Customer Reviews

Judee Sill

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Judee Sill's short & tumultuous life is the raw stuff of legend, transformed & transfigured in the sublime art of her music. She's one of those rare artists like no other, despite the superficial resemblance to many of her musical contemporaries. Although she was unjustly neglected during her lifetime, her music has endured & will always be rediscovered by all who seek for transcendent beauty & meaning, especially in a darkened world.

It's been said that "religion is for those afraid of going to Hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there," and her friends assure us that Judee lived out this truth. It can be heard in the sweet, rich sound of her voice, informed by suffering & soaring on luminous wings. Once that comforting, resigned yet yearning voice envelops the listener with its slight drawl, we're in another reality, one born of both the times (the 1960s) & the timeless.

Some listeners may be initially put off by the Christian references in her lyrics. But that would be a mistake. Her deeply personal Christ-as-cosmic-cowboy/lover imagery comes from a different time, when Christianity was being rediscovered as a radical, positive force; it has nothing to do with the fear-based faith of modern fundamentalism. This is spirit as erotic hunger, and the erotic as pure spirit. And of course the occult mysticism intermixed with her lyrics would be anathema to the spiritually close-minded!

This is the first of Judee's three albums, the third of which wasn't even released until nearly 30 years after her tragic yet seemingly inevitable death. All three are well worth seeking out - and if they resonate with you, they'll become a part of your life. Her work is true treasure, absolutely recommended!

I admit it, when I first added this album to my list of records to check out, I hesitated to buy it since everything I read described it as "Christian rock." I don't have anything against Christians, but Christian rock is a music genre that is usually pretty bad, offering little more than repackaged, bland preaching paired with uninspired and equally bland music. Thankfully, I did pick up this record and found it to be much better than its so-called genre led me to believe.

Judee Sill's take on Christian spirituality is certainly unique--listen to her lyrics, and you'll probably notice a combination of classic Christian concepts and ideals alongside some pretty spacey hippie imagery. For me, this is a pretty novel combo and it really set Sill's music apart from the schlock that gets marketed as Christian rock. Additionally, it's not really that preachy or overbearing. Rather than preaching to her listeners, Sill describes her own personal, introspective spiritual journey, which is a lot more compelling.

Judee Sill is overall a pretty soothing record. Her voice is quite mellow but able to convey some pretty specific emotions, and it sounds good overdubbed too. Most of the main accompaniment is acoustic guitar and piano, along with a fair bit of tasteful orchestration. This folky instrumentation is supported by Sill's surprisingly poppy writing. Her songs are concise and full of hooks (guitar on "Crayon Angels," the entirety of "Jesus Was a Cross Maker," the list goes on). Even after one listen, you'll have something to hum and want to hear again. Unfortunately, it's a pretty short album, so it probably will leave you wanting more.

There really aren't any weak cuts on this album, but some of my favorites are "Crayon Angels," the refrain in "Loping Along Through the Cosmos," and the soulful "Enchanted Sky Machine." I hope you check out and enjoy this lost treasure!

Judee Sill, simply put, was a friggin' genius...her stuff easily rates up there with Joni Mitchell's best. I think that pegs the level of sophistication about right, though truth to be told, Judee was advancing a bit more rapidly before her tragic and untimely demise...Great great jazzy, complex tunes with beautiful vocalizing, cosmic, trippy lyrics and rich, clever, orchestrated arrangements...Buy this and tell all of your friends about it.

I bought this album used in 1971 from a record shop in Atlanta Georgia. It looked intriguing for some reason. I picked up a lot of great stuff that way. This one surprised and delighted me in a way I'll never forget. When I hear these songs now they bring back that giddy feeling of first listening to Judee's twangy voice and soulful arrangements, with the soft classical guitar and the plaintive pedal steel, and the sometimes horn arrangements all complementing the dreamy imagery in the lyrics. Christian? I suppose, but not in any kind of heavy handed way. Spiritual, questing, I would call it, albeit with some words that evoke Christian themes. No problem. The music and her voice carry the day, and I've never forgotten it.

I am replacing my old record albums with cd's and this is one I wanted to have in my collection. Judee Sill has a clear voice and unique folk-country sound. Another singer-songwriter that died too young.

