Embedded Files
UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR OCTOBER 2011: JIM SULLIVAN
I first heard about JIM SULLIVAN in a glowing piece on National Public Radio. I heard excerpts from a few of his songs (which utterly captivated me), but the story mainly dealt with his mysterious disappearance and the attempts of his record label – Light in the Attic Records – to track him down. They didn’t figure it out, and even reissuing his first album, U.F.O. on CD in 2010 was a major challenge, since the master tapes were long since destroyed, and the few available vinyl copies had sound problems of all kinds to deal with.
Jim Sullivan (who liked to be called “Sully”, just like the hero airline pilot of several years back, Chesley Sullenberger) was a big man: 6 foot 3, and a high school quarterback in the Linda Vista section of San Diego. He was the seventh son of a Nebraska farmer who (like countless others) moved to California out of the 1930’s Dust Bowl. At 16, he had a Sears Silvertone guitar and amp. He met his wife Barbara Sullivan when she was in junior high; in that time period, he was in a band called the Survivors that performed in the San Diego area, with his sister-in-law Kathie Doran on lead vocals.
The family set out for L.A. in 1968, when son Chris Sullivan was 7. Barbara landed a job in the storied Capitol Records tower, while Jim Sullivan gradually became known in the show biz scene and was constantly writing songs and fiddling with his guitar. His manager was Bob Ginter, who also managed Judy Carne, the “Sock it to Me” girl on the hit TV show Laugh-In. Ginter began getting him better gigs, such as the Lindy Opera House on Wilshire Boulevard and the Lighthouse in Redondo Beach. But they really loved Sullivan at the Raft in Malibu; he packed the place night after night and was able to rub elbows with Hollywood figures like Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Lee Majors, Lee Marvin, Harry Dean Stanton, and Vic Morrow.
By 1969, Jim Sullivan’s friends in the L.A. scene pooled their money and invested in getting his first album produced. Called U.F.O., the music is an amalgam of folk, country and rock and has a real spiritual side. It might have been just one more lo-fi singer-songwriter album, except that Jim Sullivan had several musical heavyweights from the legendary Wrecking Crew backing him up: Don Randi (keyboards), Earl Palmer (drums), and Jimmy Bond (bass), plus Bond handled the string arrangements that lent a haunting quality to songs that were conceived as being purely acoustic. At times, there were 15 or 20 musicians in the studio. Jim Sullivan had a strong belief in mysticism, and the family were all big fans of spiritual healer Edgar Cayce.
There were personal connections to many of the songs that were not at all obvious to the casual listener. “Jerome” opens the album and is about a ghost town in Arizona – but it also happened to be the name of Kathie Doran’s hometown. “So Natural” was written in honor of his older brother, Jack Sullivan, an insurance salesman who died of a heart attack on his way home from work; the song title comes from comments made by people at the funeral when looking at his brother in his coffin. “Whistle Stop” was inspired by the 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (a personal favorite of mine as well), starring James Mason as the cursed seaman who was able to escape his fate with the help of a beautiful and spoiled village girl played by Ava Gardner.
The album came out on their own label Monnie Records in 1969, named after the daughter of one of the investors. (Monnie is also the name of one of the daughters of my old boss, John McCracken in Greensboro; her name Monnie McCracken shows up as the creator of untold numbers of my appraisal reports when I call up “Properties” in Word, since I never put my own name in). Al Dobbs, an actor friend who mostly worked as a cue-card holder, worked hard to get the word out about Jim Sullivan’s music (it just wasn’t in Sullivan’s own nature to do that). Among those he pitched to were Jim Hughart, the bass player for the band on the Steve Allen Show. Dobbs also made the rounds at Nashville radio stations when he happened to be working there one time and tried to get in to see Johnny Cash’s manager.
Barbara Sullivan’s connections at Capitol Records didn’t pan out either. Nik Venet was the point man at Capitol for folk-rock music and would have been a natural to work with Sullivan. He had produced albums for Fred Neil – to whom Sullivan is often compared – Lothar and the Hand People, and Linda Ronstadt’s first band the Stone Poneys, plus more mainstream acts like the Kingston Trio and the Beach Boys. But Venet turned him down.
The LP was later reissued on the Century City label with new artwork. Two years after the first album, Jim Sullivan made a second, self-titled album, Jim Sullivan with Jim Hughart that came out on Playboy Records. (I had not known that there was such a thing before this actually). Many of Sullivan’s friends and the members of his family think that the big production values on the albums got in the way of his great songs; but for whatever reason, Jim Sullivan never got his big break in the music business. He and his wife started drinking too much, and their marriage was falling apart.
In 1975, Jim Sullivan packed up and headed east, intending to meet up with his sister-in-law Kathie Doran – his band mate from his Survivors days – and her husband, Nashville session guitarist Dave Doran. He called his wife Barbara Sullivan from a pay phone in Santa Rosa, New Mexico and, at some point, was stopped by the New Mexico Highway Patrol. Then he simply vanished into thin air; his car was later found abandoned in Santa Rosa with his wallet, guitar, suitcase, everything. Among the theories were that he was murdered or that he was abducted by aliens, the latter theory lining up with the title song on the first album, U.F.O.
For 35 years, Jim Sullivan’s album became a kind of Holy Grail for record collectors. Matt Sullivan (no relation) of Light in the Attic Records worked diligently to try to solve the mystery and to get the tracks cleaned up for re-release, and he collected some remarkable artifacts about the man and the disappearance that are shown on the CD insert. The CD came out way too late to help Jim Sullivan himself, but now we have these marvelous songs to wonder over all over again.
