Dave Cope and the Sass’ full length album Julee is an amalgam of various recordings completed over a decade ago. The bulk of the playlist consists of songs from Cope’s 2013 release A Proper Record with a few tracks removed and replaced with other songs Cope had written and recorded between 2008 and 2012. The result is a product that goes above and beyond the original scope and incarnation of its modes of presentation. As an album, Julee is a solid melodic effort, at times hard rocking, at times sweet and mellow, a loving tribute to the catchy mid 60s British Invasion power pop of the Beatles, The Kinks, The Small Faces and The Move.

The selections originally featured on A Proper Record were recorded and produced by Mark Owen in 2012. Owen was a staple engineer in Rick Ocasek’s camp in the 1990s and has worked with many big names in the music business including The Black Crowes and Fountains Of Wayne. The personnel on the album features musicians from the Cleveland Ohio area (Owen’s place of residence) and Philadelphia (Copes home). The songs themselves were recorded and mixed in a wide variety of locations, including Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco and Abbey Road Studios in London. The core personnel for the album include Dave Cope on vocals, guitars, keys and string arrangements, Bart Michael handling lead guitars, Ethan Rider on bass and Steve Fulton on drums.
The record was dedicated to Cope’s father, Gerald, who passed away only weeks before the recording sessions for the project began. Watching Over Me, the final song on the record, was composed during the final stages of the album’s tracking sessions and was inspired by Cope coming to terms with the loss of his dad. Lost With You is also a tribute to his father, and the English Music Hall sounds Gerald Cope grew up with in 1940s England. Another spiritual influence for the project was George Harrison, whose filmic biography, Living In The Material World had just been released in 2011. Harrison’s musical presence is most ardently felt in the Indian music influenced acoustic lullaby On A Day Like Today.

The two remaining tracks were recorded under somewhat different circumstances. Julee was written while Cope was playing in the Philadelphia based rock band Fantasy Square Garden. The track was recorded by Cope and FSG drummer Tony Catastrophe. It features Catastrophe on drums and Cope providing vocals and all other instrumental work. The final version was also mixed by Mark Owen, whose expertise gave it a harder more excited vibe similar to the songs of the Raspberries and other 70s power pop mainstays.

I Got Your Letter was written by Cope in 2007 and recorded by Henry Hirsch, producer and engineer for Lenny Kravitz in the 1990s. It features Cope on vocals and acoustic guitars, Soren Christensen of Danish rock group The Blue Van on lead guitar, Hirsch on bass and multi-talented wunderkind Gabriel Garzon Montano on drum duty. This version also includes some recently added ear candy in the form of violins, cellos, French horns and trumpets, all arranged and programmed by Cope.

The album artwork was designed by Dave Cope and Hannah Taylor. Cope had the idea of fashioning a lady our of jewelry on a white background. He fashioned the image out of a necklace, a pair of clip on earrings and a feather boa borrowed from his mother, some fake eye lashes and lipstick stolen from his fiancée, a couple prescription pills from his own personal collection and a Union Jack kitchen magnet from God only knows where. Taylor enhanced and cleaned up the image, adding the band logo, and the new cover was born.