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Billie Holiday
Jazz and Blues
Scott #2856
September 17, 1994 in Greenville, MS
Designed by Howard Koslow
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Eleanora Fagan was born in Baltimore, Maryland
on April 7 1915 to Clarence Holiday and Sally Fagan. Clarence was 15 and Sally
was only 13. They married when Billie was 3.
Clarence abandoned the family and Billie's
mother left her in the care of relatives who were mostly indifferent to the
young child. Billie's early years were spent in extreme poverty. There is
evidence of early mental and physical abuse and at the age of 10 she was
raped. These traumatic early years contributed heavily to the low self-esteem
that Billie experienced throughout the remainder of her life.
At the age of eleven, Billie was working in a
brothel running errands and doing house-cleaning chores. In 1927, she moved to
New York City and started working as a prostitute. Billie began singing at
small speakeasies and clubs beginning in 1930 or 1931. Her first big
break came in 1933 when John Hammond heard her singing one evening and wrote a
column praising her styling and presentation. He also introduced her to Benny
Goodman. She began working with Benny and recorded her first song, "Your
Mother's Son-In-Law" on November 7, 1933.
Billie starred at the Apollo in 1935 and
also appeared in a film with Duke Ellington. She toured with the Count Basie
Orchestra during 1937 along with Jimmy Rushing. She was fired after only a
year because she refused to sing the blue's standards of the times. She began
singing with the Artie Shaw Band in 1938, but once again, she left within a
year, this time because of objections to her singing style by white promoters
and sponsors.
Billie began singing at the Cafe Society
in 1939 and it was here that she recorded her signature song, Strange
Fruit written by Lewis Allen. Initially Columbia Records
refused to record the song because of fears that it would alienate white
record buyers, but eventually she was allowed to record it for their
subsidiary company, Commodore Records.
Billie produced many hits for Columbia
Records including her most famous song in 1941, "God Bless
the Child." She began recording for Decca in 1944
and recorded "Taint Nobody's Business If I do," "Them
There Eyes," and "Crazy he Calls Me."
Billie married her second husband, Joe Guy in
1943. Billie was already abusing alcohol and marijuana and Joe got her hooked
on heroin. Her career began to go downhill from this point on and in 1947 she
was imprisoned on drug charges. Billie toured Europe in 1954 and appeared on
the CBS special, The Sound of Jazz, with Coleman Hawkins and
Lester Young in 1957.
Frank Sinatra paid tribute to Billie in 1958
stating that, "Billie Holiday was the greatest single musical influence
on me and the most important influence on American popular singing in the last
20 years.
Billie died on July 17, 1959 of heart and liver
disease caused by her drug and alcohol addiction. In 1972, the movie
Lady Sings the Blues was released starring Diana Ross. The movie was
based on her autobiography published by Doubleday. (Billie had wanted to call
it "Bitter Crop" after the last line in Strange
Fruit.
Strange
Fruit
Southern trees bear
strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Sources:
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia
Africana
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