Born: Eleanora Fagan Gough, on 7-April-1915, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Father: Clarence Holiday (jazz guitarist and banjo player). Mother: Sadie Fagan. Died: New York at the age of 44.
Stage name: Billie Holiday, after Billie Dove, an early movie star.
Nickname: "Lady Day"
Even with no formal musical training, Billie Holiday made her professional singing debut in Harlem nightclubs in 1931. She made her commercial debut on November 27, 1933 with "Your Mother's Son-In-Law."
Her 1939 version of "Strange Fruit," a song about lynching, was described as the most haunting and sad "expression of protest against man's inhumanity to man that has ever been made in the form of vocal jazz."
"You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music." -- Billie
Holiday.
These historic recordings--made mostly in 1939--represent a crucial period for Billie Holiday, who had already achieved some success as a jazz singer recording for Columbia but had yet to really reach her peak as a performer or icon. The Commodore Master Takes, recorded for Milt Gabler's small independent label, were a step towards Holiday's eventual infamy, thanks notably to the recording of "Strange Fruit," a controversial song about lynching that Columbia Records simply refused. Recording with several small bands that seemed to understand the nuances of her voice perfectly, Holiday is in full command of her faculties here, without a trace of her later deterioration. Instead, we have a singer bearing all the bittersweet conviction of the best blues stylists. Songs like "How Am I to Know?" and "My Old Flame" simply smolder, and the band's support is understated, not overpowering. Holiday is the show here. In its own way, that sets a precedent, considering this was still the big-band era, and a jazz singer with such sparse backing was still an anomaly. Excellent liner notes by Orrin Keepnews--who explains how his own relationship with Billie Holiday was sometimes rocky--complete the picture. --Joe S. Harrington
