37 Facts About Judee Sill

Judith Lynne Sill was an American singer-songwriter and composer.

Judee Sill was the first artist signed to David Geffen's label Asylum.

Judee Sill released her first album, Judee Sill, in 1971, followed by Heart Food in 1973.

In 1974, Judee Sill recorded demos for a third album, which was completed but lost and forgotten.

Judee Sill struggled with addiction through much of her life and died of a drug overdose in 1979.

Judee Sill did not find commercial success, and at the time of her death, no obituary was published; however, several artists have since cited her as an influence.

Judee Sill's found studio tape, demos and other rarities were released on the 2005 collection Dreams Come True.

Judee Sill was influenced by Bach and other baroque sounds.

Judee Sill wrote songs with gospel touches, as well as lyrics drawing on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.

Judith Lynne Judee Sill was born in Studio City, Los Angeles, on October 7,1944, and spent her early childhood in Oakland, California.

Judee Sill transferred from a public high school to a private school, where she met other rebellious teenagers, some of whom were allegedly involved in crime.

Judee Sill played piano in the school orchestra and worked in a piano bar.

Judee Sill started taking LSD and other drugs, moved in with an LSD dealer and joined a jazz trio.

Judee Sill encountered Graham Nash and David Crosby and toured with them for a time as their opening act.

Judee Sill sold her song "Lady-O" to the Turtles, and was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The album Judee Sill was released on September 15,1971.

Judee Sill worked with the engineer Henry Lewy, noted for his work with Joni Mitchell throughout the 1970s.

Judee Sill opened for Jimmy Webb during two stints at the Troubadour to promote the just-released album, and though well-received in her live performances the album was not a commercial success.

Judee Sill took over the orchestration and arrangements on her second album Heart Food, which included "The Donor".

Sill and Geffen's personal relationship deteriorated during this period, with Judee allegedly camping out on Geffen's front lawn to protest his lack of support for her album Heart Food.

Judee Sill continued to write songs, and in 1974, began to record new material for a third album at the studio of Michael Nesmith.

Judee Sill was beginning to lose interest in music and focus on other pursuits, including theosophy and animals.

Judee Sill said she had been married twice, saying in interviews that she was briefly married either during or just after high school to a classmate, that her parents had the marriage annulled, and that he later died in a rafting accident.

Judee Sill married Samir Ben Taieb Kamoun, a Tunisian actor, mime, and Charlie Chaplin impersonator, on January 24,1979, in Clark County, Nevada.

Judee Sill's romance with the singer-songwriter JD Souther inspired her song "Jesus Was a Cross Maker".

Judee Sill had a long-term relationship with the poet David Omer Bearden, who contributed lyrics to Heart Food and toured and performed with her; Sill dedicated Heart Food to him.

Judee Sill died of a drug overdose, or "acute cocaine and codeine intoxication", on November 23,1979, at her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood.

Judee Sill's ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean after a ceremony organized by a few close friends at the Self-Realization Fellowship in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.

Judee Sill combined an appreciation of classical composers such as Bach with seventies California music, a style she described as "country-cult-baroque".

Judee Sill believed that the purpose of music was to glorify God.

Judee Sill was included in The Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music; her faith was debatable, but she made frequent use of Christian symbolism in her lyrics, combined with a "lack of sensuality" and the "denial of the physical".

In 2004, the British music critic Barney Hoskyns wrote that had Judee Sill been "as male and pretty" as Nick Drake, another songwriter who did not find success while he was alive, her music would now be as popular.

Terry Hounsome's 1981 book New Rock Record lists a Judee Sill album titled Tulips From Amsterdam.

Judee Sill contributed guitar, organ and backing vocals to six tracks on the album and is pictured with Peltier on the cover.

The Guardian gave it five out of five, and wrote that "in death [Judee Sill] is slowly finding the audience she always craved".

In 2017 the independent record label Intervention Records released 180-gram double 45rpm LP and SACD reissues of Judee Sill's self-titled album and Heart Food.

Nine years in the making, it is the first work combining all available biographical information about Judee Sill, including newly unearthed interviews and personal journals.