Judee Sill
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Judee Sill – Jesus Was a Cross Maker
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Biography
Her eponymous debut album was released to major acclaim in 1971 and was followed two years later by Heart Food. She recorded demos for a third album in 1974 and they were released in 2005 under the title Dreams Come True.
Sill was heavily influenced by Bach’s metric forms and suites, while lyrically her work drew substantially on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.
Judee’s father and brother both died in separate incidents when Judee was quite young. Her mother’s subsequent marriage to Tom and Jerry animator Kenneth Muse was marked by heavy drinking, and this, combined with her rebellious nature, drove her away from home and into a life of crime and drug use in her teens.
Having learned her signature gospel-inflected keyboard style during her incarceration for writing bad checks, Sill kicked her heroin addiction and decided to pursue songwriting. Now a talented pianist, organist and guitarist, Sill returned to the West Coast where she encountered Graham Nash and David Crosby (touring with them for a time as their opening act) and David Geffen who offered her a contract with his nascent label. Her albums were received well by critics but found little commercial success. Judee struggled with drug addiction during phases again following a car accident and its resulting physical pain and dropped out of the music scene and died of a drug overdose in November of 1979.
Top Tracks
Top Albums
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Judee Sill
13,509 listeners11 tracks
Released:
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Heart Food
7,990 listeners10 tracks
Released:
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Live In London - The BBC Recordings 1972 - 1973
10,816 listeners18 tracks
Released:
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Rhino Hi-Five: Judee Sill
1,523 listeners5 tracks
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TeenageDeathBoy
What an interesting body of work. She definitely deserves more recognition.
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J-Dilla1012
"You're absolutely insane. Sill will always be considered a minor artist of the era because she really didn't attempt anything new, or even particularly expressive. Mitchell clearly moved the music scene with her, and constantly incorporated from outside genres into her pop sound. Her voice was also significantly more adaptable than Sill's." Sure. Sill's incorporation of elements of gospel and chamber music with a deeply unfashionable thematic obsession with eschatology and redemption is just generic pop fare, but let's laud Joni's explorations into, for example, jazz-funk (with a lyrical fixation on the minutiae of the sex lives of boring middle-class white people) as visionary and masterful, rather than the slightly painful dreck that most of it is.
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helloimjoshua
Her debut is one of my favorite albums ever.
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PhoenixBloom
Wish she was still with us! :( RIP Judee.
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PhoenixBloom
Wow, too underrated. :( Both of her albums are amazing.
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CDPETE01
First listen today to Judee Sill,love her already,and will be listenin to more.
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PhoenixBloom
Thoroughly enjoying the Heart Food album, she's very talented.
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semionato
good lord, i haven't listened to judee sill since march 2011. i missed her. why took me 9 months to allow myself to be thrilled again by her intense imagery, stunning melodies and keen sense of wonder?
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UnaXoto
I am in love... I have this on constant rotation. Proof that true craftsmanship & genius will always endure & eventually bloom through for the rest of us to enjoy years later... I can see the need to compare her to Joni but kinda comparing plums to kiwi. would you compare Nick Drake to Bob Dylan? of course not. Judge Judee on her own merit.
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sgth0wie
I have listened to little else since I first learned about Judee a few weeks ago. She's my favorite musical discovery of recent years. Her melodies have a way of getting under your skin and into your bones. An astonishing, singular, and criminally underheard talent. Not a bad song in her whole canon and many masterpieces Fellow fans may enjoy: http://judeesillappreciation.tumblr.com/
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trackaghost
"How about you consider a world in which more than one female artist can exist without one being compared to the other? Leave it to a man to make all these comparisons, I swear to god..." THANK YOU ripchord!
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urizen81
What could have been. Guess we're lucky to have the music she did release.
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ripchord
How about you consider a world in which more than one female artist can exist without one being compared to the other? Leave it to a man to make all these comparisons, I swear to god...
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Crustclock
You're absolutely insane. Sill will always be considered a minor artist of the era because she really didn't attempt anything new, or even particularly expressive. Mitchell clearly moved the music scene with her, and constantly incorporated from outside genres into her pop sound. Her voice was also significantly more adaptable than Sill's.
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humping_rupert
i could only compare joni to jude, never jude to joni. jude is the great one there. :D
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mojo91pin
I'm in love with her
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matthewgregory
Whooooooaaaa...that's a sweet find.
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luke_suspicious
Such a lovely and inspired soul, I feel sad for how untimely and unfair her death and oblivion were.
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KingHeff
fuck your joni mitchell comparisons and fuck you
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hyperballadbrad
Fuck the Joni MItchell comparisons..... Judee's voice and music has an utterly different energy to it..... but alas if you have a vagine and create music, you're always going to be compared to such 'greats'
All 78 shouts
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