Genre: pop
Rating: ** (2 stars)
Title: If You Could See What I Hear
Company: Perception
Catalog: PLP 25
Year: 1972
Country/State: US
Grade (cover/record): VG/VG
Comments: two small pieces of white and blue tape along bottom right corner
Available: 1
GEMM catalog ID: 4716
Price: $15.00
Cost: $66.00
Mind you, I don't know a great deal about singer/songwriter/author/acter Tom Sullivan. I believe this album was released before he enjoyed his successes as a writer, but I'm not 100% sure.
In spite of the fact he'd been born blind, Sullivan had the good fortune of having parents who pushed him to use all of his physical and mental facilties. Sullivan went to Harvard, competed in rowing and wrestling, married had a couple of kids. He also decided that he wanted to become a musician. By the early 1970s he was a regular on the New England summer resorts/club scene. An appearance on The Tonight Show brought record companies calling and in 1972 he signed a recording deal with Jimmy Curtiss' Perception label (I won't bother to point out the irony).
Self-produced 1972's "If You Could See What I Hear" offers up a rather standard mixture of early 1970s musical genres including lots of heavily orchestrated sensitive singer/songwriter ballads ('Naked Truth') and a couple of socially relevant numbers ('Today's Children, Tomorrow's Future'). Sullivan has an okay voice and his lyrics are admirable in their reflection of his upbeat, 'can't-be-stopped' vision of life. On the other hand, stuff like the title track and 'Turtles' is liable to send many of you cringing, while diabetics may go into insulin shock if exposed to the entire album in one sitting. His supper club Gospel cover of 'Jesus Walker that Lonesome Valley' is probably enough to drive some of you into the arms of Satin. Giving credit where due, there's one halfway decent rocker (the lone non-original 'Touching You'). The title track was pulled as a single by the small Reward label:
- 'If You Could See What I Hear' b/w '' (Perception catalog number WS4-03328)
"If You Could See What I Hear" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) If You Could See What I Hear (Tom Sullivan) -
2.) What Is a Woman? (Tom Sullivan) -
3.) Idyle Hands (Are the Devil's Workshop) (Tom Sullivan) -
4.) Fair Play (Tom Sullivan) -
5.) Today's Children, Tomorrow's Future (Tom Sullivan) -
(side
2)
1.) Touching You (Patrick Adams -
David Jordan) -
2.) Turtles (Tom Sullivan) -
3.) Naked Truth (Tom Sullivan) -
4.) Jesus Walker that Lonesome Valley (traditiional) -