Archive Obit: Billie Holiday, 44, July 17, 1959
Matthew Kruk
OBITUARY
Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence
BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan Hospital.
Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as congestion of the
lungs complicated by heart failure.
Miss Holiday had lived at 26 West Eighty-seventh Street. She had been under
arrest in her hospital bed since June 12 for illegal possession of
narcotics.
Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved
more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two
who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.
Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was
named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a
13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married
there years after she was born.
The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran
errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of
listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
Miss Holiday took her professional name from her father, Clarence Holiday, a
guitarist who played with Fletcher Henderson's band in the Nineteen Twenties
and from one of the favorite movie actresses of her childhood, Billie Dove.
She came to New York with her mother in 1928. They eked out a precarious
living for a while, partially from her mother's employment as a housemaid.
But when the depression struck, her mother was unable to find work. Miss
Holiday tried to make money scrubbing floors, and when this failed she
started along Seventh Avenue in Harlem one night looking for any kind of
work.
At Jerry Preston's Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer.
She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down.
The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly
assured him that she could. She sang "Trav'lin' All Alone" and then "Body
and Soul" and got a job--$2 a night for six nights a week working from
midnight until about 3 o'clock the next afternoon.
Recommended to Goodman
Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two
when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her
to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was
the leader on occasional recording sessions.
She made her first recording, "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" in November, 1933,
singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr.
Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.
Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led
by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz
world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members
of Count Basie's band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She
was particularly close to Mr. Basie's tenor saxophonist, the late Lester
Young.
It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz
circles--Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was
identified by jazz bands, "Pres." She was the vocalist with the Basie band
for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months
with Artie Shaw's band.
Miss Holiday came into her own as a singing star when she appeared at Cafe
Society in New York in 1938 for the major part of the year. It was at Cafe
Society that she introduced one of her best-known songs, "Strange Fruit," a
biting depiction of a lynching written by Lewis Allen.
During that engagement, too, she established trade-marks that followed her
for many years--the swatch of gardenias in her hair, her fingers snapping
lazily with the rhythm, her head cocked back at a jaunty angle as she sang.
Arrested in 1947
In 1947, a cloud that had been gathering over Miss Holiday and which was to
cover the rest of her career, burst on her. She was arrested for a narcotics
violation and, at her own request, was committed to a Federal rehabilitation
establishment at Alderson, W. Va., for a year and a day in an attempt to rid
herself of the habit.
Ten days after her release Miss Holiday gave a concert at Carnegie Hall to a
packed house but, although she appeared at concert halls in New York from
time to time after that, she was not allowed to appear in New York night
clubs. As a result of her narcotics conviction, she could not get the
necessary cabaret license.
During the Nineteen Fifties Miss Holiday's voice began to lose its useful
elasticity. This, combined with occasional brushes with narcotics agents,
made her last years difficult, although she continued to record frequently.
Miss Holiday appeared in a film, "New Orleans," in 1946 and was featured in
a Broadway revue for a short run a few years later. In 1954 she made a tour
of Europe and was featured in a widely acclaimed television program, "The
Sound of Jazz," in 1958.
She is survived by her husband, Louis McKay. A previous marriage, to Joe
Guy, a trumpet player, ended in divorce.
La N
"Matthew Kruk" <Inag...@da.vida> wrote in message
news:jzR7m.3819$eS5...@newsfe25.iad...
> July 18, 1959
> OBITUARY
> Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence
> BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
>
> Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan
> Hospital. Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as
> congestion of the lungs complicated by heart failure.
>
>
Hmmm .... MJ was an old man compared to Billie with regard to their
respective demises.
- nilita, singing "gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer"
Matthew Kruk
news:vCR7m.35458$Db2.30537@edtnps83...
> ...
> - nilita, singing "gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer"
Nice version by Nina Simone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOIXXyuQA5k
La N
> On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:46:51 GMT, "La N" <nilita20...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hmmm .... MJ was an old man compared to Billie with regard to their
>> respective demises.
>
> her or even hint that her music was OK or that she had any real
> talent.
You expressed what I was thinking .....:)
- nilita
HankVC
La N <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"Matthew Kruk" <Inag...@da.vida> wrote in message
>news:jzR7m.3819$eS5...@newsfe25.iad...
>> July 18, 1959
>> OBITUARY
>> Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence
>> BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
>>
>> Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan
>> Hospital. Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as
>> congestion of the lungs complicated by heart failure.
>>
>>
>
>Hmmm .... MJ was an old man compared to Billie with regard to their
>respective demises.
>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBI1WCxj9c&feature=related
She recorded this any number of times over the years.
But for Billie Holiday as what would have been a 'pop' singer of the
forties and fifties, I'm drawn to her version of this old Kern
chestnut.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hkakz0jmew
Hank
La N
"HankVC" <han...@julie.lostwells.net> wrote in message
news:h3qsar$q1s$1...@aioe.org...
> In article <vCR7m.35458$Db2.30537@edtnps83>,
> La N <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>"Matthew Kruk" <Inag...@da.vida> wrote in message
>>news:jzR7m.3819$eS5...@newsfe25.iad...
>>> July 18, 1959
>>> OBITUARY
>>> Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence
>>> BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
>>>
>>> Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan
>>> Hospital. Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as
>>> congestion of the lungs complicated by heart failure.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Hmmm .... MJ was an old man compared to Billie with regard to their
>>respective demises.
>>
> This one is self-explanatory.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBI1WCxj9c&feature=related
Here she is singing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
< chills >
- nilita
Brad Ferguson
Fuego <t_del...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:10:32 GMT, "La N" <nilita20...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Here she is singing it:
> >
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
>
> I wish the poster had a source credited...I'd be astonished if it
> turned out to be from American TV.
Your low expectations have been fulfilled. It's from the UK program
"Chelsea at Nine" and dates from 18 March 1959, which was at the end of
Ms. Holiday's second European tour. Some sources say this was her
final TV appearance.
HankVC
La N <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"HankVC" <han...@julie.lostwells.net> wrote in message
>news:h3qsar$q1s$1...@aioe.org...
>> In article <vCR7m.35458$Db2.30537@edtnps83>,
>> La N <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>"Matthew Kruk" <Inag...@da.vida> wrote in message
>>>news:jzR7m.3819$eS5...@newsfe25.iad...
>>>> July 18, 1959
>>>> OBITUARY
>>>> Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence
>>>> BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
>>>>
>>>> Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan
>>>> Hospital. Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as
>>>> congestion of the lungs complicated by heart failure.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>Hmmm .... MJ was an old man compared to Billie with regard to their
>>>respective demises.
>>>
>> This one is self-explanatory.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBI1WCxj9c&feature=related
>
>Here she is singing it:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
>
>
>< chills >
>
Reason: that video was shot at the very end of her life, when she had
lost both her looks and her voice---and all of her ambiance.
Figured anyone going to my posted link would find several other
versions, including that end-of-life video, but felt that folks should
know more of Billie Holiday than the bitter end.
Hank