Billie Holiday

From all the ladies that I've presented in the last two weeks, I like Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter and Gladys Bentley. I love Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Josephine Baker. But my absolute favorite is the lady that I'm presenting today: Lady Day. If raw pain was a person, her name would be Billie Holiday.

Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, 1915. Her parents, Clarence and Sarah "Sadie" Fagan were an unmarried teenaged couple. Not long after Holiday's birth, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after being evicted from her parents' home for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, Holiday's mother arranged for the young Holiday to stay with her older married half-sister, Eva Miller, who lived in Baltimore.

Holiday suffered from her mother's absences and being left in others' care for much of the first ten years of her life. By early 1929, Holiday joined her mother in Harlem. Their landlady, Florence Williams, ran a brothel at West 140th Street. Holiday's mother became a prostitute and, within a matter of days of arriving in New York, Holiday, who had not yet turned fourteen, also became a prostitute at $5 a client. On May 2, 1929, the house was raided, and Holiday and her mother were sent to prison. After spending some time in a workhouse, her mother was released in July, followed by Holiday in October.

In Harlem she started singing in various night clubs. Holiday took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. The producer John Hammond, who first heard Holiday in early 1933, arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933 with Benny Goodman, singing two songs: Your Mother's Son-in-Law and Riffin' the Scotch, the latter being her first hit. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius."

Here's Your Mother's Son-in-Law:

And here's Riffin' the Scotch:

In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new "swing" style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of the melody line to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included What a Little Moonlight Can Do, and Miss Brown to You. Billie Holiday's What a Little Moonlight Can Do was deemed her "claim to fame."

Here's the great What a Little Moonlight Can Do:

And here's the equally great Miss Brown to You:

Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said: "Well, I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she, in turn, dubbed him "Prez".

1936 was another great year for Billie. I Cried for You was a giant hit for her record company. I say this, because Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company a lot of money.

From the same year, here's another great song, A Fine Romance:

Also from 1936, Summertime was a big hit. It was the first time the jazz standard charted under any artist:

From 1937, here's another gem, He's Funny That Way:

Also from 1937, her only #1 Pop single, Carelessly:

From her brief collaboration with Count Basie and his Orchestra (1937-38), here's They Can't Take That Away From Me:

After her collaboration with Count Basie ended, she worked with Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Holiday broke new ground with Shaw, becoming one of the first female African American vocalists to work with a white orchestra. Promoters objected to Holiday—for her race and for her unique vocal style—and she ended up leaving the orchestra out of frustration.

Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, there are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Artie Shaw's band.

She was still recording with Teddy Wilson though. From 1938, here's When You're Smiling:

Now we get to the part were we talk about Billie's absolute favorite song of mine: Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to Strange Fruit, a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. She performed it at the Café Society club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible 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 resistance to performing it.

When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, she recorded the song with the Commodore label instead. This ballad is considered to be one of her signature songs, and the controversy that surrounded it - some radio stations banned the record - helped make it a hit. But the main thing was that it is an instant classic, that would give anyone goosebumps, even today. In fact, with all the race killings going on lately, it may be even more topical today. Here it is:

It isn't just me: the song was such an inspiration for UB40, that they included their own version in their first album in 1980:

And here's Diana Ross' version, during her Oscar nominated performance as Billie in Lady Sings The Blues (1972):

1939 was a productive year for Billie: here are two more great songs of hers from that year. First, Long Gone Blues:

Also, Them There Eyes:

She married James Monroe in 1941. Already known to drink, Holiday picked up her new husband's habit of smoking opium. The marriage didn't last, but Holiday's problems with substance abuse continued. That same year she co-wrote and recorded God Bless the Child, which became Holiday's most popular and covered record. This is my 2nd favorite song of hers:

Here's a cover by Jazz Rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears (1969):

In 1942, Holiday recorded Trav'lin Light with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day." The song was a hit.

In September 1943, "Life" magazine wrote: "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."

Holiday signed to Decca records in 1944. Her first Decca recording was Lover Man (#16 Pop, # 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits.

A month later, she recorded Don't Explain, which she wrote after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.

She paid back her husband with his own coin: she hooked up with trumpeter Joe Guy, and with him she started using heroin. After the death of her mother in October 1945, Holiday began drinking more heavily and escalated her drug use to ease her grief.

Billie Holiday was bisexual, and had a number of relationships with women. The most famous of these was probably an affair with actress Tallulah Bankhead, which inspired a marvelously catty letter after the breakup. Bankhead was apparently unhappy with her appearance in Holiday's memoir. Holiday responded:

"While I was working out of town, you didn't mind talking to Doubleday (editor's note: Holiday's publishers) and suggesting behind my damned back that I had flipped and/or made up those little mentions of you in my book. Baby, Cliff Allen and Billy Heywood are still around. My maid who was with me at the Strand isn't dead either. There are plenty of others around who remember how you carried on so you almost got me fired out of the place. And if you want to get shitty, we can make it a big shitty party. We can all get funky together!"

In 1946, Holiday recorded Good Morning Heartache. Although the song failed to chart, it was very popular and remained in her live shows throughout her career:

It was a hit, however, for Diana Ross in 1972 (#34 Pop, #20 R&B):

Despite her personal problems, Holiday remained a major star in the Jazz world - and even a force to be reckoned with in Pop music as well. In 1946, she won the Metronome Magazine popularity poll. She appeared with her idol Louis Armstrong in the 1947 film New Orleans, albeit playing the role of a maid. Unfortunately, Holiday's drug use caused her a great professional setback that same year. She was arrested and convicted for narcotics possession in 1947. Sentenced to one year and a day of jail time, Holiday went to a federal rehabilitation facility in Alderston, West Virginia.

Released the following year, Holiday faced new challenges. Because of her conviction, she was unable to get the necessary license to play in cabarets and clubs. Holiday, however, could still perform at concert halls and had a sold-out show at the Carnegie Hall not long after her release. With some help from John Levy, a New York club owner, Holiday was later to get to play in New York's Club Ebony. Levy became her boyfriend and manager by the end of the 1940s, joining the ranks of the men who took advantage of Holiday. Also around this time, she was again arrested for narcotics, but she was acquitted of the charges.

In October 1949, Holiday recorded Crazy He Calls Me which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler (her record company's A&R man) said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after Lover Man.

By the 1950s, Holiday's drug abuse, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.

Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released an LP in June 1956 entitled Lady Sings the Blues. The album featured four new tracks, among them her last great classic, the title track:

On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive, but he did try to get her off drugs. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, à la Arthur Murray dance schools.

By early 1959 Holiday had cirrhosis of the liver. She stopped drinking on doctor's orders, but soon relapsed. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver and heart disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939. She was arrested and handcuffed for drug possession as she lay dying, and her hospital room was raided and she was placed under police guard. On July 15, she received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church and died two days later on July 17, 1959 from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver. In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person.

Her funeral Mass was on July 21, 1959 at Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. More than 3,000 people turned out to say good-bye to Lady Day at her funeral. A who's who of the jazz world attended the solemn occasion, including Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Tony Scott, Buddy Rogers, and John Hammond.

Billie Holiday was gone, but her legacy lives on to this very day.