wears the trousers magazine

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Judee Lynn Sill was born on October 7th, 1944, to a life of trouble and heartache. A daddy’s girl who lost her father to pneumonia when she was only eight, with her elder brother following soon after in a fatal car crash, Judee was left at the mercy of her alcoholic mother and stepfather (‘Tom & Jerry’ animator Kenneth Muse). She fell in with a bad crowd and ended up in reform school at 15 after being caught holding up liquor stores and gas stations with her boyfriend. She attended college, but flunked out and ended up a heroin addict and sometime prostitute, ‘enjoying’ a brief stint in jail along the way.

But Sill was not simply another junkie with a difficult childhood; she was also an incredibly gifted musician. She could play the piano, guitar, ukelele, bass and church organ (which she learned during her time at reform school), among numerous other instruments. Her songs alternatively display a sweet simplicity and a masterful complexity, and it is easy to see that she was indeed the perfectionist that she claimed. The influences of her passion for classical music, religion and the mystical are also plain.

Newly clean and focused, Sill’s eponymous 1972 debut album became the first release on David Geffen’s legendary Asylum label (followed by the likes of Joni Mitchell’s Court & Spark and The Eagles’ Eagles). A towering paragon of the early ’70s singer-songwriter movement, it’s crisp, clear and perfect from the opening ‘Crayon Angels’ to the closing ‘Abracadabra’. ‘Jesus Was A Cross Maker’, previously recorded by ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot for her 1971 self-titled solo album and soon after by The Hollies, is a poignant reflection upon a troubled relationship, unfolding like a rose as more instruments break in as the song progresses, culminating in a beautifully orchestral climax. Sill’s quirkiness and fascination with religion is displayed in the sweetly charming ‘Enchanted Sky Machines’, a song about flying saucers taking away the faithful at the end of the world.

Despite critical acclaim, Judee Sill failed to sell well despite touring extensively with David Crosby and Graham Nash, but Sill continued writing. Her second album, 1973’s Heart Food, was as lovingly made as her debut, with songs ranging from the heart-warming foot-tapper ‘Soldier Of The Heart’, to the solemn loveliness of ‘The Kiss’. Again, the album was well received by critics but largely ignored by the public. Sill was heartbroken and subsequently dropped from view in the music scene and from amongst her musical contemporaries. Little is known about her from this point on; it is known that she suffered a horrific car crash, which found her once again addicted to drugs of both the prescription and illegal kind. On November 23rd 1979, aged 35 years, Sill was found dead from a drug overdose in her North Hollywood home, and so complete had been her withdrawal from the scene that many of her old friends didn’t receive the news of her death until many years later.

Sill was all but forgotten for many decades, barring the occasional cover (‘There’s A Rugged Road’ was covered by Shawn Colvin on her 1994 covers album, ‘Jesus Was A Cross Maker’ by Judie Tzuke in 1991 and Warren Zevon in 1995, ‘The Kiss’ by Jane Siberry in 2001 and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in 2004). Seemingly from nowhere, in 2005, Water Records released Dreams Come True, a heretofore unheard collection of Sill’s post-Heart Food recordings mixed by venerable indie rock luminary Jim O’Rourke. In hindsight, there is a certain tragedy in songs like ‘That’s The Spirit’ and ‘Things Are Lookin’ Up’, which are much more positive and optimistic than her previous work, and contrast so strikingly with her painful demise.

A year later, Rhino Records reissued both of Sill’s albums in the UK as part of the compilation Abracadabra: The Asylum Years, which comes with a host of (actually good) extras – a clutch of live tracks and alternative recordings that give a different slant to the original versions. This week, another excavated treasure arrived in the form of the Troubadour records release, Live In London: The BBC Recordings 1972-1973, which compiles a series of radio sessions performed solo at the Beeb with DJ Bob Harris (who, oddly enough, shares the name of Sill’s ex-husband who produced much of her debut album). Fears of Eva Cassidy-style barrel scraping are easily allayed. Like Laura Nyro after her, even Sill’s live recordings are essential listening.

Why Sill disappeared so completely, despite her great talent, we will never really know. Some attribute it to her falling out with David Geffen after the commercial stalling of Heart Food. Yet Geffen, though powerful, was hardly the last word in music careers, so surely Sill could have found a place for her incredible talent on another label. Perhaps we could blame her lack of initial success, but Sill was not the only artist to face initial disappointment by a long shot. Joni Mitchell was but one of many others who failed to garner instant fame. Sill suffered from difficult relations with her family, and her trouble with drug addiction was great, but she was not the only sometime-junkie-from-a-broken-home among her contemporaries. Perhaps she struggled more than most, though we can never know for sure.

And that, ultimately, is the final word when it comes to which artists join the ranks of The Lost. There is rarely an obvious reason for the lack of success of someone like Judee Sill, nor can we ever hope to acquire sufficiently detailed information to achieve any degree of certainty. It’s a real tragedy that so many musicians can be mysteriously forgotten, but occasionally we are lucky enough to get a second chance.

Hugh Armitage
originally published June 22nd, 2007, as part of our Meltdown Festival special