Jules Shear - About The Albums

About The Albums

• Shear's first band, Funky Kings, also featured songwriter Jack Tempchin, and their self-titled debut contains the original version of Tempchin's song, "Slow Dancing", which was a top ten hit for Johnny Rivers. "Slow Dancing" and Shear's "So Easy To Begin" were both recorded by Olivia Newton-John on her 1977 album Making a Good Thing Better. "So Easy To Begin" was also covered by Art Garfunkel. As of this writing, Funky Kings has never been released on CD, and a second album recorded by them remains unreleased in any form.
• Jules and the Polar Bears released Got No Breeding in 1978 and fənĕtĭks in 1979. (The title of the second album is the phonetic spelling of "phonetics", and its lyric sheet and credits were printed phonetically.) While the first album appeared on CD in the late 1980s, the second was not released on CD until 2006. The CD release of fənĕtĭks includes the contents of the 1980 Economy Package EP. A third album, Bad For Business, was rejected by their label, Columbia, leading to the band's breakup. Bad For Business was finally released on CD in 1995.
• Shear's solo debut, Watch Dog, was produced by Todd Rundgren and featured Elliot Easton of The Cars on lead guitar, as well as prolific studio bassist Tony Levin, and former Polar Bear Stephen Hague. Easton and Shear would later collaborate on Easton's 1985 solo album, Change No Change. In addition to featuring "All Through The Night", later a hit for Cyndi Lauper, the album opens with "Whispering Your Name", which was later a U.K. chart hit for Alison Moyet.
• The Jules EP contains selections from Watch Dog, plus two mixes of a dance number, "When Love Surges".
• The Eternal Return opens with "If She Knew What She Wants", originally written in the first-person narrative (A cover version by The Bangles is sung in the third-person narrative, rendering the singer an outside observer). "Steady", co-written with Cyndi Lauper, was released as a single, complete with a video for MTV, and charted at #57. "Here S/He Comes" is a duet with Shear's wife, Pal Shazar.
• Demo-Itis is a collection of home and studio demos. Most of the songs had been previously unreleased, though demos of "All Through The Night", "If She Knew What She Wants", and other previous album tracks also appear.
• Shear formed a band called Reckless Sleepers with guitarist Jimmy Vivino (currently of The Max Weinberg 7), drummer Steve Holley (formerly of Wings), and bassist Brian Stanley. Their album, Big Boss Sounds! was meant as a collaborative project. However, its only notable success, "If We Never Meet Again", was the one track on the album written by Shear alone. The edited single version received minor airplay, and the song was covered, first by Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers, and later by Roger McGuinn of The Byrds.
• The songs on The Third Party consist entirely of one acoustic guitar track, played by Marty Willson-Piper of The Church, and one vocal track by Shear. The lyric sheet included the chords to each song. "The Once Lost Returns" was co-written with Elliot Easton.
• Horse Of A Different Color is a compilation of Shear's band and solo work. It includes "Nothing Was Exchanged", the opening track from Funky Kings -- as yet the only track from that album released on CD.
• The Great Puzzle includes another duet with Pal Shazar, "Dreams Dissolve in Tears". The closing number, "Bark", prominently features Shear's unique style of playing guitar in an open tuning with his thumb (described later in this article).
• Unplug This was included as a bonus CD with early releases of The Great Puzzle. It contains eight acoustic arrangements of his more well-known songs. The title is a reference to the show "MTV Unplugged," which Shear had hosted for its first several episodes.
• The Trap Door EP contains "The Trap Door", lead-off track from The Great Puzzle, along with three previously-unreleased tracks from the Great Puzzle sessions: "His Audience Has Gone To Sleep", "She Makes Things Happen", and "Nothing Is Left Behind".
• Healing Bones includes Shear's first release of a cover, "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More", originally a hit for The Walker Brothers). It also includes a song written with Rick Danko of The Band, "Never Again Or Forever". Elliot Easton played lead guitar on all tracks. The album was produced by Rod Argent (of Argent and The Zombies), who performed on all tracks along with Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta, and Easton.
• Between Us is a collection of original duets, featuring singers Paula Cole, Rosanne Cash, Carole King, Margo Timmins, Susan Cowsill, Angie Hart of Frente, and Shear's brother Rob, among others. Between Us also includes Shear's first released instrumental, "Entre Nous" (the French equivalent of the album title), in which Shear's guitar work interacts with Rob Wasserman's distinctive fretless bass stylings. Wasserman is perhaps best known for his own album of duets.
• Allow Me is a full-band project of original material. Shear wrote the album's closing track, "Too Soon Gone", with Stan Szelest of The Band, who recorded their own version on their album Jericho. Shear sang backing vocals on The Band's version.
• Saying Hello To The Folks is composed entirely of covers, including songs by The Dave Clark Five, Bob Dylan, Todd Rundgren, Brian Wilson, and others.
• Raisins in the Sun was a one-off collaboration with Harvey Brooks, Paul Q. Kolderie, Jim Dickinson, Chuck Prophet, Sean Slade, and Winston Watson, recorded in May 1999 and released by Rounder Records two years later.
• Dreams Don't Count was released on the student record label MAD Dragon Records through Drexel University. Produced by Jules and long-time friend Stewart Lerman, this album is full of melodic acoustic tracks, and features accordion and cello in its arrangements.
• For his next solo album, More, Shear began billing himself as Jules Mark Shear, as seen in the CD's title and credits. He is also credited with playing lead guitar for the first time on a major release (as opposed to his home recordings on Demo-itis). The album was released on his own label, Funzalo Records.
• Shear was a collaborator on Elliot Easton's 1985 solo album Change No Change, co-writing all songs and singing background vocals. In the liner notes to the CD release, both Easton and Shear cite the closing ballad, "Wide Awake", as their favorite track from the album.