The Lady of the Day

"The Golden Age of Jazz"
- photograph by William Gottlieb

My hat goes off to the inventor and poster-child of "The Blues" of Jazz,
or, to my mind, "Hurtin' Songs" of Country Music,
or a "Lenten Psalm" in the old "Negro Spirituals".
She hurt lots,
She wrote about hurt real good and
Sang Hurtin' Songs the best because
She never knew anything else but hurtin'
Her hurtin' voice healed her audience' hearts

Ladies 'n' Gents, I present,
the one, the only ...

The Billie Holiday

My tribute to Billie Holiday is best understood if seen in conjunction with the material on her 'sister sites' ~

"Sing Charisma" or "Beauty Dovetailed into One Venus”
~ my "Idolized Goddess" blog ...
"My claim to fame is that I was born with the planet Venus in Aries like Marilyn Munroe. When Twiggy was a top-model, I had a figure just like hers – she helped me feel less ugly. My Collage of celebrated women who make me feel beautiful when I look at their images. They were either demonized for their 'cautour edge' or dismissed as blonde 'molls', yet each made a paradigm shift in our view of 'Beautiful Woman'."

"Witch-Lynching or Rebels-in-the-Rough?"

~ my "Dethroned Goddess" blog ...
"My mandate for this blog is personal opinion, guesstimating and analysis ~ pure and simple ~ of the subjects, the women, portrayed on my two sister blogs."

The Biography from the Official Web Site of Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday's grandfather was one of 17 children of a black Virginia slave and a white Irish plantation owner. Her mother was only 13 when she was born.

The future "Lady Day" first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a Victrola at Alice Dean's, the Baltimore "house of ill repute" where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs (borrowing her professional name from screen star Billie Dove), then toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw before going solo. Benny Goodman dragged the frightened singer to her first studio session. Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded over 200 "sides," but she never received royalties for any of them.

Despite a lack of technical training, Holiday's unique diction, inimitable phrasing and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark.

"Singing songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck," she wrote in her autobiography. "I've lived songs like that." Her own compositions included "God Bless the Child," espousing the virtues of financial independence and "Don't Explain," lament on infidelity.

Billie Holiday, a musical legend still popular today, died an untimely death at the age of 44.

Billie Holiday Quotes

"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain."

"I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music."

"If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing."

"If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling."

"If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung."

"I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been. "

"I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old."

"Mom & Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three."

"No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

"Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck."

"Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough."

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose."

"You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation."

"You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

"You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave."

Quotes about Billie Holiday

"Billie Holiday's voice was the voice of living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. As a human being she was sweet, sour, kind, mean, generous, profane, lovable and impossible, and nobody who knew her expects to see anyone quite like her again." -Leonard Feather

"She could express more emotion in one chorus than most actresses can in three acts."- Jeanne Moreau

postage stamp

What makes a hero? What does it take to become a legend?

"One Person"

- website, Miro Krizic

Perhaps one of the largest areas of African-American influence is in the sports arena. When Jackie Robinson stepped out on the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, he abolished Major League Baseball's color barrier. How could we forget the pitching speed of Satchel Paige? Or the triple-threat created by Monte Irvin's power-hitting, smooth fielding and base stealing? The 242 home runs, which Roy Campanella scored as a catcher, are still unparalleled. Living legends Lou Brock and Fergie Jenkins were athletes to be reckoned with; Brock's talent for a quick-steal burned up the bases for 12 consecutive years, while Jenkins established himself as a formidable strikeout force.

Jesse Owens left Hitler speechless when he took home four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics. In 1966, Olympic gold-medallist Jim Hines became the first man to finish the 100-meter sprint in less than 10 seconds. And who could help but admire Florence Griffith-Joyner, who received worldwide acclaim at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where she shattered records and captured a silver, three golds, and the hearts of millions.

How about Joe Louis, who held the world heavyweight title longer than any man in boxing history? When he was 21-years-old, Floyd Patterson became the youngest heavyweight champion ever. Charismatic and five-time middleweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson, is often considered the greatest boxer of the twentieth century.

A true champion on and off the court, Arthur Ashe rose above racial discrimination to become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world. Not to be excluded are football greats John Henry Johnson, Dick Lane, Ollie Matson, Willie Brown and Willie Davis, all of whom triumphed in the face of adversity.

Instead of waiting for others to lead the Civil Rights movement, Malcolm X devoted his life to obtaining racial equality. Can you imagine having a belief strong enough to lead millions toward one common goal, and essentially changing the course of history?

Through hard work and determination, these legendary individuals have helped to better humanity. Their lasting accomplishments serve as proof that one person can make a difference.

CMG Worldwide's Tribute to Black History website, Feb 9 2005

The Golden Age of Jazz

"The Golden Age of Jazz"

- photograph by William Gottlieb

"It came out of the dark heart of America,
the aura, the smoke-filled essence of jazz,
the music of joy, abandon, yearning.
New cadences, accents, pulsations.
Nights of improvisation and hot rapturous jazz.
New York's 52nd Street, Swing Street, the mecca.
It was to be William P. Gottlieb who would capture
with his own instrument, the camera, the soul
of this jazz, its voices, its prophets, its players,
Bill who would become the chronicler
of the golden age."

- quote by Eve Berliner, Editor of Eve's Magazine, www.evesmag.com

Billie Holdiay with LouisArmstrong, artist Phil Stern, art.com#10030552

"Lady Sings the Blues" - art.com #10112439

The Billie Holiday Fan Club

For a very active Billy Holiday Fan Club in the UK that began way back in 1946, when Billie was 31 years old - if my Math is correct. For any latest updates on archive-finds, new tributes, and so on keep your eyes peeled on their website.
My rating: *****

The Unofficial BILLIE HOLIDAY Website

For a unique hard-to-find collection of Billie Holiday reading, listening, and watching, as well as biography, lyrics, and artwork, go look-see ~
The Unofficial BILLIE HOLIDAY Website ~ it's a well-worth-watching site!
My rating: *****


Billie age 2 (Would that be a gardenia?) Photographer: unknown.