I had this, Judee's first album, when it came out some thirty five years ago. Fortunately her recordings are available again on CD. No singer, or songwriter, of any genre, has ever gotten inside of me like Judee did some thirty-five years ago - and none have since. She is in a class by herself.

I first heard Judee Sill on a compilation disc, "Troubadours of Folk" Vol. 4 Singers and Songwriters. Wow, what a voice! After listening to that cut over and over, I knew I had to track down anything else I could find by Judee Sill. While I am not an ardent fan of "Jesus Freak" lyrics, I would listen to this voice singing a train schedule. Get this album! Ignore some of the words and be transported by an angel's voice.

This album came out of nowhere and absolutely floored me. I have never heard such a pure voice and such a gift for melodic songwriting. Singers who take that extra melodic turn seldom take me with them. To my ears, this style usually sounds forced and show-offy. But when I listen to Judee Sill, I'm with her on every note. Maybe it's because she had such a natural gift for music that she could be highly melodic without losing her folksy, down-to-earth quality. Her singing here has just a touch of slanginess. "For" is "fer" and "gonna" is "gunna." She drops her g's and sings with just a hint of a southern drawl, in spite of the fact that she was born and raised in California.

Judee Sill is often portrayed as some kind of cosmic crackpot who wrote weird religious songs. When you actually listen to the music, though, the lyrics make perfect sense in their own way, even when they do not make literal sense. The symbolism is taken mostly from Christianity, but the overall effect is more pantheistic--Judee once said that her religious beliefs could best be described as "Sillism." The theme of all these songs, taken together, is one of the great themes in art: the lowly human being trying to capture a piece of the divine. She never quite captures it, but maybe in a way she does, just by wanting it so badly: "I'll tell you a secret/I've never revealed/However we are is O.K." More typically, she ends up feeling humbled: "So I drew my sword and got ready/But the lamb ran away with the crown."

Nine of these eleven songs are guitar-based, and two of them are played on the piano. One of these, "Jesus Was a Crossmaker," was the single and is a standout track. In reading about Judee Sill, I've come to believe that this song has fallen victim to a sort of lazy mythology, as it is widely accepted that the song is about J.D. Souther of the Eagles, who had allegedly broken Judee's heart. Yet if you accept the lyrics on their own terms, there is nothing to suggest that they were written with any narrow personal agenda in mind. Rather, the song is about exactly what it seems to be about: the paradox of a Jesus who refuses to extinguish evil even as he stands opposed to it:

He wages war with the devil
A pistol by his side
And though he chases him out windows
And won't give him a place to hide
He keeps his door open wide
Fightin' him he lights a lamp invitin' him
He's a bandit and a heartbreaker
Oh, but Jesus was a crossmaker

Warren Zevon recorded a version of this song and blunted its impact by substituting the phrase "Oh, but" in the last line with the word "My." That seems to be the pattern. People want to minimize this song. Maybe they are intimidated by it. Warren Zevon is one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and he should've known better.

I'm not sure how many reissues are out there, but the one I have from Water Records, which came out in 2005, is very well-done. The lyrics are reprinted in an easy-to-read format, the liner notes by Michael Crumsho are enthusiastic and informative, and there are a few nice photographs in the booklet as well. As Judee herself sugested in the original liner notes, "May you savor each word like a raspberry." And after you've had some time to savor this album, you'll be ready for the other two.

Quite simply, Judee Sill is the female equivalent to Gram Parsons in terms of the influence of future generations of Female Americana artists and the crazy thing is most of them wouldn't even know it. This album is timeless, beautiful, and I am so glad I finally bought it. Every music lover should own this album. If you own one Joni Mitchell and like it then get this. A gem.

This is another one of those "lost masterpieces" that looks intriguing in the record shop, becomes more so as you read through the liner notes on the commuter train, but the by the time you get home and listen for five minutes, you know you've been had. How to describe this? Well, the instrumental arrangements are actually pretty cool, but the singing is mechanical and the lyrics are what I would call stupid. It adds up to an unpleasant mismatch sounding like a bad karaoke vocalist fronting a professional band.

Also, the album cover is a little misleading. The front is just Judee next to a tree looking down, but the back shows her next to a tree playing a guitar. It suggests at least some self-accompanied guitar and voice songs, but there are none.