Holiday, Billie, originally Eleanora Fagan 1915-59
US jazz singer

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she was one of the most influential singers in jazz, and one of the first to really employ the subtleties of jazz phrasing in a serious manner. She had an insecure childhood and was jailed for prostitution while a teenager. Insecurity and exploitation in personal relationships became a recurring theme in her life. In the early 1930s, she was working as a singer in New York clubs, and her wistful voice and remarkable jazz interpretation of popular songs led to work with Benny Goodman and recording sessions with such leading soloists as Teddy Wilson and Lester Young, who bestowed her familiar nickname, Lady Day. Her memorable ballads include 'Easy Living' (1937), 'Yesterdays' (1939) and 'God Bless the Child' (1914). In the late 1930s she worked with the big bands of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. During the 1940s she appeared in several films (including New Orleans, with Louis Armstrong) but by the end of that decade she was falling victim to drug addiction. Although her voice deteriorated in the 1950s, she continued to make absorbing recordings until late in her career, without ever recapturing the glorious freshness and spontaneity of her pre-war music. Her self-serving autobiography, Lady Sings The Blues (1956, actually written by William Dufty), was turned into a spurious film in 1972.

Bibliography: John White, Billie Holiday: Her Life and Times (1987)