I downloaded he following text and links directly from the website page on video footage ~ difference the graphics of gray text and white links on stark black looked so much better:

WORTH WATCHING

• LESTER YOUNG & BILLIE HOLIDAY
  Video
• LADY DAY - The Many Faces of Billie Holiday
  Video
• LADY DAY - The Many Faces of Billie Holiday
  Video CD
• The Ladies Sing The Blues
  Video
• BILLIE HOLIDAY
  CD Rom
• THE LONG NIGHT OF LADY DAY
  Documentary
• Reputations - BILLIE HOLIDAY
  Documentary (2001)
• The EMPEROR JONES
  The first movie appearance of Billie.
• SYMPHONY IN BLACK
  Billie's second movie appearance. Watch it here!
• NEW ORLEANS
  Another movie appearance of Billie.
• NEW ORLEANS
  Now also available on DVD!
• Presenting Billie Holiday
  Ready for distribution, but still not available!
• Billie Holiday on Film
  A private compilation by Michel Fontanes
• FINE AND MELLOW 34 seconds of video in Real Audio format. See Other stuff for the 2.29 min. AVI version.

There is actually little video footage of Billie available, here is just a small collection for stamplovers:

• Strange Fruit 2:28 min. of video in Microsoft Multimedia Format(ASF).
• What Little Moonlight Can do 1:03 min. of video in Microsoft Multimedia Format(ASF).
• Don't Explain 1:58 min. of video in Microsoft Multimedia Format(ASF).
• Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone 1:58 min. of video in Microsoft Multimedia Format(ASF).
• Fine And Mellow 2:29 min. of video in Microsoft Multimedia Format(ASF).
• A 1:10 min. film clip from the TV show "Feather on Jazz" in Apple QuickTime format (6.3 Mb).

Billie and Louis Armstrong, Photographer unknown

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Inductee 225

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum website, Feb 9 2005 ~ "Hall of Fame Inductee 225 ~ Billie Holiday "

Inductee Timeline

April 7, 1915
Eleanora Fagan Gough, a.k.a. Billie Holiday, is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1933
Billie Holiday makes her first recordings.
November 27, 1933
Billie Holiday's first commercial recording session, with bandleader Benny Goodman, is organized by John Hammond, who has brought her to Columbia Records.
July 2, 1935
Billie Holiday records with jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and his orchestra, with whom she'll cut some of her most memorable sides.
January 25, 1937
Tenor sax player Lester "Prez" Young and trumpeter Buck Clayton play with Billie Holiday as part of Wilson's orchestra. It is Young who later bestows the nickname "Lady Day" upon Holiday.
March 13, 1937
Billie Holiday teams with the Count Basie Orchestra.
1939
Billie Holiday is among the first artists to perform at Cafe Society, a new jazz club in Manhattan. Two classic songs introduced in this propitious year, "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child," remain her masterworks.
1944
Billie Holiday signs with Decca Records, for whom she records "Easy Living," "Crazy He Calls Me," "Them There Eyes," and others.
May 12, 1945
The only single of Billie Holiday's ever to chart, "Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be), enters Billboard's R&B chart, rising to #5.
1957
Joined by Lester "Prez" Young and other jazz legends, Billie Holiday sings "Fine and Mellow" on the historic The Sound of Jazz telecast.
1958
Returning to Columbia, Billie Holiday records the memorable Lady in Satin album with the Ray Ellis Orchestra.
May 25, 1959
Billie Holiday gives her final performance in New York City.
July 17, 1959
Billie Holiday dies in New York City from complications brought on by alcoholism and heroin addiction.
1972
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, based on Billie Holiday's autobiography, renews interest in her life and work. Diana Ross stars as Holiday.
March 6, 2000
Billie Holiday is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the fifteenth annual induction dinner. Diana Ross is her presenter.

Famous Last Words for a Woman of such Legacy

"Too Many Bad Kicks" ~
Billie for the First Time Tells Why She Left Shaw & Basie

'I'll Never Sing with a Dance Band Again' - Holiday

Billie Holiday - early portrait

A telling archive story on Billie's character that I found in Down Beat Magazine, in which Billie Holiday is interviewed ...

Chicago -- You sit with Billie Holiday and watch her smoke cigarettes chain fashion. The first thing that strikes you is her frankness.
"I'll never sing with a dance band again," she tells you. "Because it never works out right for me. They wonder why I left Count Basie, and why I left Artie Shaw. Well I'll tell you why--and I've never told this before.
"Basie had too many managers--too many guys behind the scenes who told everybody what to do. The Count and I got along fine. And the boys in the band were wonderful all the time. But it was this and that, all the time, and I got fed up with it. Basie didn't fire me; I gave him my notice.

Bad Kicks with Shaw
Artie Shaw was a lot worse. I had known him a long time, when he was strictly from hunger around New York, long before he got a band. At first we worked together okay, then his managers started belly-aching. Pretty soon it got so I would sing just two numbers a night. When I wasn't singing, I had to stay backstage. Artie wouldn't let me sit out front with the band. Last year when we were at the Lincoln Hotel the hotel management told me I had to use the back door. That was all right. But I had to ride up and down in the freight elevators, and every night Artie made me stay upstairs in a little room without a radio or anything all the time.
"Finally it got so I would stay up there, all by myself, reading everything I could get my hands on, from 10 o'clock to nearly 2 in the morning, going downstairs to sing just one or two numbers. Then one night we had an airshot Artie said he couldn't let me sing. I was always given two shots on each program. The real trouble was this--Shaw wanted to sign me to a five-year contract and when I refused, it burned him. He was jealous of the applause I got when I made one of my few appearances with the band each night."


Never Paid for Record
You ask Billie why she didn't make more records with Shaw. You remember that the only side she made, on Bluebird, was a thing titled "Any Old Time" and was really wonderful.
"That's a laugh," she answers. "Artie never paid me for that record. Just before it came out I simply got enough of Artie's snooty, know-it-all mannerisms, and the outrageous behavior of his managers, and left the band. I guess Artie forgot about 'Any Old Time.' I know he never paid me. With Basie I got $70 a week--with Artie I got $65. When I make my own records I get $150. That's another reason I left Shaw.
"One afternoon we were driving along in Artie's car to a one-night stand. We passed an old man on the road who had a beard. I asked Artie if he had ever worn a beard, and that I'd bet he sure'd look funny if he wore one.
"Chuck Petersen, George Arus, Les Jenkins, and a couple of other boys in the band were also in the car. So we were all surprised when Artie said 'I used to wear a beard all the time--when I was farming my own farm a few years back.' I asked Artie if he looked good or bad with a beard--and I was just joking, you know, to make conversation on a long drive.
"'Indeed I did look fine with a beard,' Artie said. 'I looked exactly like Jesus Christ did when he was young.'"
Billie slapped her pudgy thigh, lighted another cigarette, and continued.

Gave Him a Name
You should have heard the boys and me roar at that. We got a bang out of it. Artie looked mad, because he had been serious. So I said, 'We'll just call you Jesus Christ, King of the Clarinet, and his Band.'
"Now here's the payoff--the story got out around Boston and even today, we hear a lot of the musicians refer to Artie as 'Jesus Christ and his Clarinet'."
You figure you've heard enough dirt about the pitfalls of a young girl with a dance band and you ask Billie to tell you something about herself. She comes through with the word that she is Baltimore born, and that she got her first job when she was 14 years old, after she and her mother moved to New York.

Billie Gets Desperate
This is the truth. Mother and I were starving. It was cold. Father had left us and remarried when I was 10. Mother was a housemaid and couldn't find work. I tried scrubbing floors, too, but I just couldn't do it.
"We lived on 145th Street near Seventh Avenue. One day we were so hungry we could barely breathe. I started out the door. It was cold as all-hell and I walked from 145th to 133rd down Seventh Avenue, going in every joint trying to find work. Finally, I got so desperate I stopped in the Log Cabin Club, run by Jerry Preston. I told him I wanted a drink. I didn't have a dime. But I ordered gin (it was my first drink--I didn't know gin from wine) and gulped it down. I asked Preston for a job...told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing. Over in the corner was an old guy playing a piano. He struck 'Travelin'' and I sang. The customers stopped drinking. They turned around and watched. The pianist, Dick Wilson, swung into 'Body and Soul.' Jeez, you should have seen those people--all of them started crying. Preston came over, shook his head and said 'Kid, you win.' That's how I got my start.

Goodman Uses Her
First thing I did was get a sandwich. I gulped it down. Believe me--the crowd gave me $18 in tips. I ran out the door. Bought a whole chicken. Ran up Seventh Avenue to my home. Mother and I ate that night-- and we have been eating pretty well since."
Benny Goodman used Billie on a record (Columbia) of "My Mother's Son in Law" when Teagarden, Krupa and others were in his recording band--before he really organized his present combo. The disc is an item today, not only because of the fine instrumental work, but because it was Holiday's first side. She was pretty lousy. You tell her so and she grins. "But I was only 15 then," she said, "And I was scared as the devil."

She Doesn't Sing
You tell Billie you think you've got enough dope for a little story, but that one thing worries you. That is--why does she sing like she does--what's behind it?
"Look Dex," Billie answers. "I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise like Les Young, like Louie Armstrong, or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel. I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know."

Sad Love Life
You ask her one more thing, recalling how at various times Billie has been reported ready to marry. She shows her frankness again. "I've loved three men," she tells you. "One was a Marion Scott, when I was a kid. He works for the post office now. The other was Freddie Green, Basie's guitar man. But Freddie's first wife is dead and he has two children and somehow it didn't work out. The third was Sonny White, the pianist, but like me, he lives with his mother and our plans for marriage didn't jell. That's all."
Billie says she isn't satisfied now. She wants to get somewhere. Maybe on the stage. She wants to make money--a lot of it. She wants to buy a big home for her mother. She doesn't expect any happiness--she is used to taking hard knocks, tough breaks. And she admits she is envious of Maxine Sullivan and other colored singers who have gotten so much farther ahead than she. Someday, she thinks, she'll get a real break. But she's not very optimistic about it. Billie Holiday is convinced the future will be as unglamorous and unprofitable as her past.

"Lady Day - The Many Faces of Billy Holiday"

Movie Poster

The Film Industry Remembers Billie ~ tho' she never starred in a film

- Frank Driggs, photographer

"Internet Movie Database" has a profile for Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was remembered in film primarily as a Music Composer and Lyrics Writer and for her legendary personality, notably, after her death:

Miscellaneous Crew - filmography (2000s) (1990s) (1980s) (1960s)
The Notebook (2004) (singer: "I'll Be Seeing You")
Minority Report (2002) (singer: "Solitude")
Chelsea Walls (2001) (singer: "What a Little Moonlight Can Do") ... aka Chelsea Hotel
Crosswalk (1999) (singer: "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "I'll Be Seeing You")
Lumière et compagnie (1995) (singer: "Lady Sings the Blues") ... aka Lumière and Company (International: English title) ... aka Lumiere y compañía (Spain)
Forget Paris (1995) (singer: "Love Is Here To Stay" and "For All We Know")
Schindler's List (1993) (singer: "God Bless the Child")
Slaves of New York (1989) (singer: "Am I Blue?")
Torch Song Trilogy (1988) (singer: "What's New" and "But Not For Me")
Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (singer: "You Better Go Now", "Don't Explain" and "Foolin' Myself")
Eva (1962) (singer: "Loveless Love" and "Willow Weep for Me") (as Billy Holiday) ... aka Eva (USA) ... aka Eva, the Devil's Woman ... aka Eve (UK)

Filmography as: Miscellaneous Crew, Composer, Actress, Writer, Herself, Archive Footage, Notable TV Guest Appearances

Composer - filmography (2000s) (1990s) (1980s) (1970s) (1960s) (1950s)
Glenn Miller 2000 (2001) (song "Travelin light")
Any Given Sunday (1999) (song "Don't Explain")
Schindler's List (1993) (song "God Bless the Child")
Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (song "Don't Explain")
Liza with a 'Z' (1972) (TV) (song "God Bless the Child") ... aka Singer Presents Liza with A Z (USA)
Man Outside (1965)
'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet (1951) (song "God Bless the Child")
Panic in the Streets (1950) (song "Fine and Mellow")


"Billie Holiday - Lady Day" - art.com#10033851

Archive Footage

Strange Fruit (2002) .... Herself
It's Black Entertainment (2002) (TV) .... Herself
Reputations: Billie Holiday (2001) (TV) .... Herself
"Jazz" (2001) (mini) .... Herself
Carnegie Hall Salutes the Jazz Masters: Verve Records at 50 (1994) (TV) .... Herself
Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame (1993) (TV) .... Herself
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (1975) .... Herself

Notable TV Guest Appearances
"Walk On By: The Story of Popular Song" playing "Herself" (archive footage) in episode: "Stardust" (episode # 1.2) 24 March 2001
"The Seven Lively Arts" playing "Herself" in episode: "The Sound of Jazz" 8 December 1957

News for Billie Holiday
"Jazz Man Artie Shaw Dies"
31 December 2004 (WENN) Celebrated jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw has died in California, aged 94. The musician, who was married to stunners Ava Gardner and Lana Turner, is famous for his renditions of standards like "Begin The Beguine" and "Lady Be Good" in the 1930s. Shaw teamed up with jazz greats like Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich for hits in the 1920s and 1930s. A famously difficult man, Shaw quit playing jazz in the 1960s because he insisted he could no longer play at the standard he set himself. He spent years as a recluse before reviving his band and occasionally standing in as conductor in the early 1980s.

"Streisand's an Eminem Fan"
9 December 2002 (WENN) Rapper Eminem has been given unusual praise from legendary diva Barbra Streisand. The diva admits she has seen the rapper's new movie 8 Mile - and the singer and actress is a big fan. She says, "I like things that are emotional, whether it's Billie Holiday or Eminem singing about his youth and his pain and vulnerability. I think he really understands the power of the inner self. I didn't always understand what they were saying in the movie, but it's a slice of real life. I grew up in a very poor neighborhood, so I totally relate to that part of music today. That's a big part of me, that kid playing in the street."

"Jane's Trick For Getting Into Character"
2 October 2000 (WENN) Little Voice (1998) star Jane Horrocks has revealed how she managed to get into the character of the women she mimics on her new CD. The Yorkshire actress, 36, is working on an album - "The Further Adventures of Little Voice" - sung in the voices of such stars as Marilyn Monroe and Billie Holiday. To stop herself getting confused and to help her get the voices just right, Jane and her singing teacher came up with key words to help her focus on each character. "For Monroe...'Big t**s'. Also, 'Pout' and 'Sexy lips'." For Judy Garland, Jane used the words, 'On the edge'. "That's what I had to do for Garland. You have a feeling that she's going to burst into tears at any moment."

In IMBd.com's biography for Billie Holiday, the most notable facts they entered were in the trivia ~ after all, she had no celebrity as a movie star or movie-maker:

Trade mark: Gardenia flower in her hair

Trivia:

She died with 70 cents in the bank and $750 strapped to her leg -- a reminder of her life-long fear of poverty.
In 1959, narcotic addiction was a crime, not an illness. She was arrested on her deathbed.
Billie had no cabaret card and this kept her from working in New York City clubs for the last 12 years of her life.
Her given name was Eleanora -- "Billie" came from silent screen star Billie Dove.
Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 (under the category Early Influence).
Posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for "God Bless The Child" (1976), "Strange Fruit" (1978), "Lover Man" (1989), and "Lady In Satin" (2000)
Made her recording debut on "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" (1933) with Benny Goodman.
Was the common-law wife of trumpeter Joe Guy (1951-1957), but they always identified themselves to people as husband and wife. She was separated from her last husband, Louis McKay, at the time of her death.
Her grandfather was one of 17 children born to a black Virginia slave and her white Irish master.
At the time of her birth, her mother, Sadie Fagan (born Sarah Harris), was just 13. Her father, Clarence Holiday, was 15. It's uncertian if they ever married. Clarence abandoned Sadie when Billie was an infant.
Ranked #6 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll
Cousin of former boxing champion turned minister Henry Armstrong.


Billie Holiday - 1957

Obituary - New York Times, "On This Day", April 7

Undated photo of jazz queen Billie Holiday during a recording session
- The Associated Press

July 18, 1959 -- OBITUARY
by THE NEW YORK TIMES

Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence

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.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

For the Official Encyclopedia Description of Ms. Day"

see The World Book, where she is listed as "Jazz Vocalist":


Billie Holiday (1915-1959) won recognition as the most moving jazz singer of her day. She was admired for the uniquely bittersweet quality of her voice, and for phrasing that had much in common with the solos of the great improvising jazz musicians. Although Holiday was often described as a blues singer, she was principally an interpreter of popular songs.

Billie Holiday was born in Baltimore and raised by her mother in a black ghetto. She described the hardships of her childhood in Lady Sings the Blues (1956), an inaccurate but interesting autobiography. She made her first recordings with Benny Goodman in 1933. Her most distinctive work was recorded between 1936 and 1944. In these recordings, she was often accompanied by such great jazz musicians as Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Teddy Wilson, and Lester Young. After 1950, drug addiction increasingly affected her health and her career.

*NOTE: The Bookmark Links on the right side of the page, where they classify the "Jazz" categories, along with "Spirituals", "Blues", "Rock and roll", "Classical music", and "Related Web sites under the rather endearing umbrella title:

"Heart and Soul"

~ the link to the page, "World Book -African American Music" ~

A "Year 2000" Update of Billie's Biography

~ by A&E Television Networks

The text from the Biography on A&E Search Results for "Billie Holiday" :

Holiday (Holliday), Billie ~ 1915-1959
Jazz musician. Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Clarence Holiday — a guitarist who played with Fletcher Henderson’s big band, never married her mother, Sadie Fagan, and eventually abandoned the family. Holiday (some sources say Holliday) grew up amidst wrenching poverty, neglect, and loneliness, and began working at the age of six; hearing, for the first time, the sweet sounds of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith while scrubbing the floors of a local brothel. At the age of ten, she was raped by a neighbor, and then sent to a home for “wayward girls.” She was jailed for prostitution at the age of 14.

By 1928, Holiday was living in Harlem, New York City, and had begun to look for work in local nightclubs, aspiring to be a dancer or a singer. She secured a job singing at Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin and soon found she could bring customers to tears with her melancholy singing style; she used her voice like an instrument, singing behind the beat in a feathery voice full of woe and longing. Consistently unreliable as she was appealing, Holiday could not keep a job and moved from one nightclub to another, gaining experience and exposure. In 1932, jazz producer John Hammond heard Holiday and arranged for her to record a few titles with Benny Goodman’s orchestra; from then on she recorded regularly for Columbia and eventually worked in a pickup band led by Teddy Wilson. Her voice and style continued to develop and flourish in the 1930s, and by 1937 she was making some of the finest recordings of her career with Buck Clayton and Lester Young, who gave her the name “Lady Day.” Together, the group turned second-rate love songs into jazz classics.

That same year, Holiday toured with Count Basie’s Orchestra, from which only a few precious recordings remain. She then fronted the all-white Artie Shaw’s Orchestra and experienced so much racial discrimination on the road that she eventually abandoned the tour and returned to New York. She began to perform regularly at Café Society, the interracial Greenwich Village haven for liberal intellectuals, music aficionados, and the political left. Around this time, Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit," a biting, anti-racist song depicting a lynching, which she always performed with a driving, understated intensity. Unfortunately, as Holiday’s following steadily increased, she slowly began to succumb to sadness and self-destructive behavior. By the early 1940s, she had embarked on a turbulent and abusive marriage to James Monroe, who introduced her to heroin and opium.

From 1944 to 1950, Holiday recorded with Decca and her singing further evolved; the way her increasingly limited range and delicately wavering voice rendered the phrases of her finely wrought songs lent them even more emotional weight and became her trademark style. During this period, she recorded “God Bless the Child,” “Don’t Explain,” “Them There Eyes,” and her biggest hit, “Lover Man.” In the meantime, Holiday’s personal life grew stormier and the repercussions of her drug-abuse more devastating. She spent the majority of 1947 in prison for heroin possession and lost her cabaret license. Upon her release, she could no longer sing at the popular clubs in New York City. However, she continued to grow in popularity because of the scandal and her seemingly glamorous, notorious reputation.

By the 1950s, Holiday’s voice had deteriorated tremendously due to years of abuse and she continued even faster down her destructive path of drugs, abusive relationships, and alcohol. In 1952, she began recording for Verve, but the once charming voice on the verge of breaking had now broken. Her 1958 album, Lady in Satin, revealed a tired Holiday, with a voice that barely croaked its lines, although the timing and phrasing were as intelligent as ever, if only not as inspired. In 1959, Holiday collapsed and was hospitalized; while on her deathbed, she was arrested once again for possession of narcotics. She died on July 17, 1959, of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 44.

Although many still regard Holiday as a genius victim of horrible circumstances, recent research reveals a woman very much in control of her musical artistry, and very much aware of what she was doing and why. Will Friedwald describes Holiday in a music review as, “the woman who taught the world that the interaction and feeling of jazz musicians was the ultimate key to interpreting the American song lyric.”

© 2000 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.

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Real name Eleanora Fagan (1915-59), one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, also...

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God Bless the Child

Billie Holiday - 1949

Lyrics by Billie holiday & Arthur Herzog Jr.

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Money, you've got lots of friends

Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry 'bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own


Photographer: William P. Gottlieb, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1948 


Billie Holiday and club owner Wesley Johnson, Sr. at the Fillmore. 

He's Funny That Way - Lyrics

Photographer unknown

Never had nothing
No one to care
That's why I seem to have
More than my share
I've got a man crazy for me
He's funny that way

When I hurt his feelings
Once in a while
His only answer is one little smile
I've got that man crazy for me
He's funny that way

I can see no other way
And no better plan
End it all and let him go
To some better gal
But I'm only human
A coward at best
I'm more than certain
He'd follow me West
I've got that man crazy for me
He's funny that way


Though he loves to work
And slave for me everyday
He'd be so much better off
If I went away
But why should I leave him
Why should I go
He'd be unhappy without me I know
I've got that man crazy for me
He's funny that way


Billie Holiday - 1939

Photographer Paul J. Hoeffler

"All of Me" - lyrics

Billie, in her Dressing Room

"All of Me"
by Seymour Simons / Gerald Marks

You took my kisses and all my love
You taught me how to care
Am I to be just remnant of a one side love affair

All you took
I gladly gave
There is nothing left for me to save

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can't you see
I'm no good without you
Take my lips
I want to loose them
Take my arms
I'll never use them
Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry
How can I go on dear without you
You took the part that once was my heart
So why not take all of me


Photographer: J.P. Lenoir, France, approx. 1954.

Doin' What She Do Best

You Can't Be Mine
J.C. Johnson / C. Webb

You can't be mine
And someone else's too
Someday you'll find
I've been a friend to you
I don't believe that life's worth living
I gave you all there was worth giving
You never cared how I fared or what I do

I called you mine but I was not to blame
For all the time you played up to
Hand and game
Second hand love I can't see
It's good for some but not for me
You can't be mine
And someone else's too


Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), Library of Congress, the 'Photograph Collection'

Night and Day - Lyrics

Billie in the studio.

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
as it stands against the wall
Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops
When the summer show'r is through
So a voice within me keeps repeating
You, you, you

Night and day you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you
Night and day
Day and night

Why is it so
That this longing for you follows wherever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you
Night and day

Night and day under the hide of me
There's an Oh, such a hungry yearning
Burning inside of me
And its torment won't be through
'Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night
Night and day

Night and day under the hide of me
There's an Oh, such a hungry yearning
Burning inside of me
And its torment won't be through
'Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night
Night and day


Album Cover ~ One Volume from a Series

"Tell Me More and More" - by Billie Holiday

Billie and Count Basie in television studio.
Photographer: Milt Hinton, New York, 1957.

Lyrics - Tell Me More and More
Tell me more and more and then some
You know what I long to hear
I want more and more and then some
Of that "I Love You Only Dear"

Tell me more and more and then some
The way that you feel and then
When you've told that old sweet story
And you're through, start right in again
I've made that old mistake
Know the awful ache
Of a heart that's double crossed
The waitin's been so long
Hard to believ'in
If I've missed my guess, happiness is lost

Tell me more and more and then some
You know how I love that stuff
Whisper on from now
'til Doomsday
But I never will hear enough

Tell me more and more and then some
The way that you feel and then
When you've told that old sweet story
And you're through, start right in again
I've made that old mistake
Know the awful ache
Of a heart that's double crossed
The waitin's been so long
Hard to believ'in
If I've missed my guess, happiness is lost

Tell me more and more and then some
You know how I love that stuff
Whisper on from now
'til Doomsday
But I never will hear enough


JAZZ Grates image

Embraceable You

Image from Euro-Music Club website

Embraceable You
- by George and Ira Gershwin

Embrace me
My sweet embraceable you
Embrace me
My irreplaceable you
Just to look at you
My heart grows tipsy in me
You and you alone

Bring out the gypsy in me

I love all
The many charms about you
Above all
I want my arms about you
Don't be naughty baby
Come to me
Come to me do
My sweet embraceable you

I love all
The many charms about you
Above all
I want my arms about you
Don't be naughty baby
Come to me
Come to me do
My sweet embraceable you


Billie with her dog.

Gloomy Sunday - Lyrics

Photo from a Donegal Middle School, Gr. 8 Project

Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought
Of ever returning you
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?

Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy is Sunday,
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles
And prayers that are said I know
Let them not weep
Let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I'm caressin' you
With the last breath of my soul
I'll be blessin' you

Gloomy Sunday
Dreaming, I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep
In the deep of my heart, dear
Darling I hope
That my dream never haunted you
My heart is tellin' you
How much I wanted you
Gloomy Sunday


Billie holding a glass.

“For the Record”

A list of the body of work that Billie Holiday was, and still is, best known for, that is, her Songs, many of which she wrote the lyrics and music composition herself.

From ~ The Unofficial BILLIE HOLIDAY Website

"HER SONGS"

‘Deed I Do - Fred Rose / Walter Hirsch
(I Don’t Stand A) Ghost Of A Chance - Victor P. Young / Bing Crosby / Ned Washington
(I Love You) Porgy - George and Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward
(I’m Affraid) The Masquerade Is Over - Herb Magidson / Allie Wrubel
(This Is) My Last Affair - H. Johnson
(You Ain’t Gonna Bother Me) No More - Toots Camarata / Bob Russell
A Fine Romance - Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern
A Foggy Day - George and Ira Gershwin
A Sailboat In The Moonlight - Carmen Lombardo / John Jacob Loeb
A Sunsetbonnet Blue (And A Yellow Straw Hat) - Irving Kahal / Sammy Fain
A Yiddish Momme - Lew Pollack / Jack Yellen
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (I’m Savin’ My Love For You) - Thomas Waller / Harry Brooks / Andy Razaf
Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do - Porter Grainger / Everett Robbins
All Of Me - Seymour Simons / Gerald Marks
All Of You - Cole Porter
All Or Nothing At All - Jack Lawrence / Arthur Altman
All The Way - Jimmy Van Heusen / Sammy Cahn
Always - Irving Berlin
Am I Blue? - Harry Akst / Grant Clarke
April In My Heart - H. Meinardi / Hoagy Carmichael
April In Paris - Vernon Duke / E. Y. Harburg
As Time Goes By - Herman Hupfeld
Autumn In New York - Vernon Duke
Baby Get Lost - Leonard Feather
Baby, I Don’t Cry Over You - Morton Krouse
Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home - Charles Warfield / Clarence Williams
Back In Your Own Backyard - Al Jolson / Billy Rose / Dave Dreyer
Be Fair With Me Baby - Darnell / Mesner
Beer Barrel Polka (aka Roll Out The Barrel) - Taromir Vejvoda / Lew Brown / Wladimir A. Timm
Beyond The Sea (La Mer) - Charles Trenet (Jack Lawrence)
Big Stuff - Leonard Bernstein
Billie’s Blues - Billie Holiday
Blue Moon - Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart
Blue Turning Grey Over You - Fats Waller / Andy Razaf
Body And Soul - Johnny W. Green / Edward Heyman / Robert Sour / Frank Eyton
Born To Love - Jack Scholl / M.K. Jerome
But Beautiful - Johnny Burke / James van Heusen
But Not For Me - George and Ira Gershwin
Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man - Oscar Hammerstein II / Jerome Kern
Carelessly - Charles F. Kenney / Nick Kenney / N. Ellis
Cheek To Cheek - Irving Berlin
Come Rain Or Come Shine - Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer
Comes Love - Lew Brown /Sammy Stept / Charles Tobias
Crazy He Calls Me - Carl Sigman / Bob Russell
Darn That Dream - Jimmy Van Heusen / Edgar De Lange
Day In, Day Out - Johnny Mercer / Rube Bloom
Deep Song - George Cory / Douglass Cross
Detour Ahead - Lou Carter / Herb Ellis / Johnny Frigo
Did I Remember? - Harold Adamson / Walter Donaldson
Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me - Duke Ellington / Bob Russell
Do Nothing ‘Til You Hear From Me/I’ll Get By -
Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? - Eddie DeLange / Loise Alter
Do Your Duty - Wesley ‘Sox’ Wilson
Don’t Explain - Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog Jr.
Don’t Worry ‘bout Me - Rube Bloom / Ted Koehler
Dream Of Life - C. McRea / L. Henderson
East Of The Sun - Brooks Bowman
Easy Living - Leo Robin / Ralph Rainger
Easy To Love - Cole Porter
Easy To Remember - Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers
Eeny Meeny Miney Mo - Johnny Mercer / Matty Malneck
Embraceable You - George and Ira Gershwin
Everybody’s Laughing - Sammy Lerner / Ben Oakland
Everything Happens For The Best - Billie Holiday / T. Smith
Everything Happens To Me - Matt Dennis / Tom Adair
Everything I Have Is Yours - Burton Lane / Harold Adamson
Falling In Love Again - F. Hollander / S. Lerner
Farewell To Storyville - Clarence Williams
Fine And Mellow - Billie Holiday
Foolin’ Myself - Peter Tinturin / Jack Lawrence
For All We Know - Sam M. Lewis / J. Fred Coots
For Heaven’s Sake - Don Meyer / Elsie Bretton / Sherman Edwards
Forget If You Can - Jack Manus / K. Upham / L. Joy
Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You? - Don Redman / Andy Razaf
Georgia On My Mind - Stuard Gorrell / Hoagy Carmichael
Getting Some Fun Out Of Life - Edgar Leslie / Joseph A. Burke
Ghost Of Yesterday - Irene Wilson / Arthur Herzog Jr.
Gimmie A Pigfoot (And A Bottle Of Beer) - Wesley ‘Sox’ Wilson
Girls Were Made To Take Care Of Boys - Ralph Blane
Glad To Be Unhappy - Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers
Gloomy Sunday - Carter / S. Lewis / R. Seress
God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog Jr.
Gone With The Wind - Allie Wrubbel / Herbert Magidson
Good Morning Heartache - Irene Higginbotham / Ervin Drake / Dan Fisher
Guess Who? - Arthur Freed / Burton Lane
Guilty - Gus Kahn / Harry Akst / Richard Whiting
Havin’ Myself A Time - Leo Robin / Ralph Rainger
He Ain’t Got Rhythm - Irving Berlin
He’s Funny That Way - Richard A. Whiting / Neil Moret
Hello, My Darling - Frank Loesser / Frederick Hollander
Here It Is Tomorrow Again - P. Gibson / Roy Ringwald
How Am I To Know - Jack King / Dorothy Parker
How Could You? - Al Dubin / Harry Warren
How Deep Is The Ocean - Irving Berlin
I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me - Clarence Gaskill / Jimmy McHugh
I Can’t Face The Music - Rube Bloom / Ted Koehler
I Can’t Get Started - Ira Gershwin / Vernon Duke
I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (Baby) - Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh
I Can’t Pretend - Charles Tobias / Paul Rusincky (W. Edward Breuder?)
I Cover The Waterfront - Johnny W. Green / Edward Heyman
I Cried For You - Arthur Freed / Gus Arnheim / Abe Lyman
I Didn’t Know What Time It Was - Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart
I Don’t Know If I’m Coming Or Going - Lee Wainer / Lupin Fien
I Don’t Want To Cry Anymore - Victor Schertzinger
I Get A Kick Out Of You - Cole Porter
I Get Along Without You Very Well - Hoagy Carmichael
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good) - Duke Ellington / Paul F. Webster
I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues - Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler
I Hadn’t Anyone Till You - Ray Noble
I Hear Music - Frank Loesser / Burton Lane
I Love My Man (Billie’s Blues) - Billie Holiday
I Must Have That Man - Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh
I Only Have Eyes For You - Al Dubin / Harry Warren
I Thought About You - Jimmy Van Heusen / Johnny Mercer
I Wish I Had You - B. Green / A. Stillman / Claude Thornhill
I Wished On The Moon - Dorothy Parker / Ralph Rainger
I Won’t Believe It - J. Russel Robinson / Martin Block / Victor Selsman
I’ll Be Around - Alec Wilder
I’ll Be Seeing You - Sammy Fain / Irving Kahal
I’ll Get By - Roy Turk / Fred E. Ahlert
I’ll Look Around - George Cory / Douglass Cross
I’ll Never Be The Same - Matty Malneck / Frank Signorelli / Gus Kahn
I’ll Never Fail You - Irving Taylor / Vic Mizzy
I’ll Never Smile Again - Ruth Lowe
I’m A Fool To Want You - J. Wolf / Herron / Frank Sinatra
I’m All For You - Bresler / Wynn
I’m Gonna Lock My Heart (And Throw Away The Key) - Jimmy Eaton / Terry Shand
I’m In A Low Down Groove - R. Jacobs
I’m Painting The Town Red - Charles Tobias / Charles Newman / Sam H. Stept
I’m Pulling Through - Arthur Herzog Jr. / Irene Kitchings
I’m Walkin’ Through Heaven With You - Joe Turner / Ross Gordon
I’m Yours - Johnny Green / E.Y. Harburg
I’ve Got A Date With A Dream - Mack Gordon / Harry Revel
I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm - Irving Berlin
If Dreams Come True - Edgar Sampson / Benny Goodman / Irving Mills
If I Didn’t Care - Jack Lawrence / Milton Ager
If I Were You - Buddy Bernier / Robert D. Emmerich
If My Heart Could Only Talk - Walter Samuels / Leonard Whitcup / Teddy Powell
If The Moon Turns Green - Paul Coates / Bernie Hanighen
If You Were Mine - Johnny Mercer / Matty Malneck
Ill Wind - Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler
Isn’t This A Lovely Day? - Irving Berlin
Israel - Tony Scott / Arthur Herzog Jr.
It Had To Be You - Isham Jones / Gus Kahn
It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie - Billy Mayhew
It’s Easy To Blame The Weather - Sammy Cahn / Saul Chaplin
It’s Like Reaching For The Moon - Sherman / Lewis / Marqusee
It’s Not For Me To Say - Robert Allen / Al Stillman
It’s The Same Old Story - M. Field / N. Oliphant
It’s Too Hot For Words - Walter Samuels / Leonard Whitcup / Teddy Powell
Jeepers Creepers - Harry Warren / Johnny Mercer
Jim - Nelson A. Shawn / Caesar Petrillo / Edward Ross / Milton Samuels
Just Friends - John Klenner / Samuel M. Lewis
Just One More Chance - Sam Coslow / Arthur Johnston
Just One Of Those Things - Cole Porter
Keeps On Rainin’ - Spencer Williams / Max Kortlander
Lady Sings The Blues - Billie Holiday / Herbie Nichols
Lady’s Back In Town - Tony Scott
Laughing At Life - Nick Kenney / Charles F. Kenney / C. Todd / B. Todd
Left Alone - Billie Holiday / Mal Waldron
Let’s Call A Heart A Heart - Arthur Johnston / Sonny Burke
Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off - George and Ira Gershwin
Let’s Do It - Cole Porter
Let’s Dream In The Moonlight - R. Walsh / Matty Malneck
Life Begins When You’re In Love - Brown / Victor Schertzinger / Andrew Acquarulo Ackers
Long Gone Blues - Billie Holiday
Love For Sale - Cole Porter
Love Me Or Leave Me - Walter Donaldson / Gus Kahn
Loveless Love - W.C. Handy
Lover Come Back To Me - Sigmund Romberg / Oscar Hammerstein II
Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) - Jimmy Davis / Ram Ramirez / James Sherman
Mandy Is Two - Fulton McGrath / Johnny Mercer
Maybe You’ll Be There - Gallop / Bloom
Me, Myself And I (Are All In Love With You) - Irving Gordon / Allan Roberts / Alvin S. Kaufman
Mean To Me - Roy Turk / Fred E. Ahlert
Misery - Tony Scott
Miss Brown To You - Leo Robin / Richard Whiting / Ralph Rainger
Moanin’ Low - Ralph Rainger / Howard Dietz
Mood Indigo - Duke Ellington / Irving Mills / Albany Bigard
Moonglow - Will Hudson / Edgar DeLange / Irving Mills
Moonlight In Vermont - Karl Suessdorf / John Blackburn
More Than You Know - Billy Rose / Edward Eliscu / Vincent Youmans
My First Impression Of You - Charlie Tobias / Sam H. Stept
My Man - Channing Pollock/Maurice Yvain / Albert Willemetz/Jaques Charles
My Old Flame - Arthur Johnson / Sam Coslow
My Sweet Hunk O’trash - James P. Johnson / Flournoy E. Miller
Nice Work If You Can Get It - George and Ira Gershwin
Night And Day - Cole Porter
No Good Man - Irene Higginbotham / Dan Fisher / Sammy Gallop
No Regrets - Harry Tobias / Ingraham
Nobody - Alex Rogers / Bart A. Williams
Now Or Never - Billie Holiday / Curtis R. Lewis
Now They Call It Swing - W. Hirsch / Vaughn DeLeath / N. Cloutier / L. Handman
On The Sentimental Side - Johnny Burke / J. Monaco
On The Sunny Side Of The Street - Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh
One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) - Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen
One Never Knows, Does One? - Mack Gordon / Harry Revel
One, Two, Button Your Shoe - Tobias / Paul Rusincky / Johnny Burke
Our Love Is Different - Billie Holiday / R. Conway / B. Alba / Sonny White
Our Love Is Here To Stay - George and Ira Gershwin
P.S. I Love You - Johnny Mercer / Gordon Jenkins
Pennies From Heaven - Arthur Johnston / Johnny Burke
Please Don’t Do It In Here - Billie Holiday / Buster Harding
Please Keep Me In Your Dreams - Tot Seymour / Vee Lawnhurst
Please Tell Me Now - Arnold Clawson / Toussaint Pope
Please, Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone - Sam H. Stept / Sidney Clare & Bea Palmer
Practice Makes Perfect - D. Roberts / E. Gold
Preacher Boy - Jeanne Burns / Billie Holiday
Prelude To A Kiss - Duke Ellington / Irving Gordon / Irving Mills
Remember - Irving Berlin
Restless - Tom Satterfield / Sam Coslow
Riffin’ The Scotch - Johnny Mercer / D. McDonough / Benny Goodman / Buck
Romance In The Dark - Sam Coslow / G. Nelsen
Saddest Tale -
Say It Isn’t So - Irving Berlin
Say It With A Kiss - Johnny Mercer / Harry Warren
Says My Heart - Frank Loesser / Burton Lane
Sentimental & Melancholy - Johnny Mercer / Richard Whiting
She’s Funny That Way - Richard Whiting / Neil Moret (Charles N. Daniels)
Softly - Beal / Greene
Solitude - Duke Ellington / Eddie DeLange / Irving Mills
Some Of These Days - Shelton Brooks
Some Other Spring - Irene Kitchings / Arthur Herzog Jr.
Somebody’s On My Mind - Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog Jr.
Sometimes I’m Happy - Vincent Youmans / Irving Caesar / Clifford Grey
Sophisticated Lady - Duke Ellington / Mitchell Parish / Irving Mills
Speak Low - Kurt Weill / Ogden Nash
Spreadin’ The Rhythm Around - Ted Koehler / Jimmy McHugh
St.Louis Blues - W.C. Handy
Stars Fell On Alabama - Mitchell Parish / Frank S. Perkins
Stormy Blues - Billie Holiday
Stormy Weather - Ted Koehler / Harold Arlen
Strange Fruit - Lewis Allen
Sugar (That Sugar Baby O’ Mine) - M. Pinkard / S. Mitchell / F. Alexander
Summertime - George and Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward
Sun Showers - Arthur Freed / Nacio Herb Brown
Swing, Brother Swing - Bishop / Williams / Raymond
Tell Me More And More (And Then Some) - Billie Holiday
Tenderly - Walter Gross / Jack Lawrence
That Ole Devil Called Love - Allan Roberts / Doris Fisher
That’s All I Ask Of You - R.E. Pope
That’s Life I Guess - Lewis / Peter DeRose
The Blues Are Brewin’ - Eddie DeLange / Louis Alter
The End Of A Love Affair - Edward C. Redding
The Man I Love - George and Ira Gershwin
The Mood That I’m In - Abner Silver / Al Sherman
The Moon Looks Down And Laughs - Bert Kalmar / Sid Silvers / Harry Ruby
The Nearness Of You - Hoagy Carmichael / Ned Washington
The Same Old Story -
The Very Thought Of You - Ray Noble
The Way You Look Tonight - Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern
Them There Eyes - Maceo Pinkard / William Tracey / Doris Tauber
There Is No Greater Love - Isham Jones / Marty Symes
There’ll Be Some Changes Made - W. Benton Overstreet / Billy Higgins
These ‘N’ That ‘N’ Those - Milton Pascal / Edgar Fairchild
These Foolish Things - Jack Strachey / Harry Link / Holt Marvell / Eric Maschwitz
They Can’t Take That Away From Me - George and Ira Gershwin
They Say - Edward Heyman / Paul Mann / Stephan Weiss
Things Are Looking Up - George and Ira Gershwin
This Is Heaven To Me - Ernest Schweikert / Frank Reardon
This Year’s Kisses - Irving Berlin
Time On My Hands - Harold Adamson / Mack Gordon / Vincent Youmans
Too Marvelous For Words - Johnny Mercer / Richard Whiting
Trav’lin’ All Alone - J.C. Johnson
Trav’lin’ Light - Johnny Mercer / Jimmy Mundy
Twenty-Four Hours A Day - Arthur Swanstrom / Hanley
Under A Blue Jungle Moon - R. Conway / N. Brisben
Until The Real Thing Comes Along - Sammy Kahn / Saul Chaplin / Mann Holiner / Alberta Nichols / L.E. Freeman
Violets For Your Furs - Tom Adair / Matt Dennis
We’ll Be Together Again - Carl Fischer / Frankie Laine
Weep No More - Gordon Jenkins / Tom Adair
What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Harry Woods
What A Night, What A Moon, What A Girl - John Jacob Loeb
What Is This Going To Get Us? - Irene Wilson / Arthur Herzog Jr.
What Is This Thing Called Love? - Cole Porter
What Shall I Say? - Peter Tinturin
When A Woman Loves A Man - Johnny Mercer / Bernie Hanighen / