Heart Food is the second album released by American singer/songwriter and musician Judee Sill. It was released on David Geffen's Asylum label in March 1973 to acclaim but minimal sales. Sill wrote, arranged, and produced the album, with influences from Bach and Ray Charles. As with Judee Sill, it was reissued by Rhino Records in 2003, featuring new liner notes and extra demos and unreleased tracks.

Songs

Some of the songs from Heart Food date back to the time of her debut album Judee Sill. "The Pearl" and "The Phoenix" (copyrighted in 1969) were originally recorded for the debut album in 1971 but were removed to make room for late inclusion "Jesus Was A Cross Maker." Instead, they were re-recorded for Heart Food. Sill had also been performing "The Vigilante" in 1971 when working as a support act.

Sill finished writing "The Kiss" around March 15, 1972, and "Down Where the Valleys Are Low" was also completed in early 1972. Songs like "The Kiss" reflect her fascination with hymnal, Christian imagery, while others, notably "Soldier of the Heart," feature much fuller arrangements. The album is dedicated to Sill's then-boyfriend David Omer Bearden, who wrote the lyrics to the solo piano song "When the Bridegroom Comes." As with her debut, Sill's lyrics bear the hallmarks of her interest in the occult and Christian theology. The song "The Donor" features an ambitious and intricate choral arrangement built around hymnal chants of "Kyrie Eleison."

Live

Sill continued to perform live with the release of Heart Food. She debuted "The Kiss" in a BBC session on March 23, 1972, saying it was written only seven or eight days before. She also played "Down Where the Valleys Are Low" at this session, aired on April 1, 1972. Sill also performed further BBC sessions in 1972 and 1973, including a TV concert in April 1972, a Radio 1 session on February 14, 1973, where she played six songs from Heart Food, and two sessions for the BBC TV show Old Grey Whistle Test, with Sill's performance of "The Kiss" at the 1973 session available on DVD.

Cover Versions & Tributes to Sill

Neil Cavanagh covered "The Kiss" on his 2008 album Short Flight to a Distant Star.

Shawn Colvin covered "There's a Rugged Road" on her 1994 album "Cover Girl".

"There's a Rugged Road" was sung by a character in the 2010 film Greenberg, directed by Noah Baumbach.

References

Category:1973 albums

Category:Asylum Records albums

Category:Judee Sill albums

fr:Heart Food

Artist/Band Information

Judee Sill (born Judith Lynn Sill, October 7, 1944 - November 23, 1979) was an American singer and songwriter. The first artist signed to David Geffen's Asylum label, she released two albums, then worked briefly as a cartoonist By Barry Alfonso. p. 243 before dying of drug abuse in 1979.

Her eponymous debut album was released in late 1971 and was followed around eighteen months later by Heart Food. She also recorded demos for a third album in 1974, which were released with other rarities on the 2005 two-disc collection Dreams Come True.

Sill was heavily influenced by Bach's metric forms and suites, while lyrically her work drew substantially on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.

Biography

Sill's father, an importer of exotic animals for use in films, and older brother both died in separate incidents when she was young. Her mother subsequently married Tom and Jerry animator Kenneth Muse in 1952.

Sill returned to the West Coast where she encountered Graham Nash and David Crosby and toured with them for a time as their opening act. David Geffen offered her a contract with his new Asylum label. She sold her song "Lady-O" to The Turtles. She was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Graham Nash produced the first single for her first album, "Jesus Was A Cross Maker," which was released to radio on October 1, 1971. The album Judee Sill soon followed in October 1971. The album featured Sill's voice in multiple overdubs, often in a four-part chorale or fugue. She worked with engineer Henry Lewy.

Sill recorded her second and last album, Heart Food. Sill took over orchestrating and arranging Heart Food which included "The Donor".

Following car accidents, Sill struggled with drug addiction and dropped out of the music scene, finally dying of a drug overdose, or "acute cocaine and codeine intoxication," on November 23, 1979 at her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood.

Legacy

Jim O'Rourke mixed the posthumous collection of unreleased material, Dreams Come True. Her two original albums have been reissued as a double CD with a number of live recordings and demos as bonus tracks.

Seattle-based folk group Fleet Foxes perform "Crayon Angels" at their concerts. American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon recorded "Jesus Was A Cross Maker" for his 1995 album, Mutineer. "Jesus Was A Cross Maker" was recorded in 1973 by Graham Nash's former band The Hollies, although Nash had no part in their recording. The Hollies' version appears in the opening sequence of Cameron Crowe's film Elizabethtown. Another version covered by American singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata is featured in the film's soundtrack. Gospel rocker Larry Norman covered the song but retitled it as "Sweet Silver Angels". The song was released on the Essential 2: Agitator CD.

Judee Sill in the Park.jpgthumbleft245pxJudee playing the guitar in the park

Scottish Celtic-Soul singer Jackie Leven's 2006 album Oh What A Blow That Phantom Dealt Me! contains a song entitled "The Silver In Her Crucifix (Homage To Judee Sill)", which includes the lines: "and Judee Sill just stood there/with a gold key in her heart/and the silver in her crucifix/kept warring worlds apart/that's why I love Judee Sill.../and I know I always will."

In 1983, Chicago-based lesbian-feminist singer Ginni Clemmens released an album entitled Lopin' Along Thru the Cosmos (reissued in 1992 on the Flying Fish label) which included cover versions of "Lady-O" and "Lopin' Along Thru the Cosmos."

In 1991, English singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke released an album on Columbia called Left Hand Talking, which included a cover version of "Jesus Was A Cross Maker".

Linda Ronstadt covered "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" but re-titled it "Bandit & a Heartbreaker"; it was released on her Elektra box set in 1999.

A book called New Rock Record by Terry Hounsome, published in 1981, lists a third album Tulips From Amsterdam.

In 2009, the independent label American Dust announced the release of Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill, featuring covers of Sill's songs done by Beth Orton, Bill Callahan, Ron Sexsmith, Daniel Rossen, Final Fantasy, Marissa Nadler and Meg Baird, among others. Retrieved on 2009-17-6.

Singer song writer Tanita Tikaram says that "Jesus was a Cross-Maker" is a song with which she is obsessed.

In the 2010 film "Greenberg," the lead female character Florence, played by Greta Gerwig, sings Sill's song "There's a Rugged Road." Gerwig sang this herself. The song did not appear on the "Greenberg" soundtrack CD.

Personal

Sill was bisexual.

Discography

Heart Food front cover.jpgthumbright200pxHer second and last album, "Heart Food")

* Judee Sill (LP, Asylum, 1971)

* Heart Food (LP, Asylum, 1973)

* Dreams Come True (2CD, Water, 2005). Includes eight studio demos for a prospective third album, various home demos and a video clip of five songs live at USC in 1973.

* Judee Sill (CD, Rhino Handmade, 2005). Contains the original album plus original versions of two songs, seven live versions and a home demo. Edition of 5000 copies.

* Heart Food (CD, Rhino Handmade, 2005). Contains the original album plus an outtake and eight demo versions. Edition of 5000 copies.

* Abracadabra: The Asylum Years (2CD, Rhino, 2006). Combines Judee Sill and Heart Food with bonus tracks.

*Live in London: The BBC Recordings 1972-1973 (CD, Troubadour, 2007). Contains solo live songs performed for the BBC, and an interview with Bob Harris.

References