Judy Henske – Big Judy: How Far This Music Goes 1962-2004
Though she’s released recordings for over 40 years now, Judy Henske never had that big breakthrough, and the music on this career-spanning retrospective clearly reveals why: Her musical idiosyncrasies made her unclassifiable, and if there’s one thing the music mainstream wants nothing to do with, it’s a performer who can’t be readily categorized.
The set opens with Henske’s first single, “That’s Enough”/”Oh Didn’t He Ramble”, released in 1962 under the name Judy Hart (produced by Jack Nitzsche, who later dubbed Henske “the Queen of the Beatniks”). Those recordings stablish that, from the very start, Henske had the kind of powerful voice that makes you sit up and take notice. Her musical versatility is already on display as well; one can easily imagine “That’s Enough” being given the Motown treatment in the hands of a singer like Martha Vandella, while “Ramble” has a decidedly gospel feel.
Or consider this startling juxtaposition on her major-label debut Miss Judy Henske (recorded before a live audience in the studio and released in 1963). The traditional “Love Henry”, a dark ballad about the hazards of telling a woman you’re leaving her for another “ten times fair,” is delivered with folk-singer simplicity, while in the raucous “Salvation Army Song”, Henske’s joyousness is such that the song seems less an ode to redemption than a gleeful celebration of sin.
By the end of the ’60s, Henske had started writing her own material, with intriguing results. The four tracks from 1968’s Farewell Aldebaran (released on Frank Zappa’s Straight label) showcase a voice gritty enough to rival Janis Joplin’s on “Snowblind” (which features a stinging guitar line by the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Zal Yanovsky), while the stark, bluegrass-tinged “Raider” (co-written and performed with Henske’s husband at the time, Jerry Yester) sends a chill up the spine. Songs from the short-lived group Rosebud had a more tender lyricism but met with as little success as Henske’s previous releases.
So she put her performing career on hold in favor of raising her daughter, while continuing to write songs with husband Craig Doerge (performed by Three Dog Night and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others). She resurfaced with new albums in 1999 and 2004 that show time hasn’t diminished either her voice (ranging from brash to sultry) or her wit. The previously unreleased “Hollywood People” provides a fitting end, a sardonic look at showbiz that casts the land of “Jaws and King Kong” as a fitting place to spend the afterlife.