Judee Sill

Biography

Judith Lynne Sill (October 7, 1944 – November 23, 1979) was an American singer-songwriter and composer. She was influenced by Bach, and wrote lyrics drawing on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.
While signed to David Geffen's label Asylum, Sill released two albums, Judee Sill (1971) and Heart Food×Heart Food1973 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1There’s a Rugged Road3:42A2The Kiss4:32A3The Pearl1:50A4Down Where the Valleys Are Low4:12A5The Vigilante3:48B1Soldier of the Heart3:30B2The Phoenix2:35B3When the Bridegroom Comes4:10B4The Donor7:55B5[untitled]1:15 (1973). Both albums were acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful.
In 1974, Sill recorded demos for a third album, which went unfinished. Sill struggled with addiction through much of her life and died of a drug overdose in 1979. She did not find commercial success, and at the time of her death, no obituary was published; however, several artists have since cited her as an influence. Her found studio tape, demos and other rarities were released on the 2005 collection Dreams Come True.

Early life

Judith Lynne Sill was born in Studio City, Los Angeles, on October 7, 1944, and spent her early childhood in Oakland, California. Her father, Milford "Bud" Sill, an importer of exotic animals for use in films, owned Bud's bar in Oakland, where Sill learned to play the piano. When Milford died of pneumonia in 1952, Judee's mother, Oneta, moved with her and her older brother Dennis to Los Angeles, where Oneta met and married the Tom and Jerry animator Kenneth Muse.
In a 1972 Rolling Stone interview, Sill described her home life after her mother's remarriage as unhappy and frequently violent due to physical fights with her parents. She transferred from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys to a private school, where she met other rebellious teenagers. Either during high school or after her graduation (depending on the source), Sill and a man she had met committed a series of armed robberies of businesses such as liquor stores and gas stations. They were arrested and she spent nine months in reform school, where she was a church organist and "learned a lot of good music", including gospel music.
After being released, Sill briefly attended San Fernando Valley Junior College as an art major. She also played piano in the school orchestra and worked in a piano bar. In 1964, after her mother died, Sill left college and moved out of her stepfather's home. She started taking LSD and other drugs, moved in with an LSD dealer and joined a jazz trio.
In April 1966, Sill married the pianist Robert Maurice "Bob" Harris. The couple lived in Las Vegas for a time, and both developed heroin addictions within months. When Sill moved back to California, she resorted to crime to support her addiction, including robbery, sex work, forgery and fraud. A string of narcotics and forgery offenses sent her to jail, and she learned that her brother Dennis had suddenly died of a liver infection. When she was released, she immediately set to work as a song composer.

Career

Sill encountered Graham Nash and David Crosby and toured with them for a time as their opening act. After some initial interest from Atlantic Records, David Geffen offered her a contract with his new Asylum label. She sold her song "Lady-O" to the Turtles, and was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Harris worked on her first album and was involved with the Turtles.
Graham Nash produced her first album's first single, "Jesus Was a Cross Maker", released to radio on October 1, 1971. The album Judee Sill was released on September 15, 1971. It featured Sill's voice in multiple overdubs. She worked with the engineer Henry Lewy, noted for his work with Joni Mitchell throughout the 1970s. She opened for Jimmy Webb during two stints at the Troubadour to promote the just-released album, and though well received in her live performances the album was not a commercial success. In January and February 1973, she was the support act on a tour of the UK by Roy Harper.
Sill took over the orchestration and arrangements on her second album, Heart Food×Heart Food1973 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1There’s a Rugged Road3:42A2The Kiss4:32A3The Pearl1:50A4Down Where the Valleys Are Low4:12A5The Vigilante3:48B1Soldier of the Heart3:30B2The Phoenix2:35B3When the Bridegroom Comes4:10B4The Donor7:55B5[untitled]1:15, which included "The Donor". Heart Food was released in March 1973 and was critically acclaimed, but sold poorly, leading to the end of her association with Geffen and Asylum Records. Sill's friends said she lacked the resilience to cope with poor sales and bad reviews, and that she was dropped after she refused to perform as an opening act, a task she disliked. Sill and Geffen's personal relationship also deteriorated, with Judee allegedly camping out on Geffen's front lawn to protest his lack of support for Heart Food. Their relationship came to an end after Sill, who was openly bisexual, allegedly referred to the then-publicly closeted Geffen using a homophobic epithet; whether this occurred onstage, or on the radio, and what exactly was said is disputed.
Sill continued to write songs, and in 1974, began to record material for a third album at the studio of Michael Nesmith. By this time, Sill was once again suffering from drug abuse and other health problems, and her music was not regarded as marketable. She also was beginning to lose interest in music and focus on other pursuits, including theosophy and animals. In the mid-1970s, she worked for a time as a cartoonist with a Los Angeles animation studio. Her 1974 recordings were never finished. Twenty-six years after Sill's 1979 death, the unfinished songs were mixed by Jim O'Rourke and released, along with a collection of rarities and home demos, as the album Dreams Come True×Dreams Come True2005 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 20 tracks · 2 discsDisc 11That’s the Spirit4:182I’m Over3:393Apocalypse Express2:494The Living End3:025Things Are Lookin’ Up3:176The Good Ship Omega3:287Last Resort2:348Till Dreams Come True3:309Living End (studio demo)4:0810I’m Over (studio demo)4:2111Till Dreams Come True (instrumental, studio demo)3:25Disc 21Dead Time Bummer Blues2:312Sunny Side Up Luck5:063Emerald River Dance (home recording)3:114Waterfall3:095North Country3:136Farmer’s Daughter (The Chickens in the Garden)1:107The Wreck of the FFV (Fast Flying Vestibule)3:138500 Miles2:029Oh Boy! The Magician (instrumental, home demo)5:11 on the Water label.

