Lest we forget…Lady Day

 

          July 17 of this years marks 55 years since the death of the truly unforgettable Billie Holiday, a jazz legend.

Friday July 17, 1959 at 3.10, age 44 in Metropolitan Hospital, room 6A12, New York, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful

And with the rise of bio pics being produced recently about various African-American vocal legends -James Brown, Whitney Houston, Aaliyah – I think it’s high time, her story was revisited and her persona and artistry celebrated. Billie Holiday’s life has already been depicted on the big screen by Diana Ross in the 1972 film lady Sings The Blues, however,although a decent film, I feel it wasn’t a worthy homage to the great Lady Day and her truth. The film portrays Billie as a weak woman and a victim, but this just isn’t true. Heres why.

Billie Holiday did indeed live a troubled life, trouble surrounded her from the offset. Billie’s parents weren’t married when she was born, she was abandoned by her mother at a young age and left with her aunt in Baltimore. Grossly neglected her independence and larger than life  persona was forged on the tough Baltimore streets. As a young child her grandmother died with a 10 yr old Billie in her arms. Billie was raped by a 40 yr old neighbour as a preteen and as a result was sent to a Catholic reform school which thought it apt to discipline her by locking Billie in a room with the corpse of a fellow student. After living through all this, one wonders if Billie simply believed happiness was not a blessing afforded to her.

Why was I born?, 

Why am I livin’?,…

Why do I want for things,

I dare not hope for?,

What can I hope for?

– Why Was I Born – Billie Holiday.

 

But Billie still pulled through the tragedy and chaos wrought around her. At a very young age she proclaimed that she would never be ‘anybody’s damn maid’. A bold statement for a young black girl living in the USA during the 1920s; at the time to be a maid was standard fare. Yet true to her word, Billie found another career for herself and became a prostitute at the tender age of 14.

Love for sale
Appetizing, young love for sale.
Love that’s fresh and still unspoiled.
Love that’s only slightly soiled.
Love for sale.
Who will buy?
Who will like to sample my supply?
Who’s prepared to pay the price
For a trip to paradise?

–Love For Sale – Bilie Holiday

She worked in a brothel alongside her mother in New York until it was raided and they were both imprisoned. Upon release she decide it would be safer to opt for a different career and her journey as the legendary Lady Day began. Although I do not condone children working within the sex industry, one has to admire Billies conviction and strength of mind. It was something that stuck with Miss Holiday throughout her life, she always knew her own mind and stuck to her guns. ‘Count Bassie’, the band leader of the first big band she toured with said of her, ‘You couldn’t tell Billie what to do.’

There ain’t nothin’ I can do or nothin’ I can say
That folks don’t criticize me but I’m going to do
Just as I want to anyway
And don’t care just what people say

If I should take a notion, to jump into the ocean
Ain’t nobody’s business if I do
If I go to church on Sunday, then cabaret all day Monday
Ain’t nobody’s business if I do

Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I do – Billie Holiday

Miss Holiday was the foremother of Daddy issues, despite their estrangement she took his surname up as her stage name and when he died of pneumonia in 1937 Billie was clearly left distraught. Her autobiography starts with the the story of her mother and father ‘Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three’ which was  fabrication/fantasy. The introduction trails off with her hopes for love and a long life with her man by her side. Billie never found said man, it seems she couldn’t escape the allure of the atypical bad boy, she was often beaten or stolen from by her various partners and was sometimes said to have encouraged the abuse. She wrote the song Don’t Explain after finding lipstick on her husband Jimmy Munroe’s collar.

And I know you cheat
Right or wrong, don’t matter
When you’re with me, sweet

Hush now, don’t explain
You’re my joy and pain
My life’s yours, love
Don’t explain

Pain and pleasure seemed inseparable to Billie, sad to say. But when she loved, she loved hard. I can’t say I approve of her masochist side but what I do admire is that she wasn’t afraid to wear her heart on a sleeve,  to show emotion or be seen as vulnerable. Louis Armstrong once said of her, ‘Better look out,” he said. “I know Lady, and when she starts crying, the next thing she’s going to do is start fighting’.

