I’m a big fan of all kinds of music from Rock and Roll to Alternative Rock, Metal, the second British Invasion in the 80s, and the various kinds of pop music in the 50s and 60s, like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and Bill Haley and The Comets. There are so many musicians that haven’t been celebrated as much as others. Those that may have one hit or one album for that matter. Some musicians like Judee Sill, a folk singer/ songwriter, didn’t get her just due for many different reasons. In Lost Angel:The Genius of Judee Sill the filmmakers document her turbulent life.

This documentary goes in-depth on Judee Sill’s life from her childhood in Oakland, California in 1944 to her death from supposed injuries from a car crash. Most speculate that her husband pushed her down a set of stairs to cause the fatal injuries. She was a relatively undiscovered singer-songwriter, but it didn’t mean people didn’t know who she was. Or about the kind of music she made. She had a talent that most said was before her time. A folk-rock sound that is being rediscovered by young and old people today.

This film has a lot of famous talking heads who were Sill’s contemporaries that sang her praises such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, Jim Pons, and David Geffen. There is also a phone interview with Linda Ronstadt that was very informative. They all appreciated her skill and ability as a songwriter and her melodic tones as a singer. They also talked about her problems with drugs and her anger. She was a bit of a problem in the music industry. This hampered her career quite a bit.

Sill also had quite the amount of lovers and romantic situations in her life. She figured sex was the way to get what she wanted and it worked sometimes. Her romances with Tommy Peltier, JD Souther, and Jim Pons, led to musical collaborations that helped feline her sound in later years. She incorporated a lot of different things to create her music which is why she eventually caught the eye of music producer Devid Geffen. His Asylum Records produced two of her albums before they had a falling out over a personal dispute. 

While watching the film I got to listen to some of her songs that were played in various ways. Using a framing device a band sang one of her songs “The Kiss” at the beginning and end of the film. Dispersed throughout the rest of the documentary were some of her other songs like “Lady O”, “Enchanted Sky Machine” “The Ridge Rider” and “Jesus Was a Crossmaker”. She had a unique sound that didn’t catch on as well at the time but became much more popular decades later which spurred others to re-release her two albums previously put out and put together a lot of her unreleased music into a new album. Rhino Records producer Andy Zax re-released her albums, Judee Sill & Heart Food, Dream Come True was released on Water Records in 2006 thanks to Pat Thomas, Bill Plummer, Jim O’Rourke, and Patrick Roques, 

Sonya Goddy narrated the film as if she were Judee Sill. That was an interesting thing to do. It was as if she was telling her story to those who were watching the documentary.  Other tricks that the filmmakers used to help tell this woman’s story were archival footage from concerts, photos, newspaper clippings, and notes. A lot of this stuff was animated to look as if she wrote it herself and the animation then changed and morphed as the film moved forward. This was a nice touch because it allowed me to better understand what was going through her head in her lifetime. These are great additions to the documentary by the filmmakers.

 A quote that defines Sill’s life and why her career didn’t turn out as good as it could have is this “Why Do I Make It Hard On Myself?” Even she knew the things she said and did sometimes hindered her progress as a musician, singer, and songwriter. The pace at which she worked, her toxic relationship with her husband, Bob Harris, at the time, and her addiction to heroin and various other opioids. She was the product of her own demise to a degree. Even though she has such immense talent. It’s a shame she didn’t become a bigger star at the time, but it’s nice to see her music gain notoriety in later years.

Lost Angel:The Genius of Judee Sill is such an apt title for this documentary. It describes her life to a tee. People looked at her as a genius regarding her music, singing, and songwriting and she was beloved by so many which led them to describe her as a lost Angel. After listening to her music myself and hearing what her contemporaries said about her, I was a bit sad to see her pass away before her time. We,  as a people, lost so much music from this woman who was so very talented. The directors Andy Brown & Brian Lindstrom delved into her life using so many different techniques. It was honestly quite exhilarating to see how this film came out. I learned a lot and I enjoyed every minute of it. This is one of the best documentary films of the year.

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen