ALWAYS CHASING THE SUN
Brian T. Atkinson's Always Chasing the Sun: The Tragic and Transcendent Genius of Judee Sill (Feral House Books / Process Media) will be released worldwide on August 24, 2027! The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter released only two proper studio albums during her brief lifetime (1971’s seamless Judee Sill and the high watermark Heart Food in 1973) and one posthumous compilation (2005’s demos and outtakes collection Dreams Come True), but her influence resonates. “I loved Jackson (Browne)’s and JD (Souther)’s songs,” iconic singer Linda Ronstadt says, “but Judee had something special.”
Always Chasing the Sun – the first full-length book about the Laurel Canyon-adjacent counterculture icon in the nearly half century since her death at 35 in 1979 –includes a foreword with folksinging legend Shawn Colvin, Eagles songwriter JD Souther, and XTC's Andy Partridge as well as interviews with more than one hundred thirty friends (the Turtles' Jim Pons, Suzzy Roche, the Association's Jules Alexander), followers (Bonny Light Horseman's Eric D. Johnson, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Big Thief's Buck Meek), rock biographers (Barney Hoskins, Richard Morton Jack) and family (Sill's niece Donna).
All discuss Sill's singular talent and turbulent life and how both impacted their own life and music in Always Chasing the Sun: The Tragic and Transcendent Genius of Judee Sill. "Judee's first album Judee Sill was extraordinary," Souther says. "We all knew it was by far the best thing any of us had done." Sill's songs covered by others – "Jesus Was a Crossmaker” (Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, The Hollies), “There’s a Rugged Road” (Shawn Colvin), “Lady-O” (The Turtles), "The Phoenix" (Marianne Faithfull with Sean Ono Lennon) and “The Kiss” (Fleet Foxes, Sarah McLachlan, Madison Cunningham) – alone back the point.