 

Billie was one of the pioneering black women who toured with an all white band, she toured with Artie Shaw and his band in the South at a time when segregation, the Klu Klux Klan and lynchings were rampant.Billie left the band when the manager of a hotel they were performing at told her to leave and enter the hotel via the kitchen, and use the service elevator when travelling to and from the stage. Billie simply refused.

 

Wherever Billie went, she demanded respect. She was nicknamed ‘Lady Day’ by Lester Young, one of her closest friends; in turn she named him ‘Prez’ and  her mother as ‘The Duchess’ and collectively they referred to themselves as ‘The Royal Family’. At the time it would have been seen as barefaced cheek for a group of black people to consider themselves royalty, but that didn’t stop Billie. She refused to be degraded as a consequence of her race. She was the one of the first black woman to sing on a record accompanied by violins on her version of ‘Lover Man’, at the time violins were considered to be too sophisticated for black artists but that didn’t phase Billie and violins were added at her request ;’I went on my knees to him,I didn’t want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me’ . Thelma Carpenter, a friend of Billie’s and fellow singer once told the story of Billie sitting at a bar while two racist sailors extinguished their cigarettes on Billies new fur. Billie was having none of it, led the sailors out, told Thelma to hold her coat and knocked both the sailors out. Strong mentally and physically, my kind of woman.

One of her most famous songs Strange Fruit is a lyrical portraiture of the ruthless and rampant lynchings of black people throughout the Southern States of America. Such a stark, morose that to this day I cannot listen to without feeling tearful.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit…
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh

Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday

Once after performing the song at a bar an audience member showed Lady Day a picture he had scrawled on a napkin of a lynching, hollering ‘Heres your strange fruit’, and Miss Holiday knocked him out with a chair. She refused to take shit from anybody.

 

Despite Billie’s race consciousness and racism’s prevalence in her life story, she is a truly worthy inspiration for women of all creeds. Billie was the true incarnation of a diva. Her performances required nor could afford outlandish costumes, or extravagant sets; it was simply Billie, a microphone, the band and cool the snap of her fingers; still many fortunate enough to have seen her live tell of how she always captured the attention of an entire room. Billie embraced the attitude of ‘no fucks given’ along time before the Rihannas, Nicki Minajs and Miley Cyruss of today. And in my eyes she was the best that ever did it.  When Billie wrote her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues in 1956 her publisher complained that she had used the word ‘bitch’ too much, Billie replied with a handwritten note, ‘change bitch to whore’.Even Maya Angelou, may she rest in peace, commented on Billie’s love of profanity, ‘ She used profanity with the deftness of an ice skater doing a figure 8.’

 

Billie was the first to record many of today’s jazz standards such as When you’re Smiling, Night and Day,You’ve changed. Her influence on jazz and pop singers in general is irrefutable, she pioneered manipulating a songs melody in order to further convey emotion, she is not only legendary but revolutionary. In September 1943, Life magazine stated: “She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists.” One needs only look to recently deceased Amy Winehouse to see how Billie’s influence is still clearly seen in the artistery of today’s musicians. Her legacy is even prevalent in todays fashion trends, flower garlands are all the rage these days and wearing gardenias in her hair was Lady Day’s trademark.

Her story is one that should never ceased to be told and deserves its own true retelling for all and sundry to see.

 

 

My favourite aspect of Lady Day is of course her voice. Billie Holiday had a vocal range which only just exceeded an octave and yet the unique seductive drawl in her voice and the way she playfully handled a melody so effortlessly is enchanting. In all honesty my words can do her voice no justice so I’ll turn to those of critic Nat Hentoff:

Lady’s sound – a texture simultaneously steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the centre.

 

 

 Long Live the Legacy of Lady Day.

To read Lady’s Story in her own words – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Sings-Blues-Harlem-Classics/dp/0767923863/ref=la_B001IOBPF6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405128188&sr=1-2