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Billie Holiday Biography

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Billie Holiday was one of the greatest jazz singers of the 1930s and 40s. She had a unique sound and style of singing that delivered intense emotion and conviction with every note.
 
Born to teenage parents and shuttled between relatives as a child in a poor section of Baltimore, she had little guidance and took to the streets at a young age. She experienced a lifetime's worth of hardships by the age of 17, including working as a prostitute and being jailed at a correctional facility – before finally finding her calling as a singer. She quickly worked her way up from small nightclubs in New York City to big band tours, collaborating with other jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong.

Billie Holiday became a pioneer of race relations when she toured with Artie Shaw and his orchestra, becoming one of the first African-Americans to sing with a white band.
During this time, she would often perform "Strange Fruit", a song about the lynchings of African Americans, which became one of her signature songs.
 
For all of Billie's musical accomplishments, she was plagued with troubles as her romantic relationships with unscrupulous and abusive men dragged her career down and she sunk into drug addiction. Numerous arrests on drug charges and jail time served in 1947 caused her to lose her cabaret license, barring her from singing in venues serving alcohol for the rest of her career. Despite all of these difficulties, she always presented herself on stage with the eloquence and grace well deserving of her moniker "Lady".

Billie Holiday died at the age of 44 in 1959 and is remembered as a legendary singer of jazz and swing music.

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AWARDS & HONORS

  • Awarded the Esquire Magazine Silver Award for Best Leading Vocalist (1945 & 1946)
  • Awarded the Esquire Magazine Gold Award for Best Leading Vocalist in (1947)
  • Inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame (1979).
  • Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for the recordings "God Bless The Child" (1976), "Strange Fruit" (1978), "Lover Man" (1989), "Lady In Satin" (2000), and "Embraceable You" (2005)
  • Awarded the Grammy award for Best Historical Album: Billie Holiday - Giants of Jazz (1980), Billie Holiday - The Complete Decca Recordings (1992), The Complete Billie Holiday (1994), and Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday (2002)
  • The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in honor of Billie Holiday on September 18, 1994
  • Inducted into the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame (1997)
  • Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000)
  • Inducted into the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame in (2004)
  • Honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
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INTERESTING FACTS

  • Billie Holiday's real name is Elinore. She later began calling herself Billie after an actress she admired, Billie Dove. She picked up the nickname "Lady" when she began performing at jazz clubs and close friend, saxophonist Lester Young, dubbed her "Lady Day".
  • Billie Holiday is buried in the St. Raymond's cemetery in the Bronx.
  • A street in The Hague neighborhood in The Netherlands is named after Billie Holiday.
  • Diana Ross portrayed Billie Holiday in the 1972 film "Lady Sings The Blues" and also served as the presenter when Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  • Rock group U2's 1988 single "Angel of Harlem" is a dedication to Billie Holiday.
  • The song "Strange Fruit" is based upon a poem about lynching written by Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meerpol under the pen name Lewis Allen. The manager at Café Society introduced the song to Billie who delivered her own heart-felt rendition of the song, making it part of her repertoire.
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NOTABLE SONGS

  • "Billie's Blues" (1936)
  • "My Man" (1937)
  • "I Must Have That Man" (1937)
  • "Strange Fruit" (1939)
  • "Them There Eyes" (1939)
  • "God Bless The Child" (1941) (songwriting credits)
  • "Am I Blue?" (1941)
  • "Lover Man" (Oh Where Can You Be?) (1945)
  • "Good Morning Heartache" (1946)
  • "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" (1949)
  • "Lady Sings The Blues" (1956)
  • "Fine and Mellow"
  • "Porgy"
  • "Don't Explain" (songwriting credits)
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SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES

  • "Billie's Blues: The Billie Holiday Story 1933 – 1959 " by John Chilton (1989)
  • "Wishing On The Moon: The Life And Times Of Billie Holiday" by Donald Clarke (1994)
  • "With Billie" by Julia Blackburn (2005)
  • "Lady Sings The Blues" by Billie Holiday with William Dufty (2006)
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Billie Holiday Timeline

