Customer Reviews

Live in London: The BBC Recordings 1972-1973

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is great. If no new songs, it's still marvelous to get the purity of Judee with just guitar or piano accompaniment. And the interviews are cool too, & informative about her attitude and POV. Some songs like "The Kiss" take on even more beautiful aspects I think. Maybe not the place to start for newcomers to her or
casual fans perhaps, but marvelous to have.

Two important reasons for buying this recording, and you don't have to be a hardcore fan: the fact that while a bit nervous, she also seems incredibly gentle, sweet, direct -painfully honest in the Jesus Was A Crossmaker introduction- and even funny when presenting her songs. This gives me a more realistic and less scandalous image of Judee, because it's been so widely publicized how troubled she was. Listening to her joking and connecting so vividly with her audience gives you a bigger picture of a complex woman. The public seems so warm and perceptive, too. A second reason: it's a real delight to hear her live because Judee had such high standards regarding her musicianship, lyricism and vocal delivery: not a single false nor exaggerated note, all songs performed with total belief and devotion. Her playing sounds as meticulous as if this were a studio session, and fortunately, the recording has very good quality. Reviewer Brian Greene isn't exaggerating when he says "it seems these songs meant the world to her". She crafted and performed them so carefully, patiently (it took her one year to perfection "Crossmaker") and lovingly that pretty much every recording out there of JS is worth having, really. Her albums have the most special place in my music collection. Up there with Pink Moon, Five Leaves Left, Pet Sounds, Rubber Soul...

Judee Sill's two original studio albums, Judee Sill and Heart Food were a most unusual take on the singer/songwriter motif of the 1960s and 1970s. Instead of highly personal or social lyrics, Sill's songs had an intensely mystical focus that related, as she said, to her work as a church organist in a reform school after she was convicted several times as a teenager. She was, as it turned out, unable to redeem herself from the life she led and died at the age of thirty-five in 1979.

Although both her studio albums have a truly mystical, enchanting sound, on this live recording Sill actually maganed to strip it back even further to just piano and acoustic guitar. This has the surprising, even unusual, effect of allowing each note to be totally heard. Even some notes that may have been merely played as overtones resonate in a remarkable manner throughout the recording, and this adds to the already surprising beauty and power of Sill's songs.

A lot of this record is actually interviews, but these, unlike some that are merely irritants, offer a lot of insight into the way Sill lived and how she became a recording artist. There are interviews before most songs but the full interview in the middle of the record offers the best insight I have yet heard into a musician and his/her art.

A worthwile addition to a short, but wonderful and unique career.

These performances were available on the web, but they sounded truly horrible - mono, no treble, dropouts and unsteady (and too high, it turns out) pitch. They were probably recorded off the TV speaker when the show first aired. Too murky to really hear any detail in the playing or singing. It was hard to appreciate those recordings as anything other than a curiosity for devoted fans (like me, I guess).

These versions are obviously from the BBCs stereo tapes. These are wonderful performances and the sound quality matches that of any other live album. Highly recommended.

This is not a great starting point for a new Judee Sill listener - those people should get her two albums, Judee Sill and Heart Food. And it's not necessarily something that a person who has those two albums will find worthwhile to have - there are no songs not on those albums, many of the songs included in these various live sessions are duplicated, and there are too many great songs from the first two albums that aren't represented (The Archetypal Man, The Desperado, et al). But having said all of that, I love this CD. Even though the live versions of the songs are not much different than the studio versions, it's a pleasure to listen Judee sitting there by herself, with just a guitar and piano, playing these sublime folk songs. And in her introductions to the songs, as well as the interview with Bob Harris, she sounds endearingly nervous, totally and painfully honest, and like the songs mean the world to her. Judee Sill is like a Joni Mitchell with much more danger around her. Judee was all these things in her short life: a reform school girl, a junkie, a prostitute, an acid head, a heartbroken lover, a supremely gifted songwriter, musician, and vocalist. She was a visionary. She was the first artist to have an album put out on David Geffen's Asylum Records, she was produced by Graham Nash, her songs were covered by the Hollies and the Turtles . . . yet her recording career never really took off. Judee Sill is a wonder, somebody who was just too troubled and too tragic to last long in this life. Her songs initially strike you as pleasant little folk tunes, but as you listen more the lyrics and the arrangements start to get into your head, and eventually you realize you are listening to something both beautiful and otherworldly. Get this disc to hear Judee perform live and to hear her talk, and if you don't have the first two albums, go get them as well.

