Don't Explain
Don't Explain

Author: Alexis De Veaux

Publisher: Writers & Readers Publishing

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780863161322

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Presents a prose poem recounting the life of the American jazz singer affectionately known as Lady Day.

Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday

Author: Earle Rice

Publisher: Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2012-09-30

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 1612283438

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Eleanora Fagan rocketed to fame like a shooting star during the two decades spanning 1937 and 1957. She soared to stardom on the wings of a unique voice and songs sung sad. As Billie Holiday, she overcame personal crises and racial bigotry to become what many consider to be America’s premier jazz vocalist of the twentieth century. Then, like a flamed–out meteor, she crashed and burned in the throes of alcohol and drug addiction. Lady Day, as Billie was known to her friends and admirers, joined a handful of jazz musicians who can truly be called legendary. Her voice was one of a kind; her lyrical interpretations, intimate—and often sensually expressive or disturbingly bitter. She profoundly influenced her fellow musicians, not only in jazz, but in every other musical genre. Billie’s life and legacy are emblematic of both triumph and tragedy: She overcame more than her share of adversities, but she could not conquer her urge to self-destruct.

Billie Holiday: The Last Interview
Billie Holiday: The Last Interview

Author: Billie Holiday

Publisher: Melville House

Published: 2019-07-30

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1612196748

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The first-ever collection of interviews with the tortured but groundbreaking singer Billie Holiday, part of Melville House’s beloved Last Interview series Legendary singer Billie Holiday comes alive in this first-ever collection of interviews from throughout her career. Included is her last interview, given from her deathbed in a New York City hospital, where police were standing by ready to arrest her for a parole violation should she recover. Also included: The transcript of an interrogation by a US Customs official questioning about whether she'd violated her parole by using drugs on a foreign tour. But the book is more than a look at just the famously tragic side of her life. In other conversations, drawn from music magazines, late-night radio programs, and newspapers across the US and Canada, she discusses her childhood, musicians who influenced her, her friendship -- and falling out -- with the influential sax player Lester Young, why she chose the gardenia as her symbol, why she quit Count Basie's band, her substance abuse problems, writing songs and whether she wrote her own memoir, and more. In frank and open conversations, Billie Holiday proves herself far more articulate, aware, intelligent, and even heroic than the way she's often portrayed. This collection is an essential volume for all who have been moved by her music.

Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday

Author: John Szwed

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: 2016-03

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0143107968

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"Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade ... jazz writer John Szwed considers how [Holiday's] life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy"--Amazon.com.

Lady Sings the Blues
Lady Sings the Blues

Author: Billie Holiday

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2006-07-25

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0767923863

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Perfect for fans of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, this is the fiercely honest, no-holds-barred memoir of the legendary jazz, swing, and standards singing sensation—a fiftieth-anniversary edition updated with stunning new photos, a revised discography, and an insightful foreword by music writer David Ritz Taking the reader on a fast-moving journey from Billie Holiday’s rough-and-tumble Baltimore childhood (where she ran errands at a whorehouse in exchange for the chance to listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith albums), to her emergence on Harlem’s club scene, to sold-out performances with the Count Basie Orchestra and with Artie Shaw and his band, this revelatory memoir is notable for its trenchant observations on the racism that darkened Billie’s life and the heroin addiction that ended it too soon. We are with her during the mesmerizing debut of “Strange Fruit”; with her as she rubs shoulders with the biggest movie stars and musicians of the day (Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Clark Gable, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and more); and with her through the scrapes with Jim Crow, spats with Sarah Vaughan, ignominious jailings, and tragic decline. All of this is told in Holiday’s tart, streetwise style and hip patois that makes it read as if it were written yesterday.