Pageia Obscura: Big Jim vs. Little Jim

(Jimmy's Business' Card, ironically, Giorgio Gomelski was the man who discovered and managed

 The Yardbirds)

Around London in the 1960's there weren't very many people working as regular session guitarists. When Jimmy Page took it up as a career in early 1963 there wasn't much competition to land a gig. However there was one other individual doing this kind of work at the time, and his name was Jim Sullivan.

"Big" Jim Sullivan

Sullivan began his career working in the studios of London in 1959. He was an unbelievably versatile guitarist who soon found himself in high demand all across London for his talents. Sullivan ended working on an average of three sessions per day, and his output is astounding. Over the 1960's and 1970's Jim Sullivan would work on over 1,000 singles that would get released out of studios in the U.K.

When Jimmy got into session work, Jim Sullivan was already a veteran. It was a bit of a coincidence that the two most in demand session guitarists in England were both named Jim, so to distinguish the two, Jim Sullivan - who was a man of larger carriage - became Big Jim, and Jimmy Page, who - who was a thin as a rail - became Little Jim.

Jimmy Page was usually called up when they needed someone to work on a rock and roll or pop song, as he was a younger man than Jim Sullivan and more in tune with the tastes of the youth. Jimmy had this to say on the subject in an interview with Dave Schulps in 1977:

"It was usually myself and a drummer, though they never mention the drummer these days, just me ... Anyone needing a guitarist either went to Big Jim [Sullivan] or myself."

Little Jim laying down a vocal track perhaps??

There is much dispute today on what songs Jimmy actually worked on, and even further than that, there is even more contention over if his work made it on to the final pressings. Jimmy is rumored to have worked on songs by The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Them, Marianne Faithful, and on an on (I'll go into further detail about these disputes in later postings). It is even said the Little Jim worked on 60% of the songs recorded in England during his career as a session musician, though I personally believe this number to be vastly inflated. Jimmy discussed how much work he did in this period in an interview with NPR in 2003:

"I was doing three sessions a day, fifteen sessions a week. Sometimes I would be playing with a group, sometimes I could be doing film music, it could be a folk session ... I was able to fit all these different roles."

I believe that the work Jimmy did in the studio contributed vastly to the guitarist he later became. It is a mistake to think he just came out of nowhere, and to underestimate the value he received from all the work he put in on other peoples records is a mistake. I think it is vital to understand this period in his life to understand what he became later, how he applied the principles of dynamics to his music, the world influences, and his spectacular work and under-appreciated role as a producer. Jimmy echoed this sentiment in an interview with Guitar World magazine in 2003:

"My session work was invaluable. At one point I was playing at least three sessions a day, six days a week! And I rarely ever knew in advance what I was going to be playing. But I learned things even on my worst sessions – and believe me, I played on some horrendous things. I finally called it quits after I started getting calls to do Muzak. I decided I couldn't live that life any more; it was getting too silly. I guess it was destiny that a week after I quit doing sessions Paul Samwell-Smith left The Yardbirds, and I was able to take his place. But being a session musician was good fun in the beginning – the studio discipline was great. They'd just count the song off, and you couldn't make any mistakes."

Little Jim At Work

Sidenote: Big Jim Sullivan is still kicking around, he was actually just featured in "The Guitar Maestros" DVD series and tours with Doug Pruden as BJS Duo.