobies and Steely Dan would kill for full of tight drums, silky keyboards, incredible slide guitar, a chorus that picks things up considerably and more of Bishop's pretty singing. Only the Heart Within You is a sleepy story song with a serene landscape of acoustic finger-picking and soaring strings, Bish's Hideway has nice flamenco guitar lines but most adventurous is Prelude: Vagabond from Heaven, is a highly animated track packed full of slamming drums, a tight disco bassline and dressed in multilayered polyphonic Moogs in the intro and strident strings flurrying back and forth in the outro. Weirder, if thats possible is What Love Can Do which sounds like a Disney tune with it's plodding rhythm, mischievous string lines, meowing cat effects and Seven Dwarfs styled deep backing vocals all giving a theatrical backdrop to another Bishop love song. I get the feeling Bishop is more easy listening and based in standards than his more soulful contemporaries Michael McDonald and Robbie Dupree.


Losing Myself in You starts with more coursing strings, this is a very sweet sounding album steeped in Jazz and standards, Bishops' delicate high tenor works well navigating the funky bass and acoustic pickin and smooth keyboards with a excellent melody as he describes the 'A palace in the South of France, where only the lonely people learn to dance' or 'The dog is barking and the sheets are cold, even that guy out on the street he knows'; the hopeless desperation of the chorus is also perfect. The big hit off the album was the almost Looking For The Right One, though it doesn't to me have the same heft as Losing Myself which manages to be string but have an effortless easy melody too and not sound as on the nose as LFTRO.