judee sill tribute album out in september

Marissa Nadler, Beth Orton, Meg Baird and more contribute

The great Judee Sill revival of 2005 saw record label Asylum finally reissue both of the tragic singer-songwriter’s long out-of-print albums following wild critical acclaim for Dreams Come True, the brilliant two-disc compilation of previously unreleased material rescued from oblivion by Jim O’Rourke. With the floodgates opened, along came another two-disc compilation, Abracadabra, and a surprisingly vital album of live sessions recorded for the BBC in which Judee’s warm, if slightly self-conscious, stage manner threaded the songs together with some enlightening narrative. With the archives well and truly plundered, the obvious next step was a tribute album and US label American Dust were the ones to pick up the reins with Crayon Angel: A Tribute To The Music Of Judee Sill.

With Sill originals like ‘Jesus Was A Cross Maker’ and ‘Lady-O’ providing much bigger hits for other artists besides Judee, there’s a long tradition of reworking many of these tunes. They’re not included on this compilation but Fleet Foxes often cover ‘Crayon Angel’ in their live sets, and Tara Jane O’Neil recorded a memorable cover of ‘The Phoenix’ for her 2006 EP, A Raveling. We’re looking forward to hearing Marissa Nadler & Black Hole Infinity’s take on ‘The Kiss’, Meg Baird’s ‘When The Bridegroom Comes’ and especially Frida Hyvönen’s version of ‘Jesus Was A Cross Maker’. But where Crayon Angel gets really interesting is with Beth Orton’s ‘Reach For The Sky’ and Bill Callahan’s ‘Like A Rainbow’, both of which are songs for which only Judee’s original sheet music exists – no recordings of either song have been discovered. We’ll have to wait until September 21st to hear them though. Gah! Full tracklist below.

 

Crayon Angel: A Tribute To The Music Of Judee Sill

01 Ron Sexsmith, ‘Crayon Angel’
02 Beth Orton, ‘Reach For The Sky’
03 Daniel Rossen, ‘Waterfall’
04 Frida Hyvönen, ‘Jesus Was A Cross Maker’
05 Shalants, ‘Lopin’ Along Thru The Cosmos’
06 Final Fantasy, ‘The Donor’
07 Nicolai Dunger, ‘Soldier Of The Heart’
08 Trembling Blue Stars, ‘Lady-O’
09 Colossal Yes, ‘The Phoenix’
10 Marissa Nadler & Black Hole Infinity, ‘The Kiss’
11 Princeton, ‘Down Where The Valleys Are Low’
12 The Bye Bye Blackbirds, ‘There’s A Rugged Road’
13 Meg Baird, ‘When The Bridegroom Comes’
14 Bill Callahan, ‘For A Rainbow’
15 P.G. Six, ‘Til Dreams Come True’

Alan Pedder

 

‘The Kiss’ [live]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0feFedDW_iQ]

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, beth orton, frida hyvönen, judee sill, marissa nadler, meg baird, news, tara jane o'neil

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