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Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan Gough to a 13 year old mother April 7, 1915 in Philidelphia. She later changed her name to Billie Holiday after her admiration for silent film star, Billie Dove.
The future "Lady Day" first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a Victrola at Alice Dean's, the Baltimore "house of ill repute" where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs (borrowing her professional name from screen star Billie Dove), then toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw before going solo. Benny Goodman dragged the frightened singer to her first studio session. Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded over 200 "sides," but she never received royalties for any of them.
Despite a lack of technical training, Holiday's unique diction, inimitable phrasing and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark.
"Singing songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck," she wrote in her autobiography. "I've lived songs like that." Her own compositions included "God Bless the Child," espousing the virtues of financial independence and "Don't Explain," lament on infidelity.
Billie Holiday, a musical legend still popular today, died an untimely death on July 17, 1959.
This profile was created in tribute to Billie Holiday by Make the girl Smile
If you like Billie Holiday's music, you may also consider checking out Etta James :-)
