Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1949

For the Canadian broadcaster, see Billie Holiday (broadcaster).

Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), also called Lady Day, was an American singer, generally considered one of the greatest jazz voices of all time, alongside Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Early life

Born Eleanora Fagan, Billie Holiday had a difficult childhood which greatly affected her life and career. Much of her childhood is clouded by conjecture and legend, some of it propagated by herself in her autobiography published in 1956. This account is known to contain many false facts and inaccuracies.

She was born in Philadelphia but grew up in the Fells Point section of Baltimore, Maryland. According to her autobiography, her house was the first on their street to have electricity. Her mother, Sadie Fagan, was allegedly only thirteen at the time of her birth (according to Ancestry.com, her Mother's birth year is 1896, making Billie's mother the age of 19 when she was born); her father Clarence Holiday, a jazz guitarist who would play for Fletcher Henderson, was fifteen. There is some controversy regarding Holiday's paternity, stemming from a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives that list the father as a "Frank DeViese." Some historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker (See Donald Clarke, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon, ISBN 0306811367). Clarence Holiday accepted paternity, but was hardly a responsible father. In the rare times she did see him, she would shake him down for money by threatening to tell his then-girlfriend that he had a daughter.

According to her autobiography, her parents married when she was three, but they soon divorced, leaving her to be raised largely by her mother and other relatives. At the age of ten, she reported having been raped, which resulted in her being sent to a Catholic reform school. It was only through the assistance of a family friend that she was released two years later [1]. Clarence Holiday died in World War 1. According to conventional wisdom, he was injured by poisonous gas, but was refused treatment by doctors due to his race and left to die in a hospital overseas.

Early Singing Career

Scarred by these experiences, Holiday moved to New York with her mother in 1928. According to her accounts, she was recruited by a brothel, worked as a prostitute, and was eventually imprisoned for a short time. It was in Harlem in the early 1930's that she started singing for tips in various night clubs. According to legend, penniless and facing eviction, she sang "Body and Soul" in a local club and reduced the audience to tears. She later worked at various clubs for tips, and ultimately we know that she worked at Pod's and Jerry's, a well known Harlem jazz club. Not a lot is known about her early singing career, but we do know that she was working at a club named Covan's in 1933 when she was discovered by talent scout John Hammond.

Hammond managed to get Holiday recording sessions with Benny Goodman and booked her for live performances in various New York clubs. In 1935 her career got a big push when she recorded four sides that became hits, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown To You". This landed her a recording contract of her own, and from 1935 to 1942 she laid down masters that would ultimately become an important segment of early American jazz. Sometimes referred to as her "Columbia period" (after her label), these recordings represent a large portion of her total of body of work.

During this period, the American music industry was still moderately segregated, and many of the songs Holiday were given to record were intended for the black jukebox audience. She was often not considered for the 'best' songs of the day, which were often reserved for white singers. However, Holiday's style and fresh sound soon caught the attention of musicians across the nation, and her popularity began to climb. Peggy Lee, who began recording with Benny Goodman in the early 1940's, is often said to have emulated Holiday's light, sensual style.

In 1936 she was working with Lester Young, who gave her the now-famous nickname of Lady Day. Holiday joined Count Basie in 1937 and Artie Shaw in 1938. She was one of the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an impressive accomplishment at the time.

The Commodore Years and "Strange Fruit"

Holiday was working for Columbia in the late 1930's when she was introduced to a song entitled "Strange Fruit", which began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allen" for the work. The poem was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings, where it was eventually heard by the manager of Cafe Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it.

She approached Columbia about recording the song, but was refused due to the song's subject matter. She arranged to record it with an alternate label, Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. Although there were far fewer songs recorded with Commodore, some of her biggest hits were under this label, including "Fine and Mellow", "I Cover the Waterfront" and "Embraceable You". "Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and admired by intellectuals, and is in a large part responsible for her widespread popularity. "Strange Fruit's" popularity also prompted Holiday to record the type of songs that would become her signature, namely slow, moving, love ballads.

It is widely conjectured that this is the period where Holiday first began what would become a long, and ultimately fatal, history of substance abuse. Holiday stated that she began using hard drugs in the early 1940's.

Her personal life was as turbulent as the songs she sang. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe (a small-time drug dealer) on August 25, 1941. While still married to Monroe, she took up with trumpeter Joe Guy as his common law wife. She finally divorced Monroe in 1947, and also split with Guy. In 1947 she was jailed on drug charges and served eight months at the Alderson Federal Correctional Institution for Women in West Virginia. Her New York City Cabaret Card was subsequently revoked, which kept her from working in clubs there for the remaining 12 years of her life.

