Judith Hill
Judith Hill’s current reality, as a 41-year-old career artist grateful for the people who made her, and deftly aware of the bumpy path she’s chosen, and the force she’s becoming.
– Live and Onstage @ World Records Friday November 7, 2025

Hello there Ladies and Gentlemen –
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For the 3rd part of our trifecta of remarkable, important artists with amazing stories –  The incredible Judith Hill – Vocalist, Composer, Multi-Instrumentalist, steps on the World Records stage this Friday night!

Judith grew up in a home of music.  Her mom taught piano.  Here dad was a professional musician, touring with Billy Preston, who was famously known as “The 5th Beatle.”   Soul, R&B, rock, and funk artists frequented their home and cut records at the studio they had installed there.  Judith grew up singing gospel music at their local church.  She wrote her first song with her mother when Judith was 4 years old.  She majored in music, where a love of classical compositions blossomed.  After college she joined the tour of a renowned French artist and sang back up performing in European arenas and living in Paris for a year.
Upon returning to the US Judith Hill was a highly sought after back up singer by household names including Elton John, Rod Stewart, Natalie Cole, John Legend, Josh Groban, and Stevie Wonder.  She was featured in the Grammy-winning documentary film ’20 Feet from Stardom’ that focuses on the back-up singers who have been sought out by the names we all know.
Then the call came that Michael Jackson wanted Judith Hill on his “This Is It” world tour.

Michael Jackson & Judith Hill – I Just Can’t Stop Loving You

This is rehearsal day, just before the tour heads out for opening night in London.  Michael died a few days after this rehearsal.  And instead of singing with Michael on tour Judith Hill sang at his memorial. 
It took a long time for Judith to grieve the loss of her friend and world-wide star.
Then it became time for Judith to take that long 20 foot move to the forefront of the stage and her career.

Click This Photo For The Video

In an interview Judith Hill was asked what artist she would most like to work with.  “Prince” was her answer.  Well, Prince called her up.  And Judith went to Prince’s Paisley Park studios with her first album.  They worked together on the final touches and Judith’s first release, ‘Back In Time’ came out in 2015 on Prince’s NPG label.
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Yes, Judith Hill definitely has a sit-up and take-notice voice.  But how many artists are known for their voice AND are selected by Eric Clapton to perform at his annual Crossroads Guitar Festival?!  Judith Hill was selected because she is quite a guitarist.

Judith Hill with Joe Bonamassa

Judith Hill is touring on her 5th solo album, ‘Letters from a Black Widow.’  In our town that needs MORE, much MORE exposure to the very best national music artists, Judith Hill’s latest release spins at our record store twice a day so i can tell customers that they are listening to Judith Hill.  And every time, EVERY SINGLE TIME, she starts singing I am compelled to stop and pause and think, “I can’t believe THAT VOICE is coming to our theater!”
Now, the voices of Mavis Staples, Rosanne Cash, Rhonda Vincent, Shana Morrison, Janiva Magness, and Petula Clark, are some of the big and beautiful female voices that have graced our stage, but WOW, every one of those artists would smile big if they could hear Judith Hill this Friday night at World Records.  It’s going to be something!
We who want to live in a town that can enjoy artists of this magnitude hope you will come if you can.  It makes for a better town and a better life!
Pat

News:
Judith Hill Named as a First Confirmed Honoree for the 2026 ‘She Rocks Awards’
“The Women’s International Music Network (WiMN) is proud to announce that the 14th annual She Rocks Awards will take place on Friday, January 23, 2026, at the Hilton Anaheim Pacific Ballroom, with NAMM as the presenting sponsor.”

Judith Hill – a gutsy and nuanced vocalist, songwriter, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist whose career bridges work with icons like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Spike Lee. Featured in the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, she first gained global attention singing at Jackson’s memorial and has since built a solo career with acclaimed albums including Back in Time (2015), Golden Child (2018), Baby, I’m Hollywood! (2021), and Letters from a Black Widow (2024).

(Judith is one of the four honorees.)

Judith Hill is an accomplished songwriter, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist – and one of the few musicians who can cite Elton John, Spike Lee, Prince, and Michael Jackson among those who have sought out her talent.

One of the highest-profile background singers of her generation, she got her start in the early 2000s, and in the next decade established a solo career built upon a discography of increasingly refined and creative albums that includes the Prince-produced Back in Time (2015), Golden Child (2018), Baby, I’m Hollywood! (2021), and her recent album, Letters from a Black Widow (2024).

Letters from a Black Widow

Anyone who’s followed Judith Hill’s story will recognize Letters from a Black Widow as one jaw-dropper of an album title. The tabloid-coined phrase “Black Widow” arose after the overdose deaths of her two star-making collaborators, Michael Jackson and Prince. It became a term of abuse that internet trolls hurled at the celebrated artist, driving conspiracy theories and shame campaigns – trauma that nearly ended a career that includes a Grammy for her role in the Oscar-winning documentary film “20 Feet from Stardom.”

“For years the Black Widow was such a dark presence in my life that was too looming and intimidating to even talk about,” Hill says.

But a year into the pandemic, she had time and space for a momentous reckoning.

“Being forced to stop allowed me to reach a deeper place, to really marinate and figure out what’s at my core, what I really needed to talk about. I found I had the courage and strength to face all this – to be authentic to my core, to dive into the whole experience, and turn an ocean of darkness into expressive fire.”

If Hill’s previous album, Baby, I’m Hollywood, was the rowdy coming-of-age tale of a mixed-race child of bohemian California, Letters from a Black Widow is a formidable battle cry – an album-length soul/funk/gospel passion play that’s spectacularly written, arranged, and performed.

One signal moment in Hill’s writing process came during a visit with friends to a hot spring outside of Los Angeles, where a communal psychedelic experience wound up shunting her off into a more private and terrifying realm.

“An entire mountain appeared before my eyes,” she recalls. “And I knew it represented all the trauma in my life that I hadn’t realized was still there.”

Her antihero energy truly ignites on “Flame,” a song that evokes the raw vocal power of a young Aretha Franklin, stabbing every syllable of the declaration, Give me chaos and give me pain/but you can never kill my flame. Hill says this is the kind of power she could only access by moving through that mountain.

“All the guilt, shame, and paranoia can get to be like a cancer growing in you,” she shares. “You feel like nobody will understand, nobody will really care, and this becomes your whole reality. Making songs about it means giving yourself permission to even speak. It’s a kindness to yourself to even pick up the paintbrush and draw it, and it can take on a momentum of its own.”

Judith Hill
– Live and Onstage
@ World Records – Friday November 7, 2025!

Seating Chart