Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 - July 17, 1959), better known as Billie Holiday, was an African American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal 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.
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, but "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies.
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Wilson and Holiday took pop tunes such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" and "Yankee Doodle Never Went to Town" and turned them into jazz classics.
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist.
Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit.
Throughout the 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Capitol and Decca. By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959.
Throughout the 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Capitol and Decca. By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959.
