Billie Holiday

I've always loved Billie Holiday (1915-1959), even before David Sedaris wrote about singing like her. Before reading about how the FBI sent someone to get her, and he fell in love with her, chained to a hospital bed. Before learned Billie Eilish was named after her. Before I knew she was named after Billie Dove. Before I heard Strange Fruit, her greatest song, lyrics by Abel Meeropol.

Early life bio:

She was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Baltimore. "Eleanora Fagan[4][5] was born on April 7, 1915,[6] in Philadelphia to African American unwed teenage couple Clarence Halliday and Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan (née Harris). Her mother moved to Philadelphia at age 19,[7] after being evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, Sarah made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Holiday to stay with her in Baltimore." (Wikipedia). 

Shortly after Holiday was born, her father abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Her father was exposed to mustard gas during WW1. He died of pnumonia because they couldn't find a hospital that would take blacks.

She was left with a relative Martha Miller, while her mother worked, and was put in foster care when she skipped school. In foster care she was put in a room with a dead girl as punishment. She came home once to an attempted rape, and was put in protective custody as a witness, which was just a group home. It seems she was arrested for prostitution at age 14, but she said she was 21. Her mother moved to Harlem and she followed eventually. She began singing there. She was known for swearing a lot.

She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her father.

Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies.

Traveling in the south, there were often segregated areas, where you couldn't eat, or go to the bathroom or find a hotel. (Billie Holiday Documentary). Artie Shaw's band highlighted her race. She quit the band when she was told to ride in a freight elevator. She opened up Cafe Society, the only integrated club. 

Videos:

In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (YouTube). She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.

Lester Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". 

She was threatened by Harry Anslinger, the Head Of the FBI, to stop singing about lynching. She did it anyway and continued to do it no matter what the monster tried to do to ruin her life. Recorded the year she died of heart failure, on YouTube (It's a kind of annoying advertisement for footage use.).

Now or never YouTube.

Fine And Mellow Billie Holiday With Coleman Hawkins Lester Young Ben Webster Gerry Mulligan Vic Dickenson Roy Eldridge YouTube.

56 minute BBC Documentary YouTube (1994-2002) Billie Holiday Documentary. Supposedly "Don't Explain" was about her first marriage, that lasted 6 years, to Jimmy Monroe, the fellow who introduced her to smoking heroin. She had an affair with Orson Welles, and with women, including Louise Crane around 1941 and Tallulah Bankhead. Stanley Crouch says a fellow who worked at a hotel looked in through a peephole and saw them scissoring. Her second husband was a dealer too, and she began to show up later and later for gigs. She was also late because she wouldn't perform without it, and dealers came late. She cut up a musician's shirt with a razor blade for taking half the delivery once. She was in a movie called New Orleans (1947) (Tubi). She sang with her hero Louis Armstrong. She did 2 weeks in a hospital but a nurse got her drugs through Jose Glazer. She got a year of prison. She did 9 months. She lost her cabaret card, so she did a concert at Carnegie Hall. She beat up people who said racist things to her. She got out of jail, spent time where she could drink. She liked tough guys who could deal with. 1954 she went to Europe. She stole jewelry in Paris according to one woman they interviewed. She wrote a biography, and used "bitch" too much. So she said change it to "whore". Tallulah Bankhead was worried she would be exposed and denied that she'd ever met Holiday. The lawyers combed through and took out anything that could be potentially libelous. She was arrested for the 3rd time. She married Louis McKay so he couldn't testify towards him. She had a distaste for mustard, because she had a mustard abortion. There's footage of the concert in the previous YouTube reference. The descent into deeper and deeper drug addiction is a quite sad story. Lester Young wasn't doing so great in that video, it's a fairly mellow solo. She missed recording sessions and then when she showed up she couldn't remember the lyrics. Stanley Crouch thinks Lady In Satin is good, that her voice doesn't decline as she's sinking into it. Maya Angelou was a singer. They wouldn't let her sing at Lester Young's funeral, she was yelling. Like her father, she was refused a hospital when she was sick at the end. She had cirrhosis of the liver. She was afraid of dying poor and got $700 for an article. She gave the fourteen 50s to Bill when she was dying. The little kid who she took care of a little bit, put things in a box as a rememberance of mourning.