Judee Sill - Biography
Judee Sill was an American singer and songwriter who managed to release two highly influential folk albums in the early 1970s amidst a very turbulent life. Born on October 7, 1944, to alcoholic parents, Sill was eight years old when her father—an importer of exotic animals for Paramount Studios—died. Her brother would tragically die shortly thereafter, leaving the young Sill alienated and heartbroken. Her mother got remarried to Kenneth Muse, who was the animator for the Tom & Jerry cartoons. Disenfranchised by the new marriage—Sill alleged that Muse and her mother continued to drink heavily and were physically abusive towards her—she soon ran away to travel America. She quickly got involved with drugs and armed robbery and did time in a juvenile correctional facility. Upon her release she was whimsically married, which her parents had annulled right away.
Sill continued her reckless behavior but was attending San Fernando Community College for art and music and even played piano in the school orchestra. She was heavily influenced by Bach and his theories on counterpoint, and she would later incorporate these theories into her own orchestral compositions. During this time her mother died, and Sill became heavily interested in many forms of religion, which came to form the lyrical basis for her songs.
She married musician/producer Bob Harris, a heroin addict who got Sill into using, and they began playing dive bars in Los Angeles before being forced to live out of their car. Sill has said that she was reduced to prostitution in order to afford their expensive heroin habit, which ballooned to a hundred-and-fifty dollars a day. This was cut short by her arrest for check forgery, which she served three months in jail for. During this time Sill kicked her heroin habit and was able to zero in on her musical muse, focusing on pursuing a career as an artist.
Sill landed a job writing songs for The Turtles, and the pop band used her original song “Lady-O” on its 1969 album, Turtle Soup. Sill played guitar and arranged the strings for the track—a track that would later appear on her own first album, which was right around the corner. David Geffen, who at the time was a rising star in the music business and was managing Crosby, Stills & Nash, wanted Sill to be the first artist on his new Asylum Records. She released Judee Sill (Asylum) in 1971, using by this time ex-husband Bob Harris as producer. Jim Pons and John Beck, of the LA group The Leaves, perform on the album. The debut featured multiple dubs on the vocals and choruses, creating a lush and particularly sincere sound for the wayward singer. Rita Coolidge, Venetta Fields and Clydie King—who at the time were highly sought after session singers—appeared on backing vocals for Sill, bolstering the religious overtones that defined Sill’s songcraft. Her influences of Bach could now be heard in full force throughout the arrangements. The album mixed folk, country, classical and gospel seamlessly. It was considered groundbreaking by musicians and critics, but failed as a commercial venture. Nevertheless, Judee Sill was an instrumental part of what came to be known as the “Laurel Canyon sound.”
Her next album appeared a year and a half later, entitled Heart Food (1973 Asylum). Once again it garnered great reviews that compared it favorably to her previous effort, but the public wasn’t buying it. On her second and last album, Sill’s country-pop with celestial overdubs was considered ambitious, but successful. Nevertheless, it was taxing for the troubled singer, and old demons resurfaced as a result.
As a media darling and known as an artist’s artist, Sill was only able to land opening slots for concerts in support of the new album, as her marketability wasn’t considered headline worthy. Frustrated by this, and growing increasing anxious, Sill disappeared from the music scene entirely in the mid-1970s. After a couple of car accidents left the singer in chronic pain—with doctor’s hesitant to prescribe her medication given Sill’s abusive drug history—she returned to heroin and began using cocaine heavily. She died in her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood on November 23, 1979, the day after Thanksgiving, from an overdose of cocaine and codeine.
During her brief career, Sill opened for Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton and Crosby, Stills & Nash. In 2005 indie rock musician Jim O’Rouke mixed her last sessions into what would become a two-CD set called Dreams Come True (2005 Water Records). Judee Sill’s music continues to be hugely influential amongst musicians.
