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Billie Holiday (1915 - 1959)
Conflicting details exist about the early life of singer Billie Holiday, due in part to liberties she herself took in her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. Most biographers agree that she was born on 7 April, 1915 in Philadelphia as Eleanora Harris Fagan Gough. Her mother Sadie was only thirteen, the grandchild of a Virginia slave and a white plantation owner. Her father was Clarence Holiday, a fifteen year old who after a stint in the Army during World War I became a professional guitar player with Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra. Clarence never married Sadie and largely neglected Eleanora. When she was ten Eleanora was raped by a neighbor, and although her attacker was sent to prison, Eleanora was sent to a home for wayward girls, the authorities acting on the contemporary (and incorrect) assumption that victims of rape somehow "entice" their attackers. Once, after breaking one of the home's more insignificant rules, Eleanora was locked overnight in a room with an inmate who had just died. Thanks to the intercession of a family friend, Eleanora was released when she was twelve, and moved with her mother to New Jersey, and later Brooklyn. During this time, her mother began calling her "Billie," a tribute to her favorite silent screen star, Billie Dove. Growing up in Brooklyn, Billie joined her mother in hunting domestic work for white households, and began supplementing the family income by cleaning stoops for fifteen cents a job. Later she found work in Harlem at Alice Dean's, a high-priced brothel, as an errand and cleaning girl. It was here she was first exposed to the jazz music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, who became her idols. Once she learned the ladies working at the brothel were earning twenty dollars a trick, Billie decided that her days working as a maid were over. Her new career was short-lived however, as an argument with a prospective john landed her in jail. Depending on which biography is consulted, Billie Holiday's career as a singer began either at the Gray Dawn Club in Queens in 1930, or at at Pod & Jerry's speakeasy on West 133rd Street in 1933. In April of 1933 she was singing at Monette's when her distinctive voice and diction came to the attention of music critic and producer John Hammond. Hammond returned to hear another performance by Billie at the club, this time bringing Benny Goodman with him. Goodman was just as enthralled with Billie as Hammond had been, even more so. Goodman and Holiday dated for a time, to the disapproval of both their families, and it was Goodman and Hammond who persuaded a nervous Billie to make her first test recording. A second recording at Columbia Records in November of 1933 brought Billie face to face with Ethel Waters, who took an instant disliking to Billie. The two women would hold a mutual animosity towards each other from that day onward. In 1935 Billie was booked at Harlem's Apollo Theater, but had to be literally shoved on-stage because of her near paralyzing jitters. Nevertheless, she gave a rousing performance to a standing ovation. Hammond later arranged for her to begin recording 45s for the recently invented jukebox with Teddy Wilson's pickup band for the American Record Company, but had to negotiate a flat fee, no royalty contract before the company would sign Billie. The company also provided her with only cast-off pieces to record, reserving their best music for their established stars. A stint at the Famous Door proved equally disappointing, thanks to the racist attitudes of both headliner George Brunis and the club's management, which forbade Billie from mingling with guests or even sitting at the bar. The booking was terminated after only four days. Following her disastrous experiences with ARC and the Famous Door, Billie signed with Joe Glaser, a shrewd businessman who specialized in representing black artists. Under his management Billie won a spot in a musical revue at Connie's Inn, but a ptomaine infection forced her to drop out and be replaced by Bessie Smith. Following her recovery and a crash diet to bring her weight down from 200 lb., Billie went on tour with Jimmie Lunceford's band. An engagement with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at Chicago's Grand Terrace Ballroom ended after only two days when Billie reacted to club manager Ed Fox's abusive treatment by exploding in his office and throwing furniture at him. A booking at the Onyx Club with Stuff Smith and His Sextet ended when Smith voiced resentment at what he perceived as Billie's attempts to upstage him. Amid all these disappointments, Billie knew one success. Pleased with the satisfactory if not spectacular sales of her earlier recordings, ARC signed Billie to do more records, albeit again