  • 1915
      • Born Elinore Harris on April 7, at Philadelphia General Hospital, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Sarah Harris (later named Sadie Fagan). While her birth certificate names Frank DeViese as her father, she considered Clarence Holiday to be her father.
      Her parents live together for a short time in Baltimore while she is a toddler, but her father is soon drafted into the service, her mother travels to Philadelphia and New York to seek work as a maid, and she is sent to live with her Aunt and grandparents.
  • 1925
      • Moves with her mother to a house in Northern Baltimore where they rent out rooms to boarders. Her father has since left them, having taken to the road as a musician upon his return from the service.
      At about the age of 10 or 11 years old, she is raped and then sent to The House of the Good Shepherd for Colored Girls, a jail-like Catholic reformatory institution, for 2 years.
  • 1927
      • After finishing up the fifth grade in Baltimore, she joins her mother in New York and takes a job as a maid. She is soon living in Harlem and working as a prostitute at a whorehouse.
  • 1930
      • Arrested on prostitution charges and sent to a correctional institution on New York's Welfare Island (currently known as Roosevelt Island) for almost four months. After her release she takes odd jobs waiting on tables and singing at small nightclubs before rejoining her mother in Harlem.
  • 1931
      • Desperate for money, she applies for a job as a dancer at the Harlem jazz club Pod's and Jerry's and performs miserably but is impressive as a singer. During her stint at the club, she refuses to pick up tips using her body and is teased by the other women and nicknamed "Duchess" and "Lady". Around this time she changes her name to Billie Holiday, after her favorite actress Billie Dove and her father Clarence Holiday, a guitarist with the Fletcher Henderson band.
  • 1933
      • At just 18 years old, she meets John Hammond when he attends one of her performances. He introduces her to prominent people in the industry - manager Joe Glaser, whom she signs with, and jazz musician and bandleader Benny Goodman, with whom she records "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch" in November. She also records a demo at Columbia Records.
  • 1934
      • Debuts at the Apollo Theater with pianist Bobby Henderson on November 23rd. The two are romantically involved and reportedly briefly engaged, but the relationship ends as Billie's star begins to rise.
  • 1935
      • Records with pianist Teddy Wilson and his orchestra and appears in the small film "Symphony in Black" alongside Duke Ellington. She returns to the studio later in the year to record various low-tier catalog songs.
  • 1937
      • Records and tours with Count Basie and his orchestra and reconnects with saxophonist Lester Young, who becomes a good friend and accompanist. Young dubs her "Lady Day" and in return she nicknames him "Prez".
      The following year she tours with Artie Shaw and his orchestra, becoming one of the first black females to sing with a white group.
  • 1939
      • Begins performing at the new integrated jazz club Cafe' Society in Greenwich Village, New York where she introduces the song "Strangefruit". She records the song even though it proves to be controversial because it deals with the lynching of black people
  • 1941
      • Pens the song "God Bless the Child" inspired by her mother's refusal to lend her money. She records the song with trumpeter Roy Eldridge in May and weds trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25th in Elkton Maryland. Around this time Billie begins using hard drugs.
  • 1945
      • Her single "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?)" rises to #5 on the Billboard R&B charts.
  • 1946
      • Appears in the Hollywood film "New Orleans" alongside jazz great Louis Armstrong. Addicted to heroin, Billie checks herself into a drug treatment program - she doesn't stay clean for long, and will battle drug addiction almost until her death.
  • 1947
      • After separating from Jimmy Monroe she takes up with another musician, Joe Guy. Although she reports that she is divorced from Monroe, they don't make it legal until years later. In the spring she is arrested on possession of heroin and serves almost a year at the Federal Reformatory for Women in West Virginia.
  • 1948
      • Performs to a packed house at Carnegie Hall on March 27th, just 10 days after her release from the correctional facility, and sings about 30 songs.
      Billie's cabaret license was revoked due to her incarceration, which meant she couldn't perform in venues serving alcohol. The only club that would allow her to perform was The Ebony Club, run by John Levy. She and Levy are romantically involved until she is framed on drug charges in connection with Levy (who was believed to be a police informant) the following year.
  • 1952
      • Marries her manager and reputed gangster Louis McKay, and he accompanies her when she tours throughout Europe two years later.
  • 1956
      • Tailed by the police, she is arrested again for drug possession.
      Her autobiography "Lady Sings The Blues" is published, but proves controversial in later years because of its inaccuracies and the debate about the extent of Billie's involvement.
      The next year she appears on the television show "The Sound of Jazz" with Lester Young and performs "Fine and Mellow".
      Performs again at Carnegie Hall on November 10th.
  • 1959
      • Billie Holiday is taken to the New York Metropolitan Hospital on May 31st with heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver. She is placed under arrest at the hospital on drug charges and dies there on July 7th.
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