Heart Food

Heart Food is the second of two albums Judee Sill recorded in the early 1970,s. It was actually released in 1973 but suffered from poor sales and during the recording to it's follow up Sill abandoned the recording sessions and disappeared. A long tine drug user, news eventually surfaced in 1979 of her death from a cocaine and codeine overdose. A collection of those long lost recordings is to be released under the ironic title, considering her fate, "Dreams Come True". But when you listen to her music you can understand the title, for this is some of the most beautiful, pure, dare I say it spiritual music you will ever hear.
The spiritual thing isn't as hokey as you might think as Sill,s lyrics obsess over alchemy , philosophy and theosophy but it's the wonderful melodies and Sill,s unaffected untainted singing that really make this album so special. The songs arrangements have been compared to Joni Mitchell twinned with Bach but a song like "Soldier of Our Heart" has a gospel feel while "When the Bridegroom Comes" is Laura Nyro with an added melodic edge. "The Donor", an audacious multi harmonic epic backed by sparse piano, wouldn't sound out of place on Gene Clark's wondrous "No other". "There's a Rugged Road" has gliding pedal steel and see sawing fiddle. "The Kiss" is a piano led ballad of such exquisite poise and melodic delicacy that every time Sill sings the songs killer dipping hook your stomach flip flops and the goose bumps on your arms start weeping. It's backed by a string arrangement worthy of Nick Drake which is nice because that's someone else she's been compared to. If you ever do a compilation tape for an object of affection, put "The Kiss" next to "Northern Sky" and they will be yours for ever....if you want them to be. Actually "The Pearl "wouldn't go amiss either, another supremely lovely song which though fuller of tempo has a wonderful swooping string arrangement. There is a soulful aura about "Down Where the Valleys Are Low" with the gospel atmosphere of its backing vocals while "The Vigilante" sees Sill really let her voice go, her vocals pirouetting seamlessly along the pedal steel and harmonica. Why aren't contemporary singers capable of singing with this level of unbridled clarity? Instead of warbling like they've got the hiccups or a tape worms head butting their tonsils.
This is some of the most scorching brilliant music ever recorded. When it's playing you want to rush round forcing other people to listen to it and it makes just about everything else you've heard seem irrelevant. (Yes....even "Hats" or "Abbey Road") I can understand how Sill ended up like she did as it must have been heartbreaking to be making music as sublime as this and getting ignored. Judee Sill obviously never got the food her heart desired. Luckily we get her music. As Jim O, Rourke who has mixed "Dreams Come True" said: "If people sang this stuff in Church, a lot of us might still be there."

OK, so I've heard Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Laura Nyro, whom Ms Sill was compared to during her brief career, and whilst none of them are without merit,in my mind her legacy tops all three of them.

Rather than an instant sensation, this album is an insidious slow-burner which, on the first two or three listens, can sound pretty but rather insubstantial. Persevere with it, however, and "Heart Food" quickly reveals itself as the richly-layered classic it is.

Perhaps the reason why both "Heart Food" and Sill's eponymous debut have aged better than a good deal of her Laurel Canyon contemporaries' output is the downbeat, fatalistic edge to the music which is occasionally present in Nyro's muse bad largely absent from both Mitchell's and King's. There's something lurking here which is just too dark for most of the 70s suburban post-collegiate crowd that their albums largely appealed to. For sure, Judee may have had the cocaine habit but the fact that she carried far more emotional baggage than most troubadours is evident from the desperate redemption-seeking lyrics of "Down Where The Valleys Are Low". Although "Heart Food album is pleasant, even celestial to the ears it's still way too intense to qualify as easy listening.

Stand-out tracks are "There's A Ragged Road", "The Pearl", "The Donor" and especially "When The Bridegroom Comes" which is just one of the most gloriously indelible pieces of soft-rock perfection to emerge from it's era, and a song that could easily have been a huge radio hit in a world where justice prevailed (or had Sill been career-oriented enought to play the game by the iindustry's rules). Highlights aside though, there isn't a single disposable moment on "Heart Food" or "Judee Sill", but if funds are tight and you can only afford one or the other "Heart Food" most likely the one to go for as it sounds fuller and more realised in many ways than it's predecessor.

Currently available affordably from Water Records, for those of you whom (like me) missed out on those expensive Rhino Handmade editions last year. However, although cheaper and easiere to find, this version does have the downside of not including any of the demos that came with the Rhino release.

Despite garnering favourable reviews and even though the artist performed doggedly as an opening act for a number of established artists, Judee Sill's eponymous 1971 debut album sold poorly and failed to propel the Californian musician to stardom.

Undeterred, she returned for 1973's Heart Food with engineer Henry Lewy (whom she affectionately called the "audio alchemist") and a band of stellar musicians and backing vocalists for a record altogether livelier and more confident than her debut.

Heart Food is similar to its predecessor in that it features Sill's multi-tracked vocals prominently, and that guitar and piano are prevalent, but other than that it's a forward step. There's no mistaking that it's a Judee Sill record, and all her hallmarks are there, but this is also a much more diverse record and Sill sounds more confident in trying new things - see the inner sleeve pictures where she acts as conductor during an orchestral session.

Sill's songs have a hymnal purity to them at times, as on the solo piano "When the Bridegroom Comes," written with then-boyfriend David Bearden. The best of these hymnal songs is surely "The Kiss," a timeless and beautiful celebration of romantic union with painstaking orchestration. It has an eerie, ethereal quality, and is renowned as one of Sill's finest compositions.

The arrangements and orchestrations, done by Sill herself, complement the songs and the music and if there were any doubts about her abilities she certainly proves herself an expert songwriter and visionary with this album. Listen out, for example, for the ebullient backing vocals on "Down Where the Valleys Are Low," her most gospel-inspired song replete with organ licks and vocalists evoking a gospel choir.

Elsewhere, the themes of the first album are recalled on "The Vigilante" and "The Pearl," although they're less fragile and more forthright. The opening "There's A Rugged Road" is possessing of a memorable melody and strong structure, which is the case with every song here. The delicacy of the first album is replaced by something beefier (the rollicking "Soldier of the Heart," which should have been a major hit, which rocks harder than Sill's previous pop attempt, the glorious "Jesus Was A Cross Maker") but the subtle intricacies remain: on the surface, this sounds simple and effortless, and that's testament to Sill's amazing abilities.

The album's defining moment, however, must be the epic "The Donor," which displays the majority of Sill's many talents. The first four minutes or so are devoted to choral chanting and haunting piano lines, and the song becomes a beautiful, grand choral requiem. The chorus of "Kyrie Eleison" is stunning, but the dynamics of the song make it more like a suite and one of the defining moments on any record by any singer-songwriter. It's hard to imagine anybody else even daring to attempt something as grand and opulent as this and having the audacity and skills to pull it off.

The 2004 reissue of Heart Food features demos and unreleased songs as well as informative liner notes. The demos are pared-down and solo, so it's interesting, for example, to hear "The Donor" sans orchestration, and "Soldier of the Heart" without the full band backing. Another strong unreleased song, "The Desperado," is also featured.

This album didn't even get reviewed by major rock critics, and was largely ignored by the public. It's a crying shame, because this music is melodic and pleasant, with Sill's voice never outrageous and her songs beautiful and accessible. The reissue, however, seems to have invigorated new interest in the singer.

Sill never released another album in her lifetime and sessions for a third record were aborted. She died in obscurity and poverty in 1979 at the age of 35 leaving behind two small-selling but extraordinary records. If you don't buy or listen to Heart Food, it's your loss.