Rhino Handmade
2004
Heart Food
About This Album
Sometimes myths become reality, or apocryphal tales bear enough weight to be documented as fact. Heart Food, Judee Sill's legendary -- and up until now very rare -- second and final album, was recorded and released in 1973 by Asylum Records when she was 29; she passed away six years later. Heart Food has been equated with Laura Nyro's classic New York Tendaberry, Essra Mohawk's Primordial Lovers, and Carole King's Tapestry as being a definitive moment in the work of female singer/songwriters. Part of this myth comes out of the reality that Heart Food has not been in print in more than 20 years. Rhino Handmade has issued the album on CD, along with its predecessor, Judee Sill [Expanded], for a limited time. The original (second) album is rounded out with nine extra tracks of live and demo material, is accompanied by a handsome package, a complete liner note essay by Michele Kort, and a slew of photographs. Now that it is available again, it is easy to see how that comparison by the critical pop establishment of the day was made: it's because it is accurate.

The beautifully rough edges on Sill's debut have all been smoothed out here by an engagement with subtle yet pervasive orchestration, stellar arrangements, tightly crafted songs that open up form the inside their musical frameworks, and draw on influences as varied as Tin Pan Alley to gospel and country to Mozart and Bach.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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