Forty-five years ago or so, my brother introduced me to the music of Judee Sill. If there is a choir of angels in heaven, certainly Judee Sill is in it. Her angelic, at times haunting, always evocative voice is matched by the power, precision, and pathos of her lyrics that treat themes of rapture, heartbreak, longing, and redemption in songs like Jesus Was a Cross Maker and The Donor. The music and vocals of some of her songs with their rapturous rise and roll and fall sound like they belong in a chapel more than on stage.

Sill’s life was marked by turbulence, abuse, and tragedy. Her father, mother, and brother all died by the time she was twenty-three. The itinerary of her youth included brief stops in liquor stores and gas stations that she robbed, reform school, drug addiction, while her early adulthood included scams, sex work, check forgery, petty crimes to support her addiction, and jail.

Woven throughout these troubled years she became an accomplished musician, singer, and songwriter. She only released two albums, Judee Sill (produced by Graham Nash) and Heart Food, both critically acclaimed but neither commercially successful. She was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 1972, opened for Graham Nash and David Crosby, played with J.D. Souther and other noted folk artists of her generation. She was working on a third album when she died of a drug overdose in 1979 at the age of thirty-five.

Sill’s talents as a musician, singer and songwriter which are in league with Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro were greatly respected by her artistic peers and many others up to and including contemporary artists. Since her death, she has developed a growing number of fans, especially among the community of singer songwriters and musicians, many of whom have covered songs of hers like Jesus Was a Cross Maker, There’s a Rugged Road, The Donor, and The Kiss. In 2009, an independent label released Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill featuring Beth Orton, Ron Sexsmith, and others. Since 2005, some of Sill’s unrecorded songs have been released. In 2014, the BBC put out a short documentary called The Lost Genius of Judee Sill.

Judee Sill was a talented, tragic figure, a broken, earthen vessel through whom the soaring and swelling sounds of beauty woven with words of heartbreak and pathos and hope invite us into those subterranean places within us where ecstasy and agony, sorrow and joy hold hands, kiss, weep, and breathe as one. If you don’t believe me, turn up the VOLUME and listen to this:

THE KISS

by Judee Sill

Love rising from the mists,
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Once a crystal choir
Appeared while I was sleeping
And called my name
And when they came down nearer
Saying, dying is done,
Then a new song was sung
Until somewhere we breathed as one
And still I hear their whisper

Stars bursting in the sky
Hear the sad nova’s dying cry
Shimmering memory, come and hold me
While you show me how to fly

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Lately sparkling hosts
Come fill my dreams, descending
On fiery beams
I’ve seen ’em come clear down
Where our poor bodies lay,
Soothe us gently and say,
Gonna wipe all your tears away
And still I hear their whisper?

Love, rising from the mists
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss