U.F.O. (LP)
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 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’s album U.F.O. came out on their own label Monnie Records in 1969, named after the daughter of one of the investors.
U.F.O. was later reissued on the Century City label with new artwork. Two years after the first album, 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).
(October 2011)
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Several songs by Jim Sullivan are available on YouTube; in fact, the entire album can be listened to, as is true of many obscure albums in fact. The title track of his album U.F.O., “U.F.O.” is available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH0l7nIMfw0 . The clever and humorous “So Natural” can be heard here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmymU89kWXw . And another great song from the album, “Highways” is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3I4TdOCVpw . These are all audio only of course.
(November 2013)
