àPAR@ ` UTEXT ` GHoliday, Billie1915╨1959singerBorn on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Eleanora Fagan was the daughter of a professional musician who for a time played guitar with the Fletcher Henderson band. She later adopted the name Billie from a favorite movie actress, Billie Dove; Holiday was her father╒s name. She grew up in poverty in a ghetto area of Baltimore. As a child, in return for running errands for a local brothel keeper, she was allowed to linger and listen to recordings by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. In 1928 she moved with her mother to New York City, and after three years of subsisting by various means she found a job singing in a Harlem nightclub. She had had no formal musical training, but with an almost instinctive sense of musical structure and with a wealth of experience gathered at the root level of jazz and blues she developed a singing style that was deeply moving, individual, and inimitable. In 1933 Holiday made her first recordings, with Benny Goodman and others. Two years later a series of recordings with Teddy Wilson and members of Count Basie╒s band brought her wider recognition and launched her career as the leading jazz singer of her time. She toured with Basie and with Artie Shaw in 1937 and 1938 and in the latter year opened at the plush CafÄ Society in New York City. From about 1940 she performed exclusively in cabarets and in concert. Her recordings between 1936 and 1942 marked her peak years. During that period she was often associated with saxophonist Lester Young, who gave her the nickname ╥Lady Day╙ (it was she, in turn, who dubbed him ╥Pres╙). In 1947 she was arrested for a narcotics violation and spent a year in a rehabilitation center. No longer able to obtain a cabaret license to work in New York City, Holiday nonetheless packed New York╒s Carnegie Hall ten days after her release. She continued to perform in concert and in clubs outside of New York, and she made several tours during her later years. The constant struggle with heroin addiction more and more affected her voice, although not her style. Among the songs identified with her were ╥Strange Fruit,╙ ╥Fine and Mellow,╙ ╥The Man I Love,╙ ╥Billie╒s Blues,╙ ╥God Bless the Child,╙ and ╥Driving Me Crazy.╙ In 1956 she wrote an autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues (with William Dufty). She died in New York City on July 17, 1959. ■styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ " !I π !I ▐ ∩ !I ó 5¬ ú !I │ 5¬ ┤ !I ∩ !I !I link ` HYPR π ∩