Another extremely special musical talent fallen to drugs! I saw Judee live probably shortly before some of these recordings were made and became enthralled with her music, especially her first album, but then lost track of her until I learned in the 90's of her demise. So much talent gone, so much hope in her early songs. I cried.
At the time she and I shared a syncretistic belief system well-described in this line from her song "There's a Rugged Road"-- "blindly faithful, yet following none." Her songs display an intimacy with the basic elements of Christianity, but also drift into a rather fanciful spirituality that sounds pretty but ends in emptiness. Had she been able and willing to make a commitment to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, she might well still be with us.
This recording is valuable for 3 reasons.
1.)It captures some of her concert presence not available in studio recordings, not that she had a knockout performing personality, but her solo musical skills are clearly displayed. Also some interesting song background in her introductions and interviews.
2.) She does an amazing job as a solo performer of conveying the feeling produced by multiple layers of voices on her studio albums. Worth hearing, very moving.
3.)The liner notes (if they still call them that) contain the most thorough biographical material on Judee I have seen.

Beware though, although there are 18 cuts, there are only ten songs, the rest consisting of repeats of previous songs recorded at other performances and one interview.

For those who have heard Judee Sill's studio albums, you already know how beautiful, compelling, and utterly honest they are, complete with subtle & gorgeous arrangements. The songs are perfectly crafted, but never seem coldly technical -- the feeling of wholeness is organic, with every touch of strings or woodwinds sounding as natural as can be.

So it's a breathtaking joy to hear those same songs live, stripped down to just Judee's voice accompanied by either guitar or piano, because they lose none of their richness or haunted holiness. "Holiness" ... that might sound a bit extravagant, I know. But it truly describes her songs. I can't think of any other artist who has that quality of the sacred & the erotic, the intimate & the infinite -- and she does it with a gentle, direct touch, without any hint of self-consciousness or heavy-handedness. Laura Nyro (whom I adore) comes close, but Judee is in a vulnerable, luminous world of her own.

Part of this collection's pleasure is hearing her shy, joking introductions to the songs, as well as her BBC interview. These brief glimpses of the person are tantalizing & all too brief, not unlike her troubled life & her tragically truncated career. To hear her obvious excitement & pleasure at performing her achingly transcendent "The Kiss" just 7 or 8 days after writing it, offering it as the gift it is to her audience, is a delight. Yet it also saddens me, knowing what was ahead for her.

I agree with the previous reviewer who groups Judee with artists like Nick Drake. There's something almost otherworldly about their work, something both naive & piercingly perceptive; in a way, I'm reminded of Emily Dickinson, who counted Death & Eternity as everyday acquaintances. Judee belongs in that small but exalted company.

Most highly recommended!

Judee Sill's voice had a tone that I have never heard from anyone else. Her music was very sophisticated. I like her songs with piano better because rock and roll has hardly anyone who ever learned to play the piano as well as Judee Sill. Writing one of those songs could take her a long time. She was adept at putting parts together so it all made more sense than I ever expected. The idea of redemption is unusual in popular music, so a song like "The Lamb Ran Away With The Crown" might be about something you don't usually think about, but Judee Sill will be the one person you ever hear admit that she really believed "Enchanted Sky Machines" would come for the gentle people and save them from all the destruction that looks like what the end of the world is going to be all about.