System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Billie Holiday
April 07, 1915 - July 17, 1959
Billie Holiday remains, years after her death, the most famous of all jazz singers. She was born Eleanora Fagan, on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia. Her mother, Sadie Fagan, was thirteen when Billie was born. Her father, Clarence Holiday, who played guitar with Fletcher Henderson, was fifteen. The two were married three years later, and lived together for a while. But World War I took Clarence overseas and after that his musical ambitions took him on the road. Her father did give Billie her nickname though; he had called her Bill, because she was a tomboy. She stretched that to Billie after Billie Dove, her favourite movie star.
"Lady Day" (as she was named by Lester Young) had first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a Victrola at Alice Dean's, the Baltimore "house of ill repute" where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs.
She was discovered by John Hammond singing in Harlem clubs. He arranged for her to record a couple of titles with Benny Goodman in 1933 and although those were not all that successful, it was the start of her career. Two years later she was teamed with a pickup band led by Teddy Wilson and the combination clicked. During 1935-42 she would make some of the finest recordings of her career, jazz-oriented performances in which she was joined by the who's who of swing. Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded over 200 "sides, " but she never received royalties for any of them.
Holiday sought to combine together Louis Armstrong's swing and Bessie Smith's sound; the result was her own fresh approach. Despite a lack of technical training, Holiday's unique diction, inimitable phrasing and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark. Her own compositions included "God Bless the Child, " espousing the virtues of financial independence and "Don't Explain, " lament on infidelity.
