Jim Sullivan’s mysterious lot is the archetype of an eerie musical backstory. After releasing two commercially-flopping albums (including one forebodingly titled U.F.O.), the dispirited songwriter disappeared from the face of the planet in 1975; his Volkswagen Beetle was found abandoned in the middle of a New Mexico desert, with all of Sullivan’s money, documents, clothes, guitar, and a box of unsold records still in it.
In the decades that followed, U.F.O. has become regarded as a cult album, in great part thanks to a reissue by Light in the Attic. Now, the Los Angeles culture preservers are going to give similar treatment to Sullivan’s sophomore self-titled LP, and also release If The Evening Were Dawn: a collection of ten never-before-heard acoustic solo recordings recorded circa 1969. Both albums are coming on October 25.
The self-titled LP (pictured above), originally released in 1972 on Hugh Hefner’s short-lived Playboy label, was a full-band affair, a maximalist “stride into country, folk rock, and swampy blues.” To the contrary, If The Evening Were Dawn collects stripped-down, guitar-and-voice-only demos of U.F.O. tracks and previously unheard songs: soulful folk performances that offer “the closest thing to those fabled Malibu bar performances at which Sullivan was first noticed.”
The two LPs, as well as a bundle that includes both records, a Jim Sullivan songbook, a poster, and a t-shirt, can be pre-ordered here. Watch a short announcement video from Light in the Attic below:
Jim Sullivan tracklisting:
01. Don’t Let It Throw You
02. Sunny Jim
03. Tea Leaves
04. Biblical Boogie (True He’s Gone)
05. Lonesome Picker
06. Sandman
07. Tom Cat
08. You Show Me The Way To Go
09. Amos
10. I’ll Be Here
11. Plain To See
If The Evening Were Dawn tracklisting:
01. Roll Back The Time
02. Sandman
03. Walls
04. Jerome
05. What To Tell Her
06. Grandpa’s Trip
07. So Natural
08. Whistle Stop / Mama
09. What Is My Name
10. Close My Eyes
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