without royalties, as Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra, with Bernie Hanighen as her producer. In contrast to the lackluster pieces she had been given during her first recordings for ARC, Hanighen was able to secure pieces for Billie which were worthy of her talents. A 1937 recording session teamed Billie with Count Basie's Orchestra and reunited her with old friends Teddy Wilson and Lester "Prez" Young, a former lodger of her mother's who conferred upon her the nickname of "Lady Day." She also began a steady and largely pleasant stint at the Uptown House. Amid this upturn in her career, Billie's father, who had suffered severe lung damage from mustard gas exposure during the war, died from a respiratory infection in Texas. To help distract Billie from the trauma of this loss, and also help bolster the struggling Count Basie Orchestra's attempts to establish a following on the East Coast, John Hammond arranged for them to tour together, to great success. One year later, however, Basie fired Billie after she loudly objected to a change in song selections. But within a month, she had secured a new job singing on a New England tour with Artie Shaw. Billie's stint with Artie Shaw's band was not an easy one, with Shaw often having to make concessions to club managers who objected to Billie's singing style, so that she was often limited to singing only one or two songs a night. During her final gig with the band at New York's Lincoln Hotel, the racist owner forbad Billie from sitting at the bar and forced her to use the freight elevator to reach her room. Shaw at first objected strongly, but was forced to concede to the owner's demands in order to keep the band employed. Feeling betrayed, Billie angrily ended her association with Shaw. The two reconciled years later, but were never again as warm or close to each other. Billie's next job was at the West Village's Cafe Society, the co-venture of John Hammond, Benny Goodman, and Barney Josephson, envisioned as the first non-segregated club in New York. Described as "the wrong place for the right people," the club's name had been deliberately chosen, as the term "cafe society" was originally coined by Claire Booth Luce to describe the patrons of the Stork Club, notorious for its racist seating and service policies. (Years later, the Stork Club would be the scene of a very public display of outrage by Josephine Baker at being asked to dine in the kitchen.) It was at Cafe Society in 1938 that Billie first performed "Strange Fruit," Lewis Allen's haunting piece about lynching in the South. Disagreements over a recorded version of the song later that year led to a final severing of professional ties between Billie Holiday and John Hammond. The recording itself finally established her as a national singing star. In 1941 she first recorded her own original composition, "God Bless the Child," and entered a brief marriage with Jimmy Monroe. The year 1942 saw a short-lived career on the West Coast singing to movie star audiences in a Hollywood version of Cafe Society. By 1944 she was considered one the greatest singing stars of the time, and she was instantly recognizable with the trademark white gardenias she wore in her hair. In 1944 Billie switched to Decca, and it was here that she recorded her biggest hit, "Lover Man." Other hits she recorded over the next five years were "Don't Explain;" "Good Morning Heartache;" "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do;" and "Crazy He Calls Me." She also appeared in the movie, New Orleans (1946), in which she performed with Louis Armstrong. Typically for the time, and to Billie's disgust, she was cast as a maid. It was during this period that Billie Holiday entered her second marriage with Joe Guy, a trumpet player who convinced her to sink all her savings into a big band venture which failed. He also introduced her to heroin, an addiction which would ultimately take her life. When narcotics agents tried to arrest her after a Philadelphia performance in 1947, Billie fled by car to New York. Days later, both she and her husband were arrested outside their hotel. Billie was sentenced to a year and a day in a West Virginia Federal reformatory, and upon her release was banned from performing in any New York venues. The publicity from this incident merely increased her popularity. From 1950 onwards, her continued heroin use, heavy drinking, and the emotional trauma suffered from numerous bad relationships all took their toll on Billie's psyche, health, and voice. She still managed a successful 1952 performance at Carnegie Hall, and a 1954 European tour. Soon after returning, she was arrested for heroin possession in Philadelphia and released on condition that she leave the city and never return. Returning to New York, she entered treatment for her addiction, but also began drinking more