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The Lady Pauper Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday |
Known as "Lady Day", the legendary blues and jazz singer of
such classics as, Lover Man, Don't Explain, and Strange Fruit,
Billie Holiday's unique and dramatic voice would set the
standard for others to follow, until her untimely death at age
44.
Billie Holiday's origins are clouded in obscurity. She was
either born in Baltimore or Philadelphia, depending on who you
talk to, and either in 1912 or 1915, as no one knows for sure.
What everyone does agree on is the date of April 7th, and the
names of her teenage parents: Sadie Fagan and Clarence
Holiday, a guitarist who left Sadie and his new born child
almost immediately. Her parents never married, and her father
only acknowledged her after she got famous.
Whatever the truth, we do know that she and her mother moved
to New York some time in the late 20's. Young Billie, or
Eleanora as she was known then, helped her mother out by
working menial janitorial jobs, and moonlighting as a
prostitute. After a few years of singing in the Harlem bar
scene, and changing her name to "Billie", after the screen
legend Billie Drove, her break came in 1933, when record
producer John Hammond had written about her in Melody Maker
and introduced her to Benny Goodman. She recorded with the
likes of Count Basie and Artie Shaw, being one of the first
black female singers with an all white band.
According to her biography, she recorded over 200 "sides"
between 1933 and 1944, but wasn't paid any royalties. Over the
subsequent years, money would quickly come and go, partly due
to her notorious drug use. But despite her self-destructive
tendencies, she understood and respected the importance of
money. Of her few original compositions, included is Bless
This Child, which espoused the virtues of financial
independence, and for which she was posthumously inducted into
the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Growing up in abject poverty instilled a fear in Billie
Holiday that continued until her early death. Always afraid of
being without money, she reportedly had $750 dollars strapped
to her leg in the hospital bed. Unfortunately, she only had 70
cents in her bank account. A tragic ending for one of the most
powerful and influential singers of the 20th Century. Her life
story was eventually made into a movie, "The Lady Sings the
Blues", starring Diana Ross.
For more information of the life and times of Billie Holiday,
go here:
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