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I came across the sad story of the short life of Judee Sill when looking through songs on Youtube, I guess. Then I read a little about how this songwriter lived, and died.
Her father must have been a character. He imported exotic animals in Oakland for Hollywood movies, and he owned a bar. I wonder which came first. I guess a bar would be a good way to have an anchor in that town in the 1940's. Meet people talk, find someone who can get different animals.
In 1944, towards the end of WW2, Judith Lynne Sill was born. Since her father owned a bar, she learned something about music and learned to play piano.
But, her father died, and the family moved to Los Angeles were her new step-father worked in animation and movies with 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons. Again, young Judee was around 'creative' people.
Judee later related that there were many fights, including physical, in the home when she was growing up because of her 'rebellious' nature. What was she rebelling against, exactly is not spelled out. Perhaps this woman was simply mentally unstable and unable to get along with people in a stress free manner. But, she felt that her way of acting was actually 'standing up' for her self and being 'free.'
Judee's troubles were not just at home. She had to change schools.
In high school, or shortly after leaving, she began to take part in armed robberies to get money to get illicit drugs. Judee Sill helped a young man who was her partner rob gas stations and liquor stores as they were armed.
Judee Sill and her man got caught and apparently convicted. Judee was young and got nine months in juvenile lock up where she played music at times and was introduced to black gospel music.
Some write of Judee Sill 'struggling' with drug addiction. Looks like her 'struggle' was to get drugs to use to 'party' and have fun and.... see God or whatever. Maybe she enjoyed her creativity more when 'high.' We can not ask her now because she killed herself with drugs. The 'struggle' was over.
Judee went to San Fernando Junior College for a while and played piano in bars. She was an Art Major. When Judee was twenty-years old her mother died and she moved out of the home of her step-father and left college. It was 1964, and California youth saw a sunny open future after the stifling 1950's conformity. Or, at least some did.
Judee joined a jazz trio and played at clubs and functions. The man she moved in with reportedly sold LSD, and Judy would take LSD with him. Bad idea. Or, maybe that's were her interesting music came from. I don't know.
In 1966, twenty-two year old Judee married a man and they moved to Las Vegas and decided to start using heroin. Sill moved back to California, where she decided that the quickest way to get money for the expensive heroin she was enjoying was to return to robbing people, forging checks, committing various frauds, and then sex work. And then caught again, convicted again, and sent to adult prison.
After prison, Judee decided to get serious and write and perform her own songs. She met people in the music scene in LA. She sold a song to the pop group The Turtles. Rolling Stone featured Judee Sill on the cover and she was the opening act on tours for different artists.
Graham Nash produced her first album's first single, "Jesus Was A Cross Maker", released to radio on October 1, 1971. The album Judee Sill was released on September 15, 1971. It featured Sill's voice in multiple overdubs. She worked with the engineer Henry Lewy, noted for his work with Joni Mitchell throughout the 1970s. She 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. In January and February 1973, she was the support act on a tour of the UK by Roy Harper.
So, this young woman had some talent, could play instruments, had a lifetime of piano playing, and an interesting story of going into lock up, twice. Judee met some big stars in the music business in the early 1970's. She had backing and critical acclaim. But, not enough people would pay to buy her albums. When she was happy, she took drugs, when she was sad, she took drugs. Lots of money and time and health spent on 'recreational' drugs.
What an idea, "I think I'll become a great musician!" "How" "By taking drugs every day and getting in petty fights with everyone around me."
Judee Sill asked prospective listeners to "please buy my albums so I don't have to go on tour with these annoying other musicians." This did not produce sales. Why did Judee have such a bad time on tour? Did she have to ride a bus with people? Did she have to stay at hotels and motels with annoying people? Judee seemed to be annoyed and fighting with people everywhere she went. So, maybe it was her.
Judee was friends or a business associate or an employee of music oligarch David Geffen. Judee did not think David Geffen was doing enough publicity for her second album 'Heart' so she camped out on his front lawn as a protest. She did not like playing opening act as David Geffen wanted her to do for people to hear her music while coming to see someone else. Nope. So, she got dropped from the label and lost her contract.
Some opine that Judee Sill 'struggled' with various drug additions. Or, did Judee Sill have a habit of taking all kinds of drugs. Her health deteriorated. So, take more recreational drugs that are expensive and illegal. She was in several car accidents. Really, a committed drug addict in car crashes?
Judee Sill ran out of musical steam with her third album and was drifting away from music and took up the cult like Theosophy with its mixture of strange beliefs and an affinity for animals, who she could not have as many verbal disputes with. Judee Sill also work at an animation studio for a while.
At the age of thirty Judee Sill had been married twice and divorced, had been to lock up twice for robbing people and threatening their lives, worked as a hooker, taken lots and lots of drugs, and.... she drifted out of sight for the music crowd.
Judee Sill still wanted drugs, or needed drugs, or..... was compelled. She died in 1979 at age 35 from what looks like too much cocaine, or codeine. She had a strange Theosophy style quote on paper near her when she was discovered dead.
The Los Angeles coroner ruled her death a suicide, taking into account a note found near her body, but some who knew her have contended that the note, which reportedly contained "a meditation on rapture, the hereafter, and the innate mystery of life", was not a suicide note but rather a diary entry or song concept. Her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean after a ceremony organized by a few close friends at the Theosophy Self-Realization Fellowship in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. By the time of Sill's death, she had become so obscure that no obituary was published, and for many years, a number of her friends were unaware she had died.
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