JIM SULLIVAN
If The Evening Were Dawn/jim Sullivan LIGHT IN THE ATTIC 8/10, 7/10
Lost and neglected treasures from tragic LA singer-songwriter
JIM SULLIVAN’S sudden disappearance remains a puzzle to this day. In March 1975, having left Los Angeles to try out for session work in Nashville, the singer-songwriter was last seen at a mobster-affiliated ranch in New Mexico. Police found his abandoned car at the property, with all his belongings inside. There were search parties, door-to-door enquiries and plenty of speculation, but no trace of the 34-year-old was ever found.
The son of a Nebraskan farmer, he and his wife Barbara had moved west in the late ’60s. While she found secretarial work at Capitol Records, Sullivan hung out with Lee Marvin and Harry Dean Stanton at a Malibu bar, where he played his songs – armed with just a 12-string guitar
– to an appreciative crowd. He ended up with a record deal, a brief cameo in Easy Rider and a spot on José Feliciano’s TV show.
Sullivan’s story was finally brought to wider attention in 2010, when Seattle label Light In The Attic reissued his sumptuous debut, UFO. Initially released on a tiny imprint in 1969, the album found his rich voice intoning semi-mystical songs over gentle Southern grooves and baroque strings, backed by various members of the Wrecking Crew. The lack of any budget for promotion or distribution, however, meant that hardly anyone got to hear it back in the day.
He pressed on regardless. By 1972, Sullivan was one of four artists picked up by Hugh Hefner’s newly minted Playboy label. The self-titled album he delivered, featuring a crack bunch of session men led by bassist Jim Hughart (whose credits include Tim Buckley, Joni Mitchell and Chet Baker), was another admirable showcase for his talents. He’s a man of many moods, from the wistful air of “Amos” to the vampy “Biblical Boogie (True He’s Gone)” and on to the funky swing of “Tom Cat”. Alas, Playboy’s musical arm was ill-conceived. Because the label lacked the kudos or the promo tools, and with some retailers refusing to stock product due to the sleazy connotations of the name, Sullivan’s work again went mostly unnoticed. He became disenchanted. Eventually, he climbed into his VW Beetle, stuffed a heap of his Playboy LPS in the back, and headed out for Nashville.
LITA’S reissue of Jim Sullivan is joined by the intriguing If The Evening Were Dawn. Cut in the studio around 1969, it’s a previously unheard set that places him in his natural habitat, alone with a guitar. The songs are all the more luminous for their intimacy, and Sullivan’s voice, somewhere between Fred Neil and Tony Joe White, is never less than commanding. The bittersweet “Roll Back The Time” exudes a certain authority, as does the airy “Grandpa’s Trip” and the wilfully propulsive “Whistle Stop/mama”. It’s a vital addition to a small but masterly legacy.