ALBUM OF THE MONTH - U.F.O - JIM SULLIVAN (1969)
- Maya Kay
- Nov 29, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 30, 2024
In 1975, Jim Sullivan disappeared in the desert. His abandoned Volkswagen Beetle was found near a remote New Mexico ranch, containing his wallet, guitar, clothes, and a box of his unsold records. The title of his album, U.F.O., raised suspicions about whether he was abducted by aliens.
Born in Nebraska in 1939, Sullivan’s family relocated to San Diego, California, during WW2. While in college, he co-owned a bar that ended up being a financial failure. In the mid 1960s, he played with the San Diego rock group the Survivors, with his sister-in-law Kathie.
Jim later moved to LA in 1968 with his wife Barbara, who worked as a secretary for Capitol records. Her boss, John Rankin, tried to get someone on the label to notice Sullivan’s music, but failed to get anyone’s attention.
However, Jim was rubbing shoulders with Hollywood celebrities including Dennis Hopper, who helped him land an uncredited role as a guitarist at a hippie commune in Easy Rider. He also struck up a friendship with Harry Dean Stanton, who was a fan of his music. Sullivan’s gig at a bar called the Raft in Malibu caught the attention of a group of entrepreneurs, who decided that the musician was worth investing in.
In 1969, Sullivan released the psychedelic country-folk album U.F.O. on Monnie Records. Fittingly, it was the same year that humans set foot on the moon for the first time. His recording band was keyboardist Don Randi, drummer Earl Palmer, and bassist Jimmy Bond, all members of the Wrecking Crew, who’d backed the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, and Phil Spector.
The album should have worked. However, it didn’t see any success, and despite his contacts with movie stars and top musicians, fame eluded Jim Sullivan. Over the next six years, he continued performing at the Raft and other clubs, but his life began to unravel. He became convinced that some of his music had been stolen, and he struggled with a growing drinking problem.
In 1972, Sullivan released a second album, Jim Sullivan, on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Records. Like his first album, it failed to generate any significant interest.
By 1975, Sullivan's professional struggles led to marital difficulties, and he and Barbara separated. The plan was for Jim to relocate to Nashville, Tennessee, since he believed his career might stand a better chance. Once he reestablished his career, he would send for Barbara and their two children. But Sullivan never made it to Tennessee - somewhere in the New Mexico desert, he vanished.
Sullivan’s music later developed a cult following, in part thanks to the work of Matt Sullivan (no relation) of Light in the Attic Records, who reissued U.F.O. in 2010. Matt Sullivan also attempted to uncover the mystery of Sullivan's disappearance, interviewing people who knew him. He writes, “Jim’s manager, Robert 'Buster' Ginter, stated that during the early morning hours of a long evening, Jim and Buster were talking about what would you do if they had to disappear. Jim said he’d walk into the desert and never come back.”
What became of Jim Sullivan remains a mystery. Theories speculate that he may have been abducted by aliens, commited suicide, gotten into trouble with the police or the mafia, gotten lost, or started a new life. The mystery is amplified by the cryptic lyrics on U.F.O. Particularly haunting are the lyrics on Highway, sung in a wistful, weathered voice over lilting music:
“There's a highway
Telling me to go where I can
Such a long way
I don't even know where I am”
The title song, U.F.O. seems to be about Jesus coming to earth in a spaceship while Jim watches, combining his interest in the mystical and the extraterrestrial. The woodwind on that track is great. There are also references to a flying ship (and perhaps an extraterrestrial or supernatural lover) in Whistle Stop.
So Natural is about Jim’s emotional reaction to seeing his brother Arthur’s body at his funeral after he died of a heart attack. The song conveys his discomfort with both the sight of the corpse and the way people reacted to it. It expresses how he didn’t want anyone to see his corpse when he died, not wanting others to view his body in a similar way.
The album also contains songs about strained relationships: Plain As Your Eyes Can See seems to be about his relationship with Barbara, who was the breadwinner of the family, but is set to upbeat music with a jazzy blues breakdown. Roll Back The Time is about regret over time spent with an unfaithful partner.
Johnny is about about escapism from polluted reality into something higher. Both this song and Jerome contain allusions to LSD, and references to levitation. They also both reference men drifting away and getting lost in the outskirts of life. Johnny is “flying too high,” and “maybe you can find Jerome”. Jerome, Johnny, and Jim all seem to have shared similar fates.
It seems Sullivan predicted his own disappearance, whether due to some U.F.O encounter, or due to the failures he had experienced in his artistic career, flying close to the sun but ultimately getting burnt.
The final track, Sandman, is strangely prophetic of a return to his wife and his town after dissapearing in the “sandy” desert.
Similar artists:
Fred Neil
Gene Clark
Brian Wilson
Glen Campbell
Joe South
John Pine
Nick Drake
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