Billy Holiday

(1915 Philadelphia -1959 New York) The foremost female singer in jazz history, also known as Lady Day.

Born Eleanora Fagan. She took the name of Billie from an actress she admired and Holiday was her estranged father's last name.

Raised in Baltimore, and according to Billie, her father, a Jazz guitarist, abandoned the family and refused to acknowledge his daughter until after her first success. Her mother moved to New York, leaving her with relatives who mistreated her. She did menial work, had little schooling, spent time in juvenile reformatories and in 1928 went to New York to join her mother. There she was recruited for a brothel and eventually wound up in jail on prostitution charges.

In the early thirties she began singing at a small club in Brooklyn, then moved to larger ones in Harlem known to jazz enthusiasts. In 1933 she was discovered by the producer and talent scout, John Hammond, who arranged recording sessions with Benny Goodman and found her engagements in the more upscale Manhattan clubs.

1936 she began working with Lester Young, who is credited with giving her the nickname, Lady Day. In 1937, Holiday joined Count Basie's band, then the following year moved to Artie Shaw's, the first black singer to be featured with a white group. The very next year, she began appearing regulary at the Village interracial nightclub, Cafe Society, popular with the intellectual crowd.

By the end of the forties, Holiday had become a popular star for both her slow, melancholy songs of unrequited love, but also her gutty representation for the struggle of black Americans.

As her career was taking off, her use of hard drugs became more and more a part of her life. In 1947, after a highly publicized trial she was jailed on drug charges. The result of this conviction led to the forfeiture of her New York caberet license, which kept her from working in city clubs for the remainder of her life. In tandem with her drug problems was her habit of taking up with abusive men. She also began drinking heavily. She lost most of her money, which was considerable from both performances and recordings. Consequently, her health suffered and her voice coarsened. Yet, she continued to record and perform successfully until her death.

Holiday toured Europe in the fifties and appeared on a BBC television show. She made her final studio recording in 1959 for Verve, and a final peformance in a benefit concert in the Village on May 25, 1959. According to jazz critic, Leonard Feather and musician and comedian Steve Allen, co-hosts for the show, Holiday was only able to make it through two songs. Six days later she was taken to the hospital suffering from from liver and heart failure. While still in the hospital, she was placed under house arrest for drug possession, despite evidence suggesting the drugs may have been planted. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from complications of cirrhosis on July 17th. She was 44. Her net worth at the time of her death was slightly more than $750.

She is now considered one of the most important vocalists of the 20th century, having influenced many not only for her enormous body of work but also for her fight against racism and sexism.

Here is a wonderful piece from You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tNSp7MaADM