Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.[1]
This article is about the singer. For her self-titled 1954 album, see Billie Holiday (album). For the 1959 album originally titled Billie Holiday, see Last Recording.
Billie Holiday
July 17, 1959 (aged 44)
Lady Day
Singer
c. 1930–1959
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of heart failure on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, she was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence; their website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever".[2] She was named one of the 50 Great Voices by NPR; and was ranked fourth on the Rolling Stone list of "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" (2023).[3] Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career[edit]
1915–1929: Childhood[edit]
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 she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist.[8] Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker.[9] DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie, then known by her maiden name Harris, may have met him through her work. Harris married Philip Gough in 1920,[10] but the marriage ended within two years.
Legacy[edit]
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song "Strange Fruit". The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.[113] In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.[114]
Frank O'Hara's poem from 1959,[115] "The Day Lady Died"`,[116] concludes with an impression of Holiday performing at the Five Spot Café at the end of her career, and the impact of that performance on her listeners.[117]
The song Angel of Harlem by Irish rock band U2, released as a single in December 1988, was written as a homage to Billie Holiday.[118]
Films and plays about Holiday[edit]
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021.[122] It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [ ... ] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer".[123] The film also depicts Holiday's bisexuality and relationship with Tallulah Bankhead.[124] Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination.[125] In 2014, she received a Tony Award win.[126] Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl,[119] who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".