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Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (1915 - 1959), also called Lady Day is generally considered one the greatest jazz singers of all times. Born Eleanora Fagan, she had a difficult childhood which affected her whole life. She has claimed that she was a child prostitute but details about that are questionable.
She began singing in clubs in 1930, and was discovered by record producer John Hammond three years later. Hammond arranged several recording sessions for her with Benny Goodman. She later worked with such jazz legends as Lester Young, Count Basie, and Artie Shaw, breaking the color barrier along the way by becoming one of the first jazz singers of that era to perform with white musicians. Nevertheless, she was still forced to use the back entrance and described being forced to wait in a dark room away from the audience before appearing on stage. Once before an audience, she was transformed into Lady Day with the white gardenia in her hair. She explained the sense of overpowering drama that featured in her songs, saying, "I've lived songs like that".
Even when she was young and singing trivial pop songs, however, her unique tone and emotional commitment made her performances special.
Holiday's success was marred by a growing dependence on drugs, alcohol, and abusive relationships. This affected her voice as well, and in her later recordings youthful spirit is replaced by overtones of regret, but her impact on other artists was substantial in all phases of her career. Even after her death she influenced such singers as Janis Joplin and Nina Simone. Diana Ross played her in a movie version of her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues.
Her late recordings on Verve are as well remembered as her Commodore and Decca recordings of 20 years before. Several of her songs, including her signature song "God Bless the Child", George Gershwin's "I Love You Porgy" (covered exactly by Simone), and the rueful blues "Fine and Mellow" are jazz classics.
Her performance of Lewis Allan's (Abel Meeropol) anti-lynching song on Commodore, "Strange Fruit", with the lyric "Southern trees bear strange fruit" gave her a place, not just in musical history, but in American history: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/
Holiday's final years were a tragedy. She was swindled out of her considerable earnings and died with only 70 cents in the bank and $750 dollars hidden about her person.
Billie Holiday is interred in St. Raymond's Cemetery, Bronx, New York.
The above article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism : Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by ANGELA Y. DAVIS
Lady Sings the Blues/With a Revised Discography by Billie Holiday
God Bless the Child by Billie Holiday
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights by David Margolick
Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon by Donald Clarke
If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery : In Search of Billie Holiday by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society and an Early Cry for Civil Rights by David Margolick
Strange Fruit : The Biography of a Song by David Margolick
Sisters of the Extreme: Women Writing on the Drug Experience, Including Charlotte Bronte, Louisa May Alcott, Anais Nin, Maya Angelou, Billie Holiday, Nina Hagen, Carrie Fisher, and Others by Michael Horowitz
If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery : In Search of Billie Holiday by Farah Griffin
Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday by Donald Clarke
This Indecision Is Final: 32 Management Secrets of Albert Einstein, Billie Holiday, and a Bunch of Other People Who Never Worked 9 to 5 by Barry J. Gibbons
Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday (Unabridged) by audible.com
The Best Of Billie Holiday by Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday by Carlos Sampayo
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