Personal life and death

Sill's personal life was turbulent, and she was affected by the early deaths of her father, mother, and brother. Sill said she had been married twice, saying in interviews that she was briefly married either during or just after high school to a classmate, that her parents had the marriage annulled, and that he later died in a rafting accident. A friend wrote that she claimed to have married her robbery partner as a teenager. Sill's second marriage was to Robert Maurice "Bob" Harris on April 27, 1966, in Clark County, Nevada. They divorced in 1972.
Sill was bisexual. Her romance with the singer-songwriter JD Souther, along with the novel The Last Temptation of Christ, inspired her song "Jesus Was a Cross Maker". Souther later wrote the song "Something in the Dark" about her. She had a long-term relationship with the poet David Omer Bearden, who contributed lyrics to Heart Food and toured and performed with her; Sill dedicated Heart Food to him. As Asylum's first published artist, Sill also had a close friendship with David Geffen, and wrote "David Geffen, I love you" in the sleeve for her first album. Their relationship soured after comments she made in frustration about not receiving enough promotion for her second UK tour.
After a series of car accidents and a failed back surgery, Sill struggled with drug addiction and dropped out of the music scene. She died of a drug overdose, or "acute cocaine and codeine intoxication", on November 23, 1979, at her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood. The Los Angeles coroner ruled her death a suicide, taking into account a note found near her body, but some who knew her have contended that the note, which reportedly contained "a meditation on rapture, the hereafter, and the innate mystery of life", was not a suicide note but rather a diary entry or song concept. Her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean after a ceremony organized by a few close friends at the Self-Realization Fellowship in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. By the time of Sill's death, she had become so obscure that no obituary was published, and for many years, a number of her friends were unaware she had died. The New York Times belatedly published an obituary of Sill in 2020, as part of their "Overlooked No More" series of notable historic people whose deaths had gone unreported by the Times.

Musical style

Sill was classically trained. She combined an appreciation of classical composers such as Bach with seventies California music, a style she described as "country-cult-baroque". The critic Barney Hosykns wrote that her songs "suggest a hippie update of the cosmic epiphanies of William Blake or the metaphysical ecstasies of Henry Vaughan".
Sill believed that the purpose of music was to glorify God. Though her music is not Christian rock, it often references Christian beliefs and uses Christ as "a symbol of the elusive, yearned-for lover". She was included in The Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music; her faith was debatable, but she made frequent use of Christian symbolism in her lyrics, combined with a "lack of sensuality" and the "denial of the physical". The Washington Post described her music as "intensely devotional... she wrote her own sort of hymns — guileless, urgent, naked, absolutely personal".

