Billie Holiday

Music was in the blood of Eleanora Gough born in Baltimore, Maryland sometime in 1915. Her father was Clarence Holiday who played guitar and banjo with Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman. Her parents never married and her father left when she was just a baby. The young mother had few parenting skills and Eleanora grew up in poverty, badly neglected and spending some time in children’s homes. Jazz became part of Eleanora’s life when she worked in a Philadelphia brothel as an errand girl and listened to recordings of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.

In the late 1920’s Eleanora moved to New York and changed her name to “Billie” after popular film star Billie Dove. She began singing in Harlem clubs, where she acquired a taste for alcohol and marijuana. John Hammond heard her in 1933 and introduced her to Benny Goodman with whom she made her first recording, but Goodman didn’t offer her a contract This could have been because of her unsettled personal life.

Despite this her career was now underway and the thirties saw a stream of recordings with pianist Teddy Wilson organising musicians that performed as “Billie Holiday and her Orchestra”. Live performances were also plentiful and she appeared with various groups, including Duke Ellington and a year with Count Basie and his Orchestra. During this time she developed a strong musical rapport with saxophonist Lester Young. Sadly no recordings were made during this stint with Count Basie because of contractual problems. In 1944 Billie recorded several times with Eddie Heywood and his Orchestra, and in one session with a smaller trio/sextet arrangement. She also had one recording session with Artie Shaw.

Tragically Billie’s personal life was to be a constant battle against drug and alcohol addiction; her romantic life was also in chaos. She was to marry a total of three times, each proving disastrous. Her first two husbands introducing her in turn to opium and heroin and the third one abused her emotionally and physically. Consequently she served a year in prison in 1948 for a narcotics offence. When she returned to New York it was apparent that this experience had added to her already considerable problems. Although she continued to record and tour her addictions began to have a detrimental effect on her singing, the quality of her voice was no longer reliable.

It couldn’t be said that Billie gave up without a fight, she continued to tour extensively throughout America, she also undertook two European tours in 1954 and 1958 and appeared in the movie “New Orleans”. Eventually her addiction and the law caught up with her for the final time; she was arrested and charged with another narcotics offence as she lay dying in a New York hospital. Billie Holiday died on July 17th 1959 aged 44,but her legend lives on in her music and the film depicting her life “The Lady Sings The Blues”