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The Honor Roll of the Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
Dec 2009 – BEAST; Lot to Learn
Jan 2010 – WENDY WALDMAN; Los Angeles Singer-Songwriters
Feb 2010 – CYRUS ERIE; Cleveland
Mar 2010 – BANG; Record Collecting I
Apr 2010 – THE BREAKAWAYS; Power Pop
May 2010 – THE NOT QUITE; Katrina Clean-Up
Jun 2010 – WATERLILLIES; Electronica
Jul 2010 – THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock
Aug 2010 – QUEEN ANNE’S LACE; Psychedelic Pop
Sep 2010 – THE STILLROVEN; Minnesota
Oct 2010 – THE PILTDOWN MEN; Record Collecting II
Nov 2010 – SLOVENLY; Slovenly Peter
Dec 2010 – THE POPPEES; New York Punk/New Wave
Jan 2011 – HACIENDA; Latinos in Rock
Feb 2011 – THE WANDERERS; Punk Rock (1970’s/1980’s)
Mar 2011 – INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s)
Apr 2011 – BOHEMIAN VENDETTA; Punk Rock (1960’s)
May 2011 – THE LONESOME DRIFTER; Rockabilly
Jun 2011 – THE UNKNOWNS; Disabled Musicians
Jul 2011 – THE RIP CHORDS; Surf Rock I
Aug 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN; Side Men
Sep 2011 – ULTRA; Texas
Oct 2011 – JIM SULLIVAN; Mystery
Nov 2011 – THE UGLY; Punk Rock (1970’s)
Dec 2011 – THE MAGICIANS; Garage Rock (1960’s)
Jan 2012 – RON FRANKLIN; Why Celebrate Under Appreciated?
Feb 2012 – JA JA JA; German New Wave
Mar 2012 – STRATAVARIOUS; Disco Music
Apr 2012 – LINDA PIERRE KING; Record Collecting III
May 2012 – TINA AND THE TOTAL BABES; One Hit Wonders
Jun 2012 – WILD BLUE; Band Names I
Jul 2012 – DEAD HIPPIE; Band Names II
Aug 2012 – PHIL AND THE FRANTICS; Wikipedia I
Sep 2012 – CODE BLUE; Hidden History
Oct 2012 – TRILLION; Wikipedia II
Nov 2012 – THOMAS ANDERSON; Martin Winfree’s Record Buying Guide
Dec 2012 – THE INVISIBLE EYES; Record Collecting IV
Jan 2013 – THE SKYWALKERS; Garage Rock Revival
Feb 2013 – LINK PROTRUDI AND THE JAYMEN; Link Wray
Mar 2013 – THE GILES BROTHERS; Novelty Songs
Apr 2013 – LES SINNERS; Universal Language
May 2013 – HOLLIS BROWN; Greg Shaw / Bob Dylan
Jun 2013 (I) – FUR (Part 1); What Might Have Been I
Jun 2013 (II) – FUR (Part 2); What Might Have Been II
Jul 2013 – THE KLUBS; Record Collecting V
Aug 2013 – SILVERBIRD; Native Americans in Rock
Sep 2013 – BLAIR 1523; Wikipedia III
Oct 2013 – MUSIC EMPORIUM; Women in Rock I
Nov 2013 – CHIMERA; Women in Rock II
Dec 2013 – LES HELL ON HEELS; Women in Rock III
Jan 2014 – BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV
Feb 2014 – LIQUID FAERIES; Women in Rock V
Mar 2014 (I) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 1); Tribute to Mick Farren
Mar 2014 (II) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 2); Tribute to Mick Farren
Apr 2014 – HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones
May 2014 – THE SOUL AGENTS; The Cream Family Tree
Jun 2014 – THE RICHMOND SLUTS and BIG MIDNIGHT; Band Names (Changes) III
Jul 2014 – MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music)
Aug 2014 – THE HOLY GHOST RECEPTION COMMITTEE #9; Rock and Religion II (Bob Dylan)
Sep 2014 – NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles)
Oct 2014 – MOTOCHRIST; Rock and Religion IV
Nov 2014 – WENDY BAGWELL AND THE SUNLITERS; Rock and Religion V
Dec 2014 – THE SILENCERS; Surf Rock II
Jan 2015 (I) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 1); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Jan 2015 (II) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 2); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Feb 2015 – BRIAN OLIVE; Songwriting I (Country Music)
Mar 2015 – PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie / Bob Dylan)
Apr 2015 (I) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 1); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
Apr 2015 (II) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 2); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
May 2015 – MAL RYDER and THE PRIMITIVES; Songwriting IV (The Rolling Stones)
Jun 2015 – HAYMARKET SQUARE; Songwriting V (The Beatles)
Jul 2015 – THE HUMAN ZOO; Songwriting VI (Psychedelic Rock)
Aug 2015 – CRYSTAL MANSION; Martin Winfree’s Record Cleaning Guide
Dec 2015 – AMANDA JONES; So Many Rock Bands
Mar 2016 – THE LOVEMASTERS; Fun Rock Music
Jun 2016 – THE GYNECOLOGISTS; Offensive Rock Music Lyrics
Sep 2016 – LIGHTNING STRIKE; Rap and Hip Hop
Dec 2016 – THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock
Mar 2017 – THE LAZY COWGIRLS; Iggy and the Stooges; First Wave Punk Rock
Jun 2017 – THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands
Sep 2017 – THE TELL-TALE HEARTS; Bootleg Albums
Dec 2017 – SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles
(Year 10 Review)
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