Dreams Come True [Import]

Although I have only given this 4 stars, this has been put together with tender loving care, with packaging which is very well done and quite unique.

I have been a Judee Sill fan since her first album came out in the very early 70's. I knew of Heart Food but not until it was unavailable. Then both became available on CD last year (or the year before)

I never knew of any other material. So this is a treat. The songs are typical of the type she wrote and the album sub-title (Hi I love you right heartily here) oozes Judee Sill-speak. I think the songs mask the troubled life she must have left. You only have to read the extraordinarily informative booklet to get an idea of the life she led a tortured soul, perhaps. However, the songs fly away on the breeze but always make a soft landing.

The film footage from 1973 on disc 2 is not great quality, but is the first I have seen of her and is very enlightening and enchanting.

So if you liked her first two albums, then you need to have this little gem - but I think you need the two studio albums first to appreciate her at her very best before embarking on this package.

This is a wonderfully package set which is a dream for anyone who has the slighest interest in Judee Sill.Packed with goodies galore - lost songs, rare tracks and unreleased recordings which until now where never confirmed actually existed. The whole package has been beautifully and without doubt lovingly restored by Jim O' Rourke. The greatest joy was the 12 min film enchanced in the second CD which was a real thrill especially having another version of "The Kiss". I hope that OGWT release the other track that is still in their vaults.

Last year saw the wonderful releases by Rhino Handmade of her first two albums and with this package it completes the discography of a very tortured but truly, truly gifted singer. I do believe she ranks alongside Nick Drake for being one of the most underated singers ever and also like Nick many of us are now only realizing how special she really was. So without any reservations click on the buy button and wait for one of this year's best releases and superbly packaged discs for 2005. Thank-you Jim and the record company for making this possible!

After two well-received but poor-selling albums, Judee Sill was justifiably downhearted. While Joni Mitchell was scaling the heights of the pop charts, Sill was recovering from a series of botched back surgeries after a car accident.

During her convalescence, she wrote some new songs and in late 1974 went into the studio with a band of musicians to record these. The sessions were relaxed and carefree, but the album was soon abandoned and sessions were aborted. Sill slid into obscurity and poverty, battling drug addictions, and she died five years later from a cocaine overdose at the age of 35.

The tapes for these sessions were found again in 2004 and Jim O'Rourke has done a fantastic job of producing them in a way to reflect both the nature of the sessions and the hallmarks of Judee Sill's sound.

The eight new songs here (it sounds skimpy, but there were only nine for 1973's Heart Food) are all very strong and also quite different to her previous material. The melancholy quality is gone and she seems in fine spirits here. The music is melodic and driving, and there aren't many slow, sad songs. Instead, it's actually quite a rocking album.

Opener "That's the Spirit" sets the scene with Sill's trademark piano playing with an unusual rhythm pattern and a vocal delivery that seems more free than before. Sill lets go vocally on this album, using her vibrato more as well as her higher range. "That's the Spirit" is an immediately memorable, joyous opener, and joins the ranks of Sill's finest songs. Her vocal is strong, if not as polished as on the first two records, which lends the song a certain charm in itself.

The countrified-gospel-classical sound of Heart Food is present on songs like "I'm Over" and "The Good Ship Omega," but for the most part this is new territory for Sill. "The Living End" boasts a sassy rhythm and "Things Are Lookin' Up" is genuinely jaunty and fast-paced, while "'Til Dreams Come True" is the only real slow song, a ballad of hymnal intensity.

Happy and carefree though the songs may be, Sill never compromises her immense melodic, harmonic, and poetic abilities and she still astounds here. The songs do not possess the fragile beauty of those on Judee Sill and Heart Food, and somehow seem more straightforwardly pop-inspired. That is an interesting new direction for Sill and it would be intriguing to hear how the album would have turned out had it been completed. The demos are of great quality too.

A disc of "lost songs" is also included, and despite low sound quality the power of Sill's performance is captured on her own songs such as "Dead Time Bummer Blues," "Waterfall," and "Emerald River Dance," the former being an eerie, off-kilter, deadpan song about Sill's time in jail, and the latter two, particularly "Emerald River Dance," incredibly beautiful - it would have been worthy of a place on her debut. There is also a 1968 set of folk covers, and video footage of a 1973 mini-set.

The packaging is exquisite, with a keepsake slipcase, the two discs packaged in envelopes and a 72-page colour booklet featuring interviews with family members and biographical details, as well as photos and lyrics. It's all extremely well-done, and reflects the high quality of the music.

Intricate, professional, fun, and melodic, the music on Dreams Come True may not match the bewitching beauty of Sill's first two records but it never tries to, instead going for a fuller band sound. If Sill recorded more albums, the quality would no doubt have remained incredibly high.

This isn't the best place for first-time listeners music wise perhaps, as it's not the finished product - nobody knows how Sill wanted it to turn out (although Dreams Come True was always her intended title.) However, this is worth the money even for the book alone, which gives major insight into Sill's life. A worthy addition to the Judee Sill collection, and the closing part of a beautiful, extraordinary trilogy.