Definitive Versions Of Judee Sill's Forgotten Masterpieces

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard a song by Judee Sill.  It was a Saturday morning, early in 1974.  I was a sophomore in high school and had driven to the next town over from mine (where there was a music store) to buy a guitar.  I ended up getting a Fender F-65 acoustic.  Forty-four years years later, I still have it.

With my new guitar resting in its case in the backseat of my VW bug, I headed home.  As always back then, my car radio was tuned to WFDD, the campus radio station of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem.  These days it's hard to imagine that people listened to the radio to discover new music.  But FM radio was an important musical lifeline for me and my friends at the time.  And WFDD was by far the hippest station in the area, playing a great selection of our favorite rock 'n' roll, as well as lots of strange and interesting stuff by new and obscure artists.

As I headed home, I heard a terrific new (to me) song coming over the airwaves.  I was so taken with it, I pulled over and stopped the car so I could be sure to hear the DJ when he announced the name of the singer.  The song turned out to be "Soldier Of The Heart" off Judee Sill's 1973's album, Heart Food.  A couple of weeks later, when I was in Winston-Salem, I went to a record store to see if they had the LP.  They did not, but they did have Judee's first album, the 1971 self-titled Judee Sill.  I bought it, and asked them to order a copy of Heart Food for me.  In this age of Spotify and Amazon, it's hard to imagine that I actually had to have the record store order the album for me and wait a couple of weeks for them to get it.

Sadly, once I had those two albums, I had the entire recorded musical output of Judee Sill during her lifetime.  But for my money, you'd be hard pressed to find two albums by any other singer/songwriter that can match the poetry and depth of Judee's two LPs.  (Inevitably, there have been a number of posthumous releases of studio outtakes and live recordings that, while interesting, really don't add much to her legacy.)

I played Judee's two albums hundreds of times over the coming years.  Luckily, even as teenager I took care of my vinyl, and my 35+ year old original copies currently rate at VG+/VG (Judee Sill) and NM/VG (Heart Food).  Still, as two of my all-time favorite albums, more than once over the years I worried that if something happened to them, I might never find replacements.  From the 1980's on, I kept my eye out for backup copies in the used record bins, but never saw a single one, which isn't surprising considering how few records she sold.  In an interview in Rolling Stone in 1972, Judee says that her first album sold about 40,000 copies, (which was actually pretty respectable for a first album).  But her second album flopped, and her record label, Asylum, dropped her. Not long after, years Judee's life spiraled out of control.  With a long history of drug addiction and abuse, she died of an overdose in 1979 at the age of 35.

For the next three decades, Judee was mostly forgotten and her albums were never reissued.  Finally, in 2003, Rhino released the first CD versions of both albums.  Each included about 10 bonus tracks of demos and live recordings.  I quickly ordered them.  Even though I hardly ever listen to CDs (then or now), I figured that at least I would have a reference copy in case something happened to my LPs. Then in 2004, I was excited to see that the re-issue label 4 Men With Beards had released the first new vinyl versions in more than 30 years.  I quickly ordered those as well.  The albums are nicely pressed on 180-gram vinyl by the reliable Rainbo Records.  The replica jackets are on heavy stock with beautifully reproduced artwork.  But, to my ears, the sound is terrible -- flat, compressed, and rolled off on top.  Not nearly as good as the original pressings.  Sigh.

But, proving that all good things come to those who wait, last year, Intervention Records announced that they were issuing remastered, deluxe versions of Judee's albums.  Once again, I quickly ordered copies.  Turns out they weren't kidding about the "deluxe" part.  Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio remastered the albums from the original analog master tapes, creating new, double-disk, 45 rpm versions of the albums.  The jackets are beautifully reproduced on thick stock.  Naturally, I was anxious to hear how these reissues stack up to the originals.  The original issues were released on the Asylum label and were both mastered at Atlantic Studios.  And in the case of Heart Food, my copy was mastered at Atlantic Studios by the legendary George Piros.  (AT/GP in the runout.)  My copy of Judee Sill was pressed by PRC Recording in Richmond, IN. My copy of Heart Food was pressed by Monarch Records, in Los Angeles.  Both of them sound really, really good -- open and airy with solid bass and terrific imaging and balance.

It's not faint praise to say that Gray's new 45-rpm versions sound amazingly like the originals.  They have the same clarity, spaciousness, and balance.  The pressings, by RTI, are perfect.  In fact, having done some A B comparisons, I can't reliably tell the two versions apart.  Maybe, just maybe, the new versions have a bit more clarity and pace - which could well be the benefit of the 45 rpm speed.  And even though my original copies are very quiet, the new versions are so dead silent that the music seems just a tad more focused.  Bottom line, if something happened to my original albums, I finally have back-up copies that I could happily live with for the next 35 years.

Enjoy the music!