The Songs of L.J.Hill

This is a collection of songs by L.J. Hill in open tuned guitar notation, with standard tabs and fret picking notation that work on the open tunings that L.J. often invented or discovered for himself. Each song has a .wav file playback so you can hear what it’s supposed to sound like, and one of these days with L.J’s permission+ or audience demand I’ll put up the original demo recordings we made.

L.J. taught me these songs while we worked on the recordings and played gigs around town. I had a lot of time to work with him to get the notation and lyrics written out correctly, using software* that played the tunes back to us and helped us figure out how to note it out properly. Each vocal is interpreted with a lead instrument – trumpet, flute, fuzz guitar – that suits the song and is correctly keyed. I got L.J. to listen to each of these songs at least twice before saving them down as finished.

It took us about 6 months while LJ was recovering from some health issues. Every weekend, Sundays religiously, I spent at least 7 hours working on this music. It was a labour of love. I still busk some of these songs, especially “Here I Am Again” which is an awe-inspiring spiritual, and “When You Sing (Angels Dance)” which is so light and lilting in the guitar part, I swear to God, angels would dance on the head of my guitar when I played it, or they did when I played it with L.J.

Here I Am Again…….soundfile

When You Sing (Angels Dance)…….soundfile

Moving Me Inside……soundfile

The Pretty Bird Tree…….soundfile

Grandfather Hill…….soundfile

18th Day of May…….soundfile

Streets of Armidale…….soundfile

The Singers and the Poets…….soundfile

The Memory…….soundfile

Relay For Life…….No soundfile…not sure where this song is…has anyone seen it?

* Notion for iPad

+ L.J. Hill died in early April 2024. I reached out to friends in the Armidale Musicians Club to contact L.J.’s surviving relatives and offer them the sole rights to L.J.’s demo tapes, one of which is an original song that I suspect they may never have heard before. I hope the USB reached them, but they never got back to me, so now with their permission and no rights to myself I am glad to finally present these tapes, which I have had in my possession for over 24 years.

Demo recordings for Namoi Mud by L.J. Hill, complete albums available on Outlaw/Creative Spirits Records. The first song listed, Here I Am Again, was never recorded by L.J on any album. It remains, to my knowledge, the only surviving demo of one of L.J. Hill’s greatest songs.

Here I Am Again