Jules Shear

Jules Mark Shear (born March 7, 1952) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

He left Pitt after three years in 1973, and headed to Los Angeles to pursue a music career.

Shear is married to singer-songwriter Pal Shazar.

Shear has recorded more than 20 albums to date.

He made his first appearance on vinyl with Funky Kings (along with two other songwriters, Jack Tempchin and Richard Stekol).

After their second album was rejected by the record label (Arista), he formed a new band, the critically acclaimed (but commercially unsuccessful) pop group, Jules and the Polar Bears.

This band, with Shear writing and singing all songs, released two albums (Got No Breeding and fəˈnet̬·ɪks) on Columbia, merging a tight rock sound with the emerging synth-pop of the early 1980s.

His songs have been more commercially successful in the hands of other artists, notably Cyndi Lauper, whose recording of "All Through the Night" reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, and The Bangles, whose recording of "If She Knew What She Wants" reached number 29 in 1986.

He wrote the Cyndi Lauper hit single "All Through the Night", the Bangles' hit "If She Knew What She Wants", and the Ignatius Jones and Allison Moyet hit "Whispering Your Name" and charted a hit as a performer with "Steady" in 1985.

Shear was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

He attended the University of Pittsburgh.

He distinguished himself with the Pitt Glee Club where he led a special side ensemble called Wooden Music, which used acoustic instruments, in a foreshadowing of his "Unplugged" concept.

One of his noted songs of the time, which he performed in concerts with the glee club, was "Always in the Morning".

In 1988, singer-songwriter Iain Matthews (still using the spelling "Ian" for his first name at the time) recorded an album of Shear's material, Walking A Changing Line: The Songs of Jules Shear, with synthesizer-dominated arrangements.

Some of these Shear penned songs were previously unreleased.

Matthews previously recorded Jules Shear songs on other albums.

Shear was the subject of a song by 'Til Tuesday, "J for Jules", after the end of his relationship with that band's singer, Aimee Mann.

Shear co-wrote the title track of that album, Everything's Different Now, with Matthew Sweet, and collaborated with Mann on the album's leading single, "(Believed You Were) Lucky", which reached No. 30 on the Modern Rock Tracks and No. 95 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Shear described his Sayin' Hello to the Folks as a "mix tape" of his favorite songs.

Their third album was rejected by their record label but released as Bad For Business in 1996, long after the band had broken up.

With Jules and the Polar Bears finished, Shear bounced back with several solo albums.

The first, Watch Dog, was produced by Todd Rundgren, and featured such players as Tony Levin on bass and Elliot Easton of The Cars on lead guitar.

During the sessions, Shear and Easton struck up a friendship, based on their shared musical tastes, which led to various collaborations later on.

The album featured the original version of "All Through the Night", which Cyndi Lauper eventually turned into a top-five hit.

The album's opening number, "Whispering Your Name", reached No. 18 in the UK Singles Chart when Alison Moyet recorded her version of it; Moyet also performed the song on Top of the Pops.

Shear then released an EP, Jules, which contained selections from Watch Dog on one side, and two mixes of a club-style dance number, "When Love Surges", on the other side.

Shear's next full-length album, The Eternal Return, was a highly polished, synthesizer-heavy effort, produced by Bill Drescher (of Rick Springfield fame).

The album opened with "If She Knew What She Wants", which The Bangles made into a hit.

It also featured what would prove to be Shear's only hit single under his own name, "Steady" which he wrote in collaboration with Cyndi Lauper.

The single reached No. 48 in the U.S.

Shear went on to form two more bands, Reckless Sleepers and Raisins in the Sun.

He also conceived (and hosted the first 13 episodes of) the MTV series Unplugged.

"I felt like recording songs that I like a lot that I didn't write," he told Paste's Eliot Wilder in 2004.

"I thought it would be good to record songs that didn't have a life but should've had a life. This is my attempt at giving them a life."

He and Stewart Lerman, the album's producer, selected 12 songs from an original list of 60.

These included covers of Todd Rundgren ("Be Nice to Me"), James Brown ("Ain't That a Groove"), Bob Dylan ("In the Summertime") The Dave Clark Five ("I've Got to Have a Reason") and Brian Wilson ("Guess I'm Dumb").

In January 2013, Jules and his wife, artist/songwriter Pal Shazar, released Shear Shazar. Produced by Julie Last, this is the first time Jules and Pal have made a full album together, though the two had recorded duets on Shear's albums before, such as "Here S/He Comes" on The Eternal Return and "Dreams Dissolve in Tears" on The Great Puzzle.

This was followed later in the year by another Shear solo album, Longer to Get to Yesterday. In 2014 Shear Shazar followed up on their debut with the five cut EP Mess You Up.

The following is a list of Jules Shear compositions that have been chart hits.

Shear's unique guitar style derives from tuning the guitar to an open G, but with an E in the bass, equivalent to an E minor seventh chord.