Judee Sill

• Genre: Country-Folk
• Hometown: Oakland
• Judee Sill Website

About

Although she was sometimes dismissed as the "poor little rich girl" of folk music, Judee Sill's haunting songs ran deeper into shoals of the occult than any of her contemporaries. Born into Hollywood royalty, her father and brother died when she was young, which may have everything to do with why the tone of her songs are as dark as well as the heroin addiction she battled in the late 1960s. The first time she kicked the habit, Sill replaced it with another addiction: songwriting. She sparked the interest of music mogul David Geffen who introduced her to Graham Nash. The musician became an instant fan, producing her wistful single "Jesus Was A Cross Maker." That song landed on her self-titled debut which was produced by her ex-husband Bob Harris, who produced Joni Mitchell's Ladies Of The Canyon, which goes a long way to explain why Sill's 1971 debut long player was reminiscent of Mitchell's early recordings. The following year she released her sophomore album, Heart Food, which was a rather poppy affair, laden with lush string arrangements. Sill not only arranged those string charts, but she produced the album herself. Unfortunately after that prodigious accomplishment, she returned to her heroin addiction and passed away of an overdose in 1979 at the age of 35.

- Eric Shea