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 had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”, which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall.
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to “Strange Fruit”, a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. While civil rights activists and Black America embraced “Strange Fruit,” the nightclub scene, which was primarily composed of white patrons, had mixed reactions. At witnessing Holiday’s performance, audience members would applaud until their hands hurt, while those less sympathetic would bitterly walk out the door.
One individual who was determined to silence Holiday was Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Anslinger. When Anslinger forbid Holiday to perform “Strange Fruit,” she refused, causing him to devise a plan to destroy her. He had some of his men frame her by selling her heroin. She was thrown into prison for the next year and a half.
Upon Holiday’s release in 1948, federal authorities refused to reissue her cabaret performer’s license. Her nightclub days, which she loved so much, were over. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958.
In 1959, Holiday checked herself into a New York City hospital. Suffering from heart and lung problems and cirrhosis of the liver.
Still bent on ruining the singer, Anslinger had his men go to the hospital and handcuff her to her bed. Although Holiday had been showing gradual signs of recovery, Anslinger’s men forbid doctors to offer her further treatment. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that “Billie Holiday changed jazz forever”. Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
