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| Birth Name(s) : Eleanora Fagan |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Jazz singer |
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Full Billie Holiday Biography
Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), born Eleanora Fagan and later nicknamed Lady Day (see "Jazz royalty" regarding similar nicknames), was an American jazz singer, a seminal influence on jazz and pop singers, and generally regarded as one of the greatest female jazz vocalists.
Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut on a 1933 Benny Goodman date, and Goodman was also on hand in 1935, when she continued her recording career with a group led by pianist Teddy Wilson. Their first collaboration included "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown To You", which helped to establish Billie Holiday as a major vocalist. She began recording under her own name a year later, producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the Swing Era's finest musicians.
When her producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Commodore Records' Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his label. That was done in April, 1939 and "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She later recorded it again for Verve. While the Commodore release did not get airplay, the controversial song sold well, but Gabler attributes that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow," which was a juke box hit.
Her late recordings on Verve constitute about a third of her commercial recorded legacy and are as well remembered as her earlier work for the Columbia, Commodore and Decca labels. In later years her voice became more fragile, but it never lost the edge that had always made it so distinctive. On November 10, 1956, she performed before a packed audience at Carnegie Hall, a major accomplishment for any artist, especially a black artist of the segregated period of American history. 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. (see the clip here)
On May 31, 1959, she was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York suffering from liver and heart disease. 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 (a tabloid fee) on her person.
Her impact on other artists was undeniable, however; even after her death she continues to influence singers. In 1972, Diana Ross portrayed her in a film that was loosely based on Lady Sings the Blues, the autobiography she co-authored with William Dufty. Although the Hollywood treatment strayed far from the true story, it was a commercial success and earned Ms. Ross a Best Actress nomination. In 1987, Billie Holiday was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1994, the United States Postal Service introduced a Billie Holiday postage stamp, she ranked #6 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock n' Roll in 1999, and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Over the years, there have been many recorded tributes to Billie Holiday, including "Angel of Harlem," a 1988 release by the group U2.
From the album Lady in Satin, 1958; orchestration by Ray Ellis.
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Billie Holiday is referred to in The Trumpet of the Swan, along with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong as one of three siblings, one of whom, Louie, is the main character. She is also referenced in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Frank O'Hara's 1959 poem "The Day Lady Died" is written in tribute to her.
The song "Thug Mansion" by 2Pac references Billie Holiday in a name check: "Then some lady named Billy Holiday sang, sittin', and kickin it with Malcom (X) till the day came".
Holiday recorded extensively for four labels:
- Columbia Records (1933-1942, 1958)
- Commodore Records (1939, 1944)
- Decca Records (1944-1950)
- Verve Records (1952-1959)
Note: To avoid repetition (and a very long discography) most of Holiday's individual albums are omitted, as almost all the material from these albums is available on the box sets listed below.
Other studio recordings:
- Lady in Satin (Columbia, 1958)
- New Orleans: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1946) (Giants of Jazz, 1983)
- The Sound of Jazz (Columbia, 1958)
Many live recordings, of varying quality, are also available. A selection is listed below:
- At Monterey 1958 (1958)
- Billie Holiday in Europe 1954-1958 (1954-1958)
- The Complete 1951 Storyville Club Sessions (1951)
- Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday at Newport (1957) (Holiday's performance is included in the Verve box set; see below)
- Lady Day: The Storyville Concerts (1951, 1953, 1959)
- A Midsummer Night's Jazz at Stratford '57 (1957)
- Summer of '49 (1948-1949)
The Columbia box set includes live recordings of Holiday's performances with the Count Basie Orchestra (1937) and Benny Goodman (1939), and her performance at the 1944 Esquire Jazz Concert.
The Verve box set includes the following live recordings:
- Jazz at the Philharmonic performances (1945-1947)
- Jazz Club USA (1954)
- 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts, with a narrator reading portions of her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues
- 1957 Newport Jazz Festival
- Seven Ages of Jazz Festival (1958) |
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