Judee Sill - Songs Of Rapture And Redemption: Rarities & Live

180-gram double LP on colored vinyl pressed at Record Industry

New collection includes demos, live tracks making their vinyl debut

Tip-on gatefold Stoughton Printing album jacket

Individually numbered and limited to one pressing!

Born October 7, 1944, and hailing from California, Judith Lynn Sill was an American singer-songwriter who learned how to play piano in her father’s Oakland bar. She met, befriended and started opening shows for Graham Nash and David Crosby in the mid-to-late 1960s.

After a bit of interest from Atlantic Records, David Geffen offered Judee a contract and she became the first artist to sign with his then-fledgling Asylum label. During her early days at Asylum, she sold her song “Lady-O” to the Turtles and was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Graham Nash produced her first single, “Jesus Was A Cross Maker,” off her self-titled debut album which was released on September 15, 1971 and engineered by Henry Lewy (Joni Mitchell). The song was inspired by her romance with singer-songwriter JD Souther, who later wrote the song “Something In the Dark” about her. The album featured Sill’s voice in multiple overdubs, often in a four-part chorale or fugue. Her debut album was not a commercial success, despite good reviews. Sill took over orchestration and arrangements for her second album, Heart Food, which was released in March of 1973. The album was critically acclaimed but sold poorly and ended her association with Asylum and David Geffen.

Judee continued to write songs and in 1974 began to record new material planned for a third album that was never finished. Sill continued to struggle with drug addiction and health problems, eventually dropping out of the music scene completely. Judee tragically died of a drug overdose on November 23, 1979 at her apartment in North Hollywood.

Sill’s music was not commercially viable at the time but was incredibly influential as well as ground-breaking and many notable songwriters such as Andy Partridge, Liz Phair, Warren Zevon and Shawn Colvin have been fans of her work. Her songs have been covered by the Hollies, Cass Elliott, Warren Zevon, Beth Orton, Bill Callahan, Bonnie Prince Billy, Ron Sexsmith, The Fruit Bats and many more.

Side 1
    Intro/The Vigilante
    Lady-O
    Enchanted Sky Machines
    
Side 2
    The Archetypal Man
    Crayon Angels
    The Lamb Ran Away With The Crown
    Jesus Was A Cross Maker
    
Side 3
    The Pearl
    The Phoenix
    Jesus Was A Cross Maker (home demo)
    The Desperado (Outtake from the Heart Food sessions)
    The Kiss
    Down Where The Valleys Are Low
    
Side 4
    The Donor
    Soldier Of The Heart
    The Phoenix
    The Vigilante
    The Pearl
    There’s A Rugged Road