Judee Sill

Here's an extract from an e-mail from Gus Dudgeon

"I had the great fortune to see her supporting Carole King at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, when Carole was starting to do a promotional tour for her 'Tapestry' album. I'd never heard of Judee up to this point, but I have to say that she was magnificent....she blew me away!! I'm a record producer, so naturally I rushed up to Doug Weston, (the owner of the club, and who I happened to know quite well), and he guessed what was coming. "Sorry, Gus you're too late, she's being produced by Graham Nash". As it happens, of course, in the end he only produced the one song. Whatever, I have loved this album from the moment I heard it, and was sad that she didn't get far more attention from press and radio. When she finally turned up on Bob's show, I think she was a tad out of it, 'cos just as she started one of the songs at the piano, she bitterly complained about having to open for 'snotty rock groups'. I remember thinking at the time....'Oh-oh, that's not going to help her cause much'. I understand from your site that Iggy was anticipating writing a song for her after seeing her outburst. Was that a song to celebrate her complaint, or a song for himself.... to tell her to clam up? After all, he may well have been one of the 'snotties' she was levelling her anger at. Presumably he was on the same show?"

"Many years later, I was one of the judges at the Yamaha Music Festival in Japan, and after the show, myself and the other judges were sitting around chugging some drinks, when someone asked what would be the one album we each individually would take to a desert island. When it came to my turn, I unhesitatingly nominated Judee's first album, having already said that no-one in the group would ever have heard of her. Amazingly, a well-respected and successful publisher, one of the judges, said....." I knew her well. I published her songs!!" I couldn't believe it."

"His story, as I remember it, after many years, was that she'd had had a very sad end, and he agreed with me that she was a major talent. He reckoned that she'd been living in a trailer home in a typical American low-rent trailer park, had been raped by some guy, definitely had a very serious drug problem, and that she'd been in serious pain from her back injuries. I already knew about her drug problems and that she'd died some years previously, but to hear that she'd wound up in such desperate circumstances, when she'd been responsible for my all-time favourite album just added even more sadness to her story. She was a really tragic figure, and like so many of us, was obviously affected throughout her life by her hopeless relationship with her parents."

Does anybody know who the publisher was? Gus thinks that his name was Michael and he was with April Blackwood Music, or Blimp Music in 1971. He may be able to fill in some blanks.