Rand Bishop at PAC

“The lyrics and dialogue are about common experiences of life, what most everyone goes through, but from my own perspective,” he explained. “The more honest the expression, the more people are going to respond and relate to it. It’ll be more like a music concert with snappy patter.”

Bishop said he looks forward to presenting songs he has written but has not performed publicly. “I write to make a statement,” he added, noting that’s different from the way he wrote songs to pitch to artists in Nashville, Tenn., where he lived and worked for 16 years.

In 2012, he moved to Lincoln County to help his aging parents, but continued writing songs, some of which will be heard for the first time at the PAC performance.

“I have so many songs that have never been heard,” he said. “You labor over your creative work but if you don’t tour, those songs might languish.”

Bishop has put together 90 minutes of music and conversation — two sets with a brief intermission, with 21 songs in all. The songs cover a range of subjects — some light-hearted, some emotional.

“It’s very personal, but the more personal your material, the more universal it becomes,” he said, adding that audiences want entertainers to express real emotions in a positive and healing way. The show will open with a blackboard on the set, displaying a song list by topic — friendship, falling in love, hypocrisy, regret, war and peace.

Bishop has devoted himself to more than music. He considers himself a lifelong liberal activist for peace. In 2017, he walked 900 miles from southern California to the central Oregon coast over a 90-day period, an adventure he recounted in his memoir, “TREK: My Peace Pilgrimage in Search of a Kinder America.”

“I was so disillusioned after the 2016 election, and the country was so mean and polarized,” he said. “I needed to know there were nice people out there.”

He was inspired by the woman known as Peace Pilgrim, who started walking across North America in 1953 and walked for 28 years until her death at age 72. “I thought if she could do that, I could walk for 90 days at age 67,” Bishop said.

And he did find a kinder America. “I probably met a thousand people on my walk, and at least 90 percent of them were nice people, and many of them were very kind and truly generous,” he said.

Raised in Lake Oswego, Bishop said his family “brainwashed” him into thinking he was a superstar “from the time I took my first steps.”

At his mother’s insistence, he took piano lessons from ages 7 through 12. “She made sure I practiced 45 minutes every day, even when I heard my friends playing outside,” Bishop recalled. “Then I started playing guitar during the folk revival, and had a touring folk musician as a mentor. I was self-taught in guitar and bass, but the fundamentals came from my piano studies.”

He played in a garage band, the Thundering Heard, all through high school. “My family was totally supportive — I was very fortunate, because I had two unrealistic goals: classical stage acting and rock star,” he said. “When I was not on stage for high school plays, I was playing at local clubs with my garage band.”

But after a season playing bit parts at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he chose the rock route.

“When I went to Oberlin College, I found that the students were far more accomplished than I was. It was quite disillusioning,” he said. He left college after three semesters to join a rock band. His first recording deal was in 1969, after he had moved to Los Angeles.

“I was fortunate to meet people who thought I had some talent and potential, and they opened a lot of doors for me,” he said.

Bishop toured from 1970 to 1975, and admits that lifestyle was fun — maybe too much fun. “Being in a recording studio was much healthier for me than being on the road,” he said.

His more than 45-year career spanned work as a touring musician, songwriter, platinum record producer, talent development executive and music publisher, and he was a Grammy award nominee.

The song “My List,” which he wrote with Tim James, was sung by Toby Keith; it spent five weeks at number one and became 2002’s most-played single on country radio.

The song’s lyrics provided the basis for Bishop’s first book. “I got such a public response in those post 9/11 days that it seemed to be a healing force for people,” he said. That led to several self-help books on songwriting.

“I always knew I would return to the Oregon coast when I didn’t have to be in a music capital,” Bishop said. “I was divorced, my three kids were grown, and I decided to move close to my parents, who had a condo in Newport.”

Now Bishop works as music director for the Oregon Coast Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, which he describes as a wonderful way “to keep my musical chops up.” He also writes essays for several publications and is 10 chapters into the first draft of a novel he is writing.

“I’m compulsively creatively inspired,” he said. “Writing is my default. And I walk three to five miles a day.”

Now he finds himself at an age “where I don’t want my songs to languish,” he said. “I started to feel obsolete, and made my decision to take on this endeavor.”

Bishop is looking forward to this show. “I so appreciate (Oregon Coast Council for the Arts executive director) Jason Holland and the PAC for giving me the opportunity to use this wonderful space,” he said.

He attended the re-inaugural performance of the black box theater for the one-man show “Tru” earlier this year and talked with Holland. “I’d always loved that space,” he said of the Stiers Theatre, and thought it would be a great opportunity to do a show.

“We’re excited to have his new, original show here in the Stiers Theatre,” Holland said.

“I look forward to sharing my songs with an audience, and talking about what inspired them,” he said. “I always have loved the little theater, and this gives me the opportunity to play for an audience that actually listens.”