Billie Holiday

 

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Eleanora Fagan was born in 1915, her mother, Sadie Fagan of Irish descent, was 13 years old and her father, Clarence Holiday, was 15 years old. In Lady Sings the Blues2, Billie Holiday, rewriting her story, adds a few years to her father, even more to her mother, and makes her a married couple. This is one of the many distortions of reality that Billie herself maintained and whose autobiography prolonged the effects. The reality is a little less idyllic. Clarence and Sadie never got married. Clarence Holiday does not recognize the child, he is a jazz guitarist, and spends his life in clubs at night, on the roads during the day. Sadie, a housekeeper and cook who occasionally trades, does not care for her daughter, who is flummoxed between aunts and cousins, and is placed in black youth recovery homes where she knows about rape and violence.

Her mother brought her to New York in 1928. Billie began to house in Harlem where she occasionally sang, but ended up as a prostitute mother. She is arrested, spending a few months at Welfare Island prison4. When she comes out of prison, she goes into the snacks with her mother. She gained notoriety as a jazz singer in several clubs and speakeasies. She is auditioned at the Log Cabin in Harlem, where she is hired as a paid singer5. She then takes the name of Billie Holiday, in reference to actress Billie Dove, her idol white silent film6.
First successes

A little thanks to her father, but especially thanks to her talent, Billie Holiday meets many musicians, including Bobby Henderson with whom she plays in several Harlem clubs, and she soon becomes the companion. She’s happy with the tips, which accumulate when she sings Trav’lin ‘All Alone or Them There Eyes.

In 1933, John H. Hammond, producer for Columbia, discovers Billie Holiday in a club where she sings by chance, during a replacement. Immediately convinced of his talent, he opened the Columbia studios for a session with another young musician under contract with the firm, clarinetist Benny Goodman: that day, she recorded Your Mother’s Son-in-Law and Riffin ‘the Scotch, and earns thirty-five dollars. The following year, she sang with Bobby Henderson at the Apollo Theater, the fashionable venue where young talent was applauded. Their affair ceases soon after, Bobby is already married. Billie meets other promising musicians: among them Lester Young, hired by Fletcher Henderson. The singer and the saxophonist immediately become friends. Lester nicknamed her Lady Day, Billie Holiday nicknamed him President, or more briefly Prez. She and he frequent the clubs after their respective commitments, from evening to morning.
At the top

Billie Holiday also sings with Duke Ellington who chooses her for her short film Symphony in Black, in which she plays Saddest Tale. At the same time, she began an affair with the young saxophonist Ben Webster. On July 2, 1935, John H. Hammond scheduled a recording for Brunswick, with Billie, Ben Webster, Benny Goodman, pianist Teddy Wilson, trumpeter John Truehart, bassist John Kirby and drummer Cozy Cole. What a Little Moonlight Can Do and Miss Brown to You come out, engraved to perfection, and appear in the best sales of the year. All is well for Billie Holiday, who goes on romantic adventures and installs his mother at the head of a small restaurant where often they meet after the night for breakfast.

She becomes one of the stars of New York jazz, through many engagements she regularly shares with Teddy Wilson. Billie Holiday’s style is intimist and does not fit well with the larger shows, reserved for Bessie Smith and her imitators. Regardless: his records with Lester Young are selling well and Billie is soon singing with Count Basie’s big band, then with Artie Shaw’s band. A black singer in a white orchestra! The tour with the latter is cut short, because of the racism of the southern states, where she can not sing, or even book a hotel room or enter a restaurant with the musicians of the orchestra.
Alabama, 1889. Southern trees bear a “strange fruit.”
Strange Fruit
Main articles: Strange Fruit and Gloomy Sunday.

Back in New York, Billie Holiday continues to sing in clubs thanks to the commitments John H. Hammond has made, especially at the Café Society. It is at this time that we see her drinking more and more, and smoking marijuana. It is at this time also that she connects feminine liaisons and nicknamed “Mister Holiday”.

Information source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

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Page Name: Billie Holiday
Authors: Wikipédia en français
Publisher: Wikipedia
Link to the quoted version: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

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License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.fr.

Information source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

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