Influence and legacy

Although Sill's music was not commercially successful, a number of later songwriters have been fans of her work, including Andy Partridge, Liz Phair, Warren Zevon, Shawn Colvin, Steven Wilson, Robin Pecknold, Daniel Rossen, Bill Callahan and Terra Spencer.
Nick Lowe said that "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" was an influence on his Brinsley Schwarz song "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding". In 2004, the British music critic Barney Hoskyns wrote that had Sill been "as male and pretty" as Nick Drake, another songwriter who did not find success while he was alive, her music would now be as popular. Hoskyns wrote that songs such as "The Pearl", "The Phoenix" and "Soldier of the Heart" were "as beautiful as Drake's but far more schooled and complex".
In 2016, the supergroup case/lang/veirs released an eponymous album with a song about Sill titled "Song for Judee". Written by Laura Veirs, the song details the hardships of Sill's life and mentions Sill's song "The Kiss" from the album Heart Food×Heart Food1973 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1There’s a Rugged Road3:42A2The Kiss4:32A3The Pearl1:50A4Down Where the Valleys Are Low4:12A5The Vigilante3:48B1Soldier of the Heart3:30B2The Phoenix2:35B3When the Bridegroom Comes4:10B4The Donor7:55B5[untitled]1:15.

Posthumous releases

Terry Hounsome's 1981 book New Rock Record lists a Sill album titled Tulips From Amsterdam. Unsure of the information's source, Hounsome later removed the listing from his database.
Sill appears on Tommy Peltier's Chariot of Astral Light (featuring Judee Sill), which was recorded in the 1970s but not released until 2005 on the Black Beauty label. She contributed guitar, organ and backing vocals to six tracks on the album and is pictured with Peltier on the cover. Also in 2005, Sill's unfinished recordings, mixed by Jim O'Rourke, were released along with other rarities and unreleased demos as Dreams Come True, a two-CD set on Water Records. Sill's two original albums, Judee Sill and Heart Food×Heart Food1973 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1There’s a Rugged Road3:42A2The Kiss4:32A3The Pearl1:50A4Down Where the Valleys Are Low4:12A5The Vigilante3:48B1Soldier of the Heart3:30B2The Phoenix2:35B3When the Bridegroom Comes4:10B4The Donor7:55B5[untitled]1:15, were released that year as individual CDs, each with bonus tracks, on the Rhino Handmade label.
In 2006, Rhino released the compilation Abracadabra: The Asylum Years×Abracadabra: The Asylum Years19 June 2006 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 42 tracks · 2 discsDisc 11Crayon Angels2:432The Phantom Cowboy1:443The Archetypal Man3:364The Lamb Ran Away With the Crown3:135Lady‐O3:146Jesus Was a Crossmaker3:307Ridge Rider4:498My Man on Love3:299Lopin’ Along Thru the Cosmos3:0710Enchanted Sky Machines2:5211Abracadabra1:5912The Pearl (original version)1:4913The Phoenix (original version)2:2414Ridge Rider (alternate version)5:0615My Man on Love (alternate version)3:3116Intro / The Vigilante (live)4:3717Lady‐O (live)3:2518Enchanted Sky Machines (live)6:4919The Archetypal Man (live)4:0220Crayon Angels (live)3:1221The Lamb Ran Away With the Crown (live)4:3122Jesus Was a Cross Maker (live)3:47Disc 21There’s a Rugged Road3:452The Kiss4:363The Pearl1:554Down Where the Valleys Are Low3:525The Vigilante3:516Soldier of the Heart3:347The Phoenix2:378When the Bridegroom Comes4:159The Donor7:5410[untitled]1:0311The Desperado3:5712The Kiss (demo)4:1313Down Where the Valleys Are Low (demo)4:4914The Donor (demo)4:4415Soldier of the Heart (demo)3:0616The Phoenix (demo)2:2917The Vigilante (demo)3:4418The Pearl (demo)1:5819There’s a Rugged Road (demo)3:4320The Donor (alternate mix)7:51. The Guardian gave it five out of five, and wrote that "in death [Sill] is slowly finding the audience she always craved". In 2007, an album of Sill's live performances performed for the BBC was released as Live in London: The BBC Recordings 1972–1973. In 2017 the independent record label Intervention Records released 180-gram double 45 rpm LP and SACD reissues of Sill's self-titled album and Heart Food.
In 2022, the documentary film Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill, by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom was completed. It was released in 2024. Nine years in the making, it coalesces past reporting on Sill along with including newly unearthed interviews and personal journals.