heavily. Billie's last hit, "Fine and Mellow," was recorded in 1956. Around this same time William Dufty ghost wrote her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, containing fabrications and exaggerations which would confuse later biographers. Billie's last album, Lady in Satin, was recorded in 1958, her once beautiful voice now faint and rasping. In May of 1959, Billie Holiday was admitted to the hospital with severe liver damage and heart problems, and hooked up to a respirator. Weeks later, police raided her hospital room, and claimed to have found a small foil packet of heroin. (Reports by hospital staff indicate the packet was planted.) Billie was placed under house arrest, a twenty-four guard posted on her room, and her flowers, record player, and radio confiscated. Just over a month later, on 17 July, with $750 taped to her leg and only 70 cents in her bank account, Billie Holiday died. In the decades since her death, Billie Holiday has become a legend, not only for her beautiful and tremendous vocal talent but also for the tragic circumstances of her too short life and the frequent use and abuse to which she was subjected. (In all fairness, Billie's short temper also played a factor in her life difficulties.) Many in the music world acknowledge her profound influence and pioneering efforts. Jazz great Nina Simone has included many songs first popularized by Billie Holiday in her repertoire, and "God Bless the Child" was used by Josephine Baker in the finale for her comeback performance just days before her own death in 1975. In 1972 Diana Ross portrayed Billie Holiday in the film adaptation of Lady Sings the Blues, though like the original autobiography, the movie took its share of liberties, including complete omission of Billie Holiday's affairs with women, particularly Carmen McRae, whose song stylings Billie influenced. Billie herself though, was more than candid on the matter. When asked by a reporter if she knew Tallulah Bankhead, Billie quipped, "Know her? Had her!" Songs performed by Billie Holiday include 'Deed I Do; I Love You Porgy; A Fine Romance; A Foggy Day; Ain't Misbehavin'; Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do; All of Me; Always; Am I Blue?; Back in Your Own Backyard; Billie's Blues; Blue Moon; Body and Soul; But Not For Me; Can't Help Loving Dat Man; Cheek to Cheek; Come Rain Or Come Shine; Crazy, He Calls Me; Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans; Don't Explain; Eeny Meeny Miney Mo; Embraceable You; Everything Happens For the Best; Falling In Love Again; Farewell to Storyville; Fine and Mellow; Georgia On My Mind; Gimmie a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer); God Bless the Child; Good Morning Heartache; How Deep Is the Ocean; I Cried For You; I Get a Kick Out of You; I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good); I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues; I Hear Music; I Only Have Eyes For You; I Wished On the Moon; I'll Never Smile Again; I'm in a Low-Down Groove; It Had to Be You; Jeepers Creepers; Lady Sings the Blues; Left Alone; Let's Call the Whole Thing Off; Let's Do It; Love Me or Leave Me; Lover Man; Mean to Me; Nice Work If You Can Get It; Night and Day; Now Or Never; One For My Baby; Our Love Is Different; Pennies From Heaven; Please Don't Do It in Here; Preacher Boy; Say It With a Kiss; Stormy Blues; Stormy Weather; Strange Fruit; Tell Me More and More (And Then Some); The Mood That I'm In; Them There Eyes; What Is This Thing Called Love; You Gotta Show Me; and You Took Advantage of Me. Billie Holiday's film credits include Symphony in Black (1935); New Orleans (1946) and the musical short Sugar Chile (1951). Links: CMG Worldwide - Official Billie Holiday Website Billie Holliday during a jam session in Gjon Mili's studio, New York City, 1943. Hommage a Billie Holiday (Francais) American Masters - Billie Holiday Lesson Plan - Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" Art and Culture: Billie Holiday The Golden Age of Jazz: Billie Holiday Rolling Stone Online: Billie Holiday What's My Style: Billie Holiday America's Library: Billie Holiday DISCLAIMER: This is not an adult site, and does not contain any pornographic images or material. Any references to sex or other adult material or behavior is made from a purely academic standpoint. Images used on this site are credited whenever possible, and any whose copyright status is in dispute will be gladly removed or credited upon request. Not all persons listed on this site are or were openly homosexual, but reasonable conclusions about their sexuality may and has been made from diaries, letters, and other writings and accounts made by them and/or those who knew them. Several others are heterosexual and are included here for the impact, whether positive or negative, they have made on queer culture and history. |
