🎵 AotW AOTW: Jeffrey Comanor SURE HOPE YOU LIKE IT (SP 4237)

[LPJim]

Side One:
No Home Don't Care 3:20/ Know That I Do 3:15/ Sad to be Alone 3:41/ Midwestern Revelations 5:55/ Out in the County 3:38/ Highway Mary 3:10.
Side Two:
One of these days Love 3:32/ Take your own sweet Time 2:57/ A Famous Myth- One Bright Night 2:57/ Grey Faces 2:57/ Untitled 5:33/ Love is all that makes it Worthwhile 4:33.

The musicians: Richard Bell, Danny Cohen, Jeffrey Comanor, Toxey French, Bones Howe, Gary Illingworth, Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn, Red Rhodes, Homer Wills Jr./ string and horn arrangements Gary Illingworth/ all songs written by Jeffrey M. Comanor and published by Mr. Bones Music Publishing Co, BMI/ Choreography by Cynthia/ Recorded at home/ cover & back liner photographs by Victor Hamilton/ cover drawing Jeffrey Comanor/ Art Direction Tom Wilkes/ The Grove Kids are still alive and kicking/ Also thanks to Frank and Chuck for encouragement.

Production assistants: Ann McClelland and Gay French/ studio assistance league: Johnny Golden, Rik Pekkonen, Ray Thompson.

CD availability (?) A&M Japan via Melody Blvd

JB

 

[jimac51]

I think this album had come up for discussion a couple of times in the old forum(s),but,since it has the spotlight this week,here goes my take. As most of you know,"A Famous Myth" was used in "Midnight Cowboy",performance credited to the Groop,probably backup singers used just for the movie. Jeffrey's criticism on the back of his album was that the song should have ben played louder during the movie-he may be right. His take on his song is fairly typical of singer/songwriter's of 1969. This is probably the biggest production piece with a sweet piano and viola exchange giving a much nicer take than on the "Cowboy" soundtrack. Typical Bones Howe production with West Coast greats like Larry Knetchel and Joe Osborn that makes up for Jeffrey's no great shakes vocals-some nice pseudo-Nashville sounds which are a bit surprising. A minor piece but I've owned a promo of this album since its release and,since it received no airplay, always felt it was my own little discovery. Jeffrey was evidently a part of the Bones Howe production line,having written a few album tracks for the Fifth Dimension and the Association. Mac

 

[LPJim]

Jeffrey Comanor also appears on PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE Soundtrack (A&M SP 3653) as lead vocalist on the track "Upholstery" with The Beach Bums. All the tunes were written by Paul Williams (Almo Music), and the soundtrack was released in 1974.
JB

 

[Dave]

Hmmm...looks like I found a good "Jeffrey Comanor Avatar" to use

I've exchanged some e-Mail with Mr. Comanor last summer to last fall. He even liked the way I rated his album, SURE HOPE YOU LIKE IT at amazon.com and thanked me for it. Well, with a decent Bones Howe Production, some good songwriting, Dylan-voiced singing and some C&W sounds, it's hard not to.

I have a good, though Used W/L promo copy on vinyl, which I told him kept me company down south on my vacation in Florida, Georgia & Alabama. I Taped it in its entirety, along with some other A&M goodies. I've got Comanor's Epic albums, as well. And also a '45' of England Dan & John Coley's hit, "We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again", which Jeffrey wrote.

There are some 5th Dimension and Association songs he wrote or co-wrote and appears on the 5-D's album, "Living Together, Growing Together" on a track or two he wrote. I have another album by an obscure female singer on Bell, Chreyl Ernst. Comanor wrote a couple songs for the album and actually appears on one. And it was produced and engineered by Bones Howe, just like Jeffrey's debut.

Dave

...with some long over-due comments on an AOTW (and one of my FAVORITES!), long past...

 

[W.B.]

In addition, Mr. Comanor co-wrote "Makin' It Natural" with Shel Silverstein, as recorded by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show on their first album for Columbia in early 1972 (and the B-side of their single "Sylvia's Mother"). Mr. Comanor also recorded for Epic in 1974.

 

[Dave]

In addition, Mr. Comanor co-wrote "Makin' It Natural" with Shel Silverstein, as recorded by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show on their first album for Columbia. Mr. Comanor also recorded for Epic in 1974.

Hmmm...it isn't anywhere on either of Jeffrey's Epic albums I own. Must be only available as a single, then?

Dave

 

[Kathy]

Well, how many summers have past that we'd hear this playing on those warm, balmy nights, when it was too hot to get to sleep? Compared to his other contemporaries he produced and engineered, Bones Howe seemed to scale back the number of musicians he uses and his investment in the "typically BIG SOUND". Nevertheless, it worked for 'Jeffrey's Album', the way countless producers worked for "Dylan's Immatators" and his "Immatators' Immatators". Sparse sound and arrangements compared to those 5th Dimension Extravaganzas, but a good and almost "Countrified" folk-rock product. Just a side of Bones we don't often get to hear, until later in the '70's working with Alan Price of The Animals and Jerry Lee Lewis, reviving their careers. While The Alessi's debut was a bit in-between.

Kat