My first introduction to the music of Judee Sill was over ten years ago, thanks to Shawn Colvin, who recorded "There's A Rugged Road" on her fantastic cover album Cover Girl. Unfortunately, I didn't investigate the original songwriters of the songs she covered, something I wish I had.Last year, the music of Judee Sill appeared again, this time from Toronto artist Lori Cullen, who's album Buttercup Bugle was on my Top 10 albums of 2007. On it, she covers "Lopin' Along Through the Cosmos". I thought it was a beautiful song and wondered how different Lori's version was from the original.
And then I read an interview with XTC's Andy Partridge, who wrote liner notes for a Judee Sill reissue CD calling her a 'female Brian Wilson' and I finally decided that it was time to check out her music.
It wasn't quite what I expected - from the artwork, it looks like it's going to be super-folky and possibly even slightly psychedelic. Instead, it was her Texasy-twang vocals singing gospel-tinged lyrics over soft string and piano arrangements and it was extremely compelling and lovely.Judee didn't have a very good life, growing up as a troubled teen with problems with drugs and crime. She turned to music for a brief period, and released only two albums that have been largely forgotten and unavailable until a couple of years ago. Sadly, the music industry forgot about her, and she eventually died of an overdose in the late 70s.
There's a great comprehensive double disc set of her two albums that includes a ton of bonus tracks (but no liner notes from Mr. Partridge) and I'm considering purchasing a recently re-worked abandoned third album, but there's still a lot to explore in this package.Fans have also collected some of her BBC and live recordings available for free download at this website, and here's a video of Judee herself from 1973, performing "The Kiss" on the Old Grey Whistle Test.
