Big Jim Sullivan as Lord Sitar

ExploitoBeing a session player probably isn't the most rewarding career track to follow to its end - listen to "Session Man" (that's the second time this week I've been able to reference that, I'm psyched). But in the annuls of rock there are number of individuals who made their mark on music through this position in music. Ry Cooder is probably the best known, even as his solo work after the sessions with the Rolling Stones comes in at just above horrendous. But alongside Cooder in the UK scene was a man named Big Jim Sullivan - apparently Little Jim was used to refer to Jimmy Page, but there's no corroboration for that apart from Wikipedia...so...

Big Jim apparently recorded thousands and thousands of tracks with a good many of them ending up in the Brit charts somewhere along the way. He counted Richie Blackmoore as a student and even loaned the aforementioned Little Jim a guitar to use on some of Zeppelin's earliest dates. That in and of itself seems ample enough history to get a bit of respect.

But Big Jim would eventually endeavor into the production side of music, forming a label with a fellow business man. Resultantly, Big Jim served behind the boards for most of his label's out put, even counting Labi Siffre as a collaborator, who unfortunately is best known at this point for cranking out "I Got the..." which was subsequently sampled by Eminem.

But even prior to working with some of England's most famous rock stars, Big Jim is reported to have been the individual to not only unleash the 12 string guitar on UK audiences, but the sitar as well. And although the least ostentatious Beatle is usually credited with that - even though it very well may have been Shawn Phillips - Big Jim has also received this title of horizon expander.

That kinda doesn't matter, though. What does is the way in which any of these folks used the instrument. Again, Harrison is arguably the sitars best proponent from the UK, with Phillips just backing up Donovan and Big Jim using it as an exploitative device.

A few albums came about with Big Jim's sitar taking the vocal lines from then modern pop hits. And technically, what resulted is exactly what was sought after; a simple distillation of eastern music over western rock tunes. Lord Sitar, probably the most well known and sought after recording in this mode, though, actually reveals that while the target was hit from the point of view of the producers and players, the album is probably best sampled in an elevator somewhere between '67 and '72.

There really isn't a highlight, as difficult as that is to believe, considering the tracking counts the Monkees and a few songs from the Beatles' song book. But this was the time of cashing in on the youth market. And I would assume that it worked to a good extent. And even if the sitar playing isn't on par with anything from the sub-continent, the band backing Big Jim here seems a bit less than inspired. The cover looks cool though.