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
Billie Holiday

Author: John Szwed

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-03-31

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1101614706

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• Kirkus Best Books of 2015 selection for Biography • Published in celebration of Holiday’s centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer’s extraordinary musical talent When Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia’s studios in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in public taste, and new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele. Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life—her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships—or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, Billie Holiday stays close to the music, to her performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.