Billie Holiday Album Guide and Biography

Classic Rock and Roots

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 significant contributions to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Holiday was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills   #billieholiday #jazz #jazzmusic #swingmusic #jazzsingers #jazzvocalists

Transcript

00:00Billie Holiday's life is the stuff of jazz legend. She rose from poverty and

00:06abuse to become one of the biggest stars of jazz during the 1930s and 40s.

00:13Holiday was a great singer who did not possess a great voice. She employed her

00:19voice like a horn player would his horn and had a reputation for taking mediocre

00:25songs and transforming them into greatness. Her singing style was

00:31influenced by Bessie Smith's singing and Louis Armstrong's trumpet playing.

00:37Fellow jazz musicians referred to her as simply Lady Day. Holiday was born in

00:46Baltimore, Maryland in 1915. In 1933 she was discovered by the legendary

00:54John Hammond, talent scout extraordinaire. Hammond signed her to Columbia Records and

01:03she recorded for some of the company's subsidiary labels. Despite being offered

01:09only mediocre material to record, she was supported by some of the finest musicians

01:15in jazz, including pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Lester Young, who would

01:23coin her Lady Day and become her closest friend and musical collaborator. In 1937, Holiday toured

01:33with the Count Basie Orchestra and later joined Hardy Shaw's Orchestra. She stayed with Columbia

01:40Records until 1942, only leaving once for the Commodore label, with which she recorded the classic and

01:49searing song about lynching strange fruit. In 1942 she signed with Decca Records and later ended up recording for

02:00Verve. One of her last sessions with Columbia produced the classic side, God Bless the Child. In the late 1940s,

02:10Billie Holiday was convicted of heroin possession and spent several months in prison. Due to the

02:17conviction, she was unable to obtain a cabaret card, making it impossible for her to find work in New York City

02:26clubs. Suffering from both liver and heart disease, Billie Holiday died in a New York hospital in 1959.

02:37Holiday's best recordings can be found on the following collections.

02:42Lady Sings the Blues from 1956 Songs for Lovers from 1958

02:50Lady in Satin also from 1958 The Billie Holiday Story from 1959

02:57The Golden Years from 1962

03:00The Golden Years from 1962

03:01Billy Holiday's greatest hits from 1967

03:06Lady Day, the complete Billy Holiday on Columbia

03:111933 to 1944 from 2001

03:16Lady Day, the best of Billy Holiday from 2001

03:21The Ultimate Collection from 2005

03:26Lady Day, the master takes and singles from 2007

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended