Billie Holiday Biography Paper

"Writing from the Earth"

Professor: Susan Reese

Fall term 2013

PSU

                                                         The Iconic photo of Lady Day...

                                                       The Blue Lady; Billy Holiday...Lady Day

                                                                By Don DuPay

                                           Written May 20th, 2013, published online June 11th, 2013

    The Early Years: Billie Holiday was born April 7, 1915 Eleanora Fagan, in Philadelphia, (no actual birth certificate) and died in New York City July 17, 1959 in Metropolitan hospital under arrest and under guard for Narcotics Possession, at age 44. (Griffin, 2001). 

    I first became interested in Billy Holiday while watching her sing beautiful and soulful blues songs on U-Tube, a few months ago. Watching her sing I said to myself “that woman is loaded.” As a former cop, I know what 'loaded' looks like. 

    Her early childhood seemed destined to flush her directly into a whirlpool of destruction, inevitable when born into the poverty and uncertainty of teenage parents, early in the new century. Her teen mother Sadie Fagan was made pregnant by her teen father, Clarence Holiday. Clarence, who played guitar and banjo played in Fletcher Henderson's band in later years. The two teenagers never married and Clarence Holiday abandoned them while Eleanora was still a baby. Like teenage mothers of today, Sadie Fagan made poor choices when seeking help with her baby, often leaving her with uncaring and abusive relatives. (Griffin, 2001).

    Young Eleanora was allegedly raped at age 10 by a “shirt tail” Uncle, the ultimate result of no parental supervision or interest. Reputed to be a “wild child,” largely unsupervised and reportedly smoking marijuana, which was not illegal in 1925, she was sentenced to Catholic reform school probably an equally unsavory environment, to stay until she became an adult. Reform school must have presented an impossibly bleak and hopeless future to this child, stuck in custody for 11 more years until she turned age 21. (Burgin, 2012).

    “Holiday was sentenced to Catholic reform school at the age of ten, reportedly after she admitted being raped. Though sentenced to stay until she became an adult, a family friend helped get her released after just two years.” (Burgin, 2012).

    After residing in reform school for two years, she was rescued by a friend of her mothers. The catholic influence seemed to have no beneficial effect on her conduct in later years. Released now from the custody of strict and overbearing nuns, she was reunited with her still unstable mother. (Burgin, 2012).

    The year was 1927, and mother and daughter moved briefly to New Jersey, finally settling in Brooklyn NY. Her mother worked as a 'domestic' during the day and moonlighted as a prostitute for extra income at night. Eleanora although still only 12, worked with her mother as a domestic, (there were no real laws against child labor) and following in her mother's footsteps she also worked as a now teen prostitute, probably encouraged by her mother. (Griffin, 2001).

    For the next six years Eleanora worked as a house maid and hooker, making money where and when she could, but all the time striving to break away, to get out of the drudge routine and make something of herself. She had only her good looks and a yet undiscovered native talent for singing if not for dancing. (Griffin, 2001).

    The entertainer emerges: In an era where speakeasies flourished, it was easy for a young and pretty black girl to gain entry to the attractive yet seamy environment and the now “Billie Holiday” at age 16, 17 and 18 was singing and entering dance contests at many clubs around New York like many of her generation. Her break came in 1933 at age 18 when she entered a dance contest at a club. She did poorly and her accompanist, possibly in exasperation, asked Billie if she could sing? (Burgin, 2012). 

                       Billie Holiday in her late 20's...

    She was in the right place at the right time as the saying goes, because Billie was noticed by a 21-year-old record producer named John Hammond. He liked what he saw and heard and wrote about her in Melody Maker magazine, an entertainment magazine founded in 1926 and still published today. Hammond arranged for legendary band leader Benny Goodman to watch her perform. The astute Goodman also liked what he saw and heard and insisted Billie cut a demonstration record for Columbia. (Burgin, 2012).

    Liking the demo recording, Goodman insisted Billie join a small group he was leading at the time which lead to her commercial debut with him in November 1933 singing a song called “Your Mother's Son-in-Law.” The next year, 1934, Billie continued to play the New York City clubs and became quite well known. In 1935, she paired with Duke Ellington in a short film referred to as a one- reeler, and opened with him at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. With such well known artists as Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington on her resume, Billie Holiday returned to the recording studio and recorded four songs. (Burgin, 2012). 

    In the era of the big band, or swing era, good song material was hard to come by for black artists. Music publishers of the time kept the best music for popular white singers and high society orchestras. Failing writing her own songs which Billie later was able to do, black artists and black bands had to cull the best music they could find from Tin Pan alley. (Griffin, 2001).

    With a group of musicians-for-hire under the direction of her pianist Teddy Wilson, Holiday returned to the studio and recorded a series of never heard before obscure songs. She kept pushing her career ahead and during this time period she associated herself with trumpet player, Roy Eldridge, alto sax player Johnnie Hodges, and tenor players Chu Berry, and Benny Webster. The group played “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” along with “If You Were Mine,” and “Twenty four Hours a Day.” (Griffin, 2001).

    The combo sounded great and Holiday's voice was getting better, more assured. The group was now recording for Columbia records under their Brunswick and Vocalion labels. Holiday was becoming well known and was making her living singing. She had escaped the menial drudge of domestic work and had created a name for herself. (Burgin, 2012).

    In 1936 Billie toured with the now well known bands of Jimmy Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson and when she was not touring she returned to New York and the recording studio.

    In 1937 her old friend John Hammond had her in the recording studio with another of his discoveries, Count Basie and his orchestra. Two of Basie's band members, tenor sax player Lester Young who had known Holiday from earlier years and trumpet player Buck Clayton became especially close friends. These three musicians were in the recording studio frequently and it was during this time she was dubbed “Lady Day,” because of her lady-like elegance and her last name. In her mind she probably sought elegance to further her from her checkered past, of day labor and evenings of prostitution and the humiliation of poverty. (Burgin, 2012).

    In 1937 Count Basie was becoming more popular and Basie felt that he needed a female singer to complement Jimmy Rushing, his male singer while on an extensive tour. Her association with Count Basie lasted less than a year. Holiday left because she was deemed temperamental for refusing to sing the songs the big-wigs of the music industry thought she ought to be singing. (Burgin, 2012).

    In 1938, Artie Shaw's band was also becoming popular at the time and Holiday joined with his group, one of the first black singers to join an all white band. Ultimately, promoters began to object to her gutsy singing style and the fact that she was black and Artie Shaw's band was white. The band members loved her but the promoters and radio station sponsors didn't. Billie was on the way to becoming too edgy for some white audiences. (Griffin, 2001).

    During one performance, while in the South, she was told to wear darker make-up, because the club owner said she was “too light” and he wanted her to look more “black.” She walked out and refused to perform. Leaving Artie Shaw's band freed Holiday to take an engagement at the newly popular night club called the “Cafe Society.” Oddly enough the clientèle was mixed black and white folks. There at “Cafe Society,” musician Lewis Allen wrote “Strange Fruit,” a not so subtle song about racism and oppression in the South. The strange fruit being lynched Negroes hanging from trees with bulged eyes and twisted mouths. (Burgin, 2012). 

 Holiday delivered the song with such gut wrenching emotion that white folks both hated and loved it. Whether “Strange Fruit” or “God Bless The Child,” became her “signature” song is still argued today. Her old friend John Hammond refused to record “Strange Fruit” because of the vivid imagery it evoked. Ultimately though “Strange Fruit” was recorded but quickly banned by many radio stations as too offensive to sponsors. The recording wound up on many jukeboxes and became a hit in spite of the radio ban or maybe because of it. In 1941 Holiday wrote “God Bless The Child,” a big hit for both her and her then recording label Columbia Records. (Burgin, 2012).     Music entrepreneur, Milt Gable, owner of both the record label “Commodore,” and a jazz music store also worked as an agent for Decca, where in 1944, after being signed on, Holiday recorded her third big hit called “Lover Man oh where can you be” a song especially written for her by Jimmy (James E) Davis, a musician still on active duty in the US Army. (Burgin, 2001).     Holiday's artistry was at its zenith in the 1940's earning her sessions with a full orchestra with strings and hit recordings like “Crazy He Calls Me,” and “Them There Eyes,” and the Bessie Smith tune, “ 'T'aint Nobody's Business If I Do.” (Burgin, 2001).     The Heroin Years: It it essentially impossible to tell exactly when Holiday began using drugs. Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol and Heroin became illegal with the 1924 Heroin Act which made the manufacture and possession of Heroin illegal. Marijuana though frowned upon was not made illegal until 1937. During the early part of the century almost all drugs were available on demand, one of the most popular being Laudanum, Heroin mixed with alcohol. Billie grew up in a society conflicted between idealism and reality. (Griffin, 2001).     In the name of morality, these laws attempted to still the cross currents of human nature, the desires of the majority to drink alcohol and the idealistic naivety of the Christian reformers in their futile attempt to overcome the natural law of supply and demand.

    These prohibitive laws re-created the old profession of smuggling and during the 1930s and '40's musicians and other celebrities were able to immerse themselves in what ever drug they craved. We can only guess at Holidays first exposure. We know that early on she sang with Artie Shaw's band and Artie was a drug user. She sang with Benny Goodman, known to be a prescription drug user, was that when it happened? Or did she escape heroin use until she began smoking Opium with her husband Johnny Monroe early in the 1940's. Some of her biggest recording hits, mentioned above, were sung in the 1940's. Was she under the influence of heroin while performing? It would appear so, as she sang “Fine and Mellow” in 1957 in a CBS Television special. (Griffin, 2001).

    It definitely happened when she broke up with Monroe and married Joe Guy, a trumpet player, Heroin addict and dealer. The two heroin addicts were unable to operate the business of running a band and managing a mutual addiction. Holiday lost a lot of money in this misadventure before being arrested in May 1947 with Joe Guy for possession of drugs. She plead guilty to the charge and was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison camp. (Griffin, 2001).

    She served 10 months there and was released on March 13, 1948. This ended her relationship with Joe Guy who left town and headed for Birmingham Alabama, where he played his trumpet in local clubs. Joe Guy died in obscurity at age 41 from the ravages of addiction. Holiday said that although people wanted her to sing while in prison, she didn't “sing a note.” (Burgin, 2012).

    Having now been convicted of a drug charge she was unable to obtain a cabaret license which meant she could not play in clubs. Banned from playing night clubs, Holiday was pursued by recording companies and recorded for Decca records until 1950. In 1952 she began recording for another musical entrepreneur, Norman Granz who owned two good record labels, Clef, and Norgran. During this time she also paired with some top musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Charlie Shavers and Harry Edison, all well known jazz and blues players. (Burgin, 2001).