Obituary: Big Jim Sullivan, guitarist

Big Jim Sullivan reputedly had more than 1,000 chart hits, including a series of number ones. Yet he was never a big star in terms of public recognition. He was, however, one of the most in-demand session guitarists of the 1960s and 1970s, playing with everyone from Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones to Rolf Harris and Benny Hill, and serving as resident guitarist on Top of the Pops.

Although he was never a star, Sullivan was a very accomplished and versatile musician. The tartan-clad Scottish posters The Bay City Rollers were stars, though even their most loyal fans would probably admit that they were not the most accomplished musicians of the age. Sullivan was the man who attempted to teach them music.

He gave them guitar lessons, not in the privacy of the studio or rehearsal room, but as a regular feature of their 1975 TV show Shang-a-Lang – even though they had already topped the UK charts by that point and were on their way to becoming an international (albeit short-lived) phenomenon.

Born James George Tomkins, in Uxbridge in West London in 1941, Sullivan started playing guitar at 14 and was playing professionally at 16 in the 2i’s Coffee Bar, in Soho, often cited as the birthplace of British rock and roll.

Among his acolytes was a young Ritchie Blackmore, who would later become lead guitarist with Deep Purple. Citing Sullivan as a major influence, Blackmore told one interviewer: “He’d only been playing about two years, but he was just about the best guitarist in England, straight away.

“I thought I was alright and learning pretty well, until I saw him. I couldn’t even understand what he was doing.

“He taught me quite a lot of tricks. I think he used to get a bit fed up with me hanging around. But when you’re around someone that good, your own standards are raised.”

At 17 Sullivan became part of the original line-up of Marty Wilde’s backing band The Wildcats, though it required him to have his hair dyed blond. Their version of the Dion and the Belmonts song A Teenager in Love reached No 2 in 1959 and was followed by a string of other hits.

Towards the end of the 1950s Marty Wilde and the Wildcats appeared on the TV pop show Oh Boy!, which led Sullivan into session work, as pop music, rock and roll and the cult of the guitar began to take off, along with the demand for competent exponents of the instrument.

The Wildcats also toured with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran and recorded with them for BBC radio’s Saturday Club in 1960. The association was to prove an inspirational experience for Sullivan. Within weeks, however Cochran was dead, aged 21, killed in a road accident in Wiltshire, in which “Sweet” Gene Vincent was also seriously injured.

By the early 1960s Sullivan was working regularly with the likes of Billy Fury and Adam Faith, as well as continuing with Marty Wilde. He played on a very wide range of hits, from Danny Williams’s chart-topping version of Moon River to the Peter Sellers comedy record Goodness Gracious Me.

Before long he was recording an average of three records a day, many of which went straight into the singles charts, including more than 50 number one hits in the 1960s and 1970s.

He could play safe and sweet, but he could also take guitar playing right to the very edge. “The older session men used to call me the ‘Electric Monster’ because I used to make the guitar scream and groan when I bent and pulled the strings,” he said.

“I remember making quite an impact with the tone and volume pedal when I used it on Dave Berry’s Crying Game. Even to this day people still argue as to whether it was me or Jimmy Page playing on the track.”

He reputedly turned down the chance to join Led Zeppelin and it was also suggested he might have become part of Elvis Presley’s backing band, but by that time he was already part of Tom Jones’s regular band, touring and appearing on television with him during the late 1960s and the 1970s.

His number ones include Make It Easy on Yourself and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore by the Walker Brothers; the Eurovision winners Puppet on a String by Sandie Shaw and All Kinds of Everything by Dana; Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris; and Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) by Benny Hill.

The Rollers were not the only Scottish band who owe Sullivan a debt of gratitude. He also worked with Marmalade and played on Middle of the Road’s Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and on January, a chart topper from the Rollers’ contemporaries Pilot.

Sullivan made a handful of albums on which he was the main artist, beginning with Sitar Beat in 1967. His passion for sitar led to an association with George Harrison. He also recorded an album consisting of Gilbert O’Sullivan songs and another working with Chas and Dave.

During the 1970s he made three albums as part of a group called Tiger and teamed up with Deep Purple producer Derek Lawrence to found the Retreat record label, which is how he got involved with Chas and Dave. He and Lawrence also served as producers on the early albums by the American heavy metal band Angel.

Towards the end of the decade he veered off in a completely different direction and joined the James Last Orchestra, with which he spent almost a decade. As well as pop and rock, Sullivan was also interested in jazz and classical music, citing among his influences Dizzy Gillespie and Stravinsky.

He also wrote advertising jingles and in more recent years played with various groups and musicians in venues ranging from big theatres to local pubs.

He was quoted on his official website as saying: “Just recently I worked with Van Morrison and I came to realise that money can’t make a decent human being out of you… He is so unhappy that he treats everybody as if he had bought them and they belong to him to do what he likes with them. My stay with Van was very short-lived.”

Sullivan is survived by his wife, for whom he wrote the jazz tune Blues for Norma, and by three daughters.

BRIAN PENDREIGH