I’m Over

My thoughts on Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill

There has been a slew of documentaries centering on musicians over the last few years but in nearly every case, the subject is either a well-known name or someone closely connected with well-known names or famous songs. That is certainly not the case with Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill, in which co-directors Brian Lindstrom and Andy Brown pay tribute to the life and work of the singer-songwriter whose obvious genius was largely overlooked during her sadly short career (which ended with her death from a drug overdose in 1979 at the too-young age of 35) but which has subsequently engendered a small but devoted cult following.

Through interviews with family, friends and colleagues (including David Crosby, Graham Nash, J.D. Souther and Linda Ronstadt), the film tells a story that begins with heartbreak (including the death of her father at a young age, an abusive stepfather, bank robberies, prostitution and time in prison) and then began to turn around when she decided to make use of the prodigious musical talents she had developed since childhood to make it in the music business. Her utterly unique and ethereal compositions—many of which touched on religious themes while at the same time talking about love, desire and heartbreak—were unlike anything being recorded at the time and when David Geffen set up Asylum Records (the future home of Ronstadt, the Eagles, Jackson Browne and others) in the early Seventies, she was the first artist to be signed and seemed poised to achieve the stardom that she had always been reaching towards.

Unfortunately, despite a decent publicity campaign, a high-profile tour opening for Crosby and Nash and rave reviews, her first two albums—Judee Sill (1971) and Heart Food (1973)—simply did not sell despite including such instant classics as “Jesus was a Cross Maker” and “The Kiss.” This commercial rejection of her work wound up sending Sill into a downward spiral that included a return to drugs, an abusive relationship, constant pain as the result of a car accident and subsequent botched back surgery and being dropped by Asylum, supposedly for calling out Geffen on stage for his supposed lack of promotion. Despite all that, she continued to create and was working on a third album when she passed (that album, Dreams Come True, was eventually completed and released in 2005), an event that hardly anyone noticed. In later years, however, her work would be rediscovered and championed by a new generation of fans and those original albums would be reissued on CD along with a live album culled from performances for the BBC and another collection of live performances and original demos.

I have been a fan of Sill’s ever since I first heard “Jesus was a Cross Maker” via a cover by Warren Zevon (a kindred spirt, to be sure) and went back to learn about her and her work. Needless to say, the idea of a Sill documentary thrilled me and for the most part, I was not disappointed. In putting the film together, Lindstrom and Brown had to face a couple of major obstacles—their subject was long dead and there wasn’t that much in the way of archival materials that they could use. Luckily, they came across an old recording of an extensive interview that Sill gave to the L.A. Free Press and utilize that, along with a voice actress reading entries from Sill’s journals, as a narrative spine to give the story a more personal touch. (Moments from the journals are also depicted via animation, a conceit that has become a little too commonplace in documentaries these days but which comes off reasonably well here.) The interviews are not particularly deep, I suppose, but the love and admiration that her fellow (and far more successful) artists still have for her rings clear and true.

What really makes Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill work is, of course, the music, which is still astonishing to hear a half-century since it was originally released. Although perhaps too offbeat and personal to break through to the mainstream in the ways that so many thought would happen, her songs have not dated in the slightest and I can imagine fans of Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish responding to it positively. If the film does nothing else, here is hoping that it will inspire some people to go out and check out her music for themselves and ensure that her work will continue to live on and bring listeners the kind of joy and solace that was too often lacking in her own life.