This was supposed to be a concept album of sorts, though not a very adventurous one, the idea being to base it around songs with names in the titles -- "Poor Jenny," "Charlie Brown," "Bony Moronie," etc. The results are as hackneyed as you'd expect,
Paul Jones compromising his strengths -- his excellent R&B and soul sensibilities, as demonstrated in
Manfred Mann -- for weak material, anchored by
Mike Leander's period-piece British orchestral pop arrangements.
Jones is at his best when he gets even a bit rootsy, as on "Nosher Burns" and "Little Sadie," though the juxtaposition of lame remakes of
the Coasters and
the Everly Brothers next to a folk-rock reading of
Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is somewhat ludicrous.
Love Me, Love My Friends was reissued on CD in 1996 by RPM, with the addition of nine bonus tracks from singles and unreleased material from the same era, under the title
The Paul Jones Collection Vol. 2: Love Me, Love My Friends.