Later life and the Verve sessions

By the 1950's Holiday's drug abuse, drinking, poor taste in abusive men, and deteriorating health set her life on a slow and steady decline. Her voice coarsened and did not project the vibrance it once did. However, she seemed to stand as a prime example of the struggling artist, and projected a certain bittersweet dignity.

On March 28, 1952, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia "enforcer." McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive, but did try to get her off drugs. They were separated at the time of her death. Holiday was also rather openly bisexual and was rumored to have had several affairs with notable stage and film actresses, including Tallulah Bankhead. She sometimes had friends call her "Bill." Gossip has it that she paid prostitutes to perform oral sex on her, which she called "french kissing." Holiday also had a relationship with Orson Welles.

Her late recordings on Verve are as well remembered as her Commodore and Decca work. From 1952 to 1959 Holiday released a little more than 100 new recordings for this label, which would constitute about a third of her recorded work. Her voice reflects a rugged timbre on these tracks, reflecting a vulnerability to the once grand and bold diva. Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young; both were less than two years from death.

Holiday toured Europe in 1954 and again from late 1958 to early 1959. While in London in February 1959, Holiday made a memorable televised appearance on the BBC's Chelsea at Nine, singing, among other songs, "Strange Fruit." Holiday made her final studio recordings (with Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also recorded her Lady in Satin album the previous year — see below) for the MGM label in March 1959 (included in her complete Verve recordings collection.) These final studio recordings were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later re-titled and re-released as Last Recordings. She made her final public appearance at a benefit concert at the Phoenix Theater in Greenwich Village, New York City on May 25, 1959. According to the masters of ceremony at that performance, Leonard Feather (a renowned jazz critic) and Steve Allen, she was only able to make it through two songs, one of which was "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do."

On May 31, 1959, she was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York, suffering from liver and heart problems. On July 12, she was placed under house arrest at the hospital for possession, despite evidence suggesting the drugs may have been planted on her. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44. In the final years of her life, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with only $0.70 in the bank and $750 on her person.

Her impact on other artists was undeniable, however; even after her death she influenced such singers as Janis Joplin and Nina Simone. In 1972, Diana Ross played her in a movie version of Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. To everyone's surprise, the film was a commercial smash and earned a Best Actress nomination for Ross. In 1987 U2 released "Angel of Harlem", a tribute to her.

Like many artists, the importance of Holiday's music and her influence were only truly realized after her death. She struggled against racism and sexism her entire career, and achieved fame despite a turbulent life. She is also often cited as an example to the black and gay communities, both which admire her early efforts to stand up for equal rights, and to speak out against discrimination and racism. She is now considered one of the most important vocalists of the 20th century.

Billie Holiday is interred in Saint Raymond's Cemetery, Bronx, New York.

Voice

[[Image:Billie Holiday 1949 b.jpg|right|thumb|Billie Holiday photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1949 While instantly recognizable, Holiday's voice changed over time. Her first recordings in the mid-1930s featured a bouncy, girlish voice. By the early 1940s her singing became informed by her acting skill. It was during this time when she recorded her signature songs "Strange Fruit" and "I Cover the Waterfront". Many called her voice lovingly sweet, weathered and experienced, sad and sophisticated. As she aged, the effects of her drug abuse continued to ravage her range and her voice changed considerably, becoming somewhat rougher. Her last major recording, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958 and reveals a woman with an extremely limited range, but wonderful phrasing and emotion. The recording featured a backing from a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:

I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You." There were tears in her eyes...After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.

Trivia

• Billie was 5'5"
• Got her name from Billie Dove, an actress she admired and Holiday from her father
• Given the name "Lady Day" by Lester Young
• September 18,1994 USPS honored her with a picture of her on a stamp
• Black Eyed Peas paid her a tribute in a Coca Cola commerical
• Woody Allen's character mentions her in the film Annie Hall. He says, "Grass, right? The illusion that it will make a white woman more like Billie Holiday."
• In the film Clueless, the main character pretends to have heard of Billie Holiday and says, "I LOVE him!"

Music samples

I'm a Fool to Want You (file info) From the album Lady in Satin, 1958; orchestration by Ray Ellis. More music by Billie Holiday Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington)[2] Miss Brown to you[3] Summertime (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) [4] Strange Fruit[5] I'm Pulling Through[6] If I were you[7] You go to my head[8] Body and Soul[9] The Man I Love (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)[10] Billies Blues[11] External links Official Site The Unofficial Billie Holiday Website Brief biography at Jazz (PBS) Brief biography at American Masters (PBS) The African American Registry - Billie Holiday Discography of Billie Holiday Billie Holiday Timeline Billie Holiday's Gravesite References ISBN links support NWE through referral fees Julia Blackburn, With Billie, ISBN 0375406107 Donald Clarke, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon, ISBN 0306811367 Credits New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: Billie Holiday  history The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia: History of "Billie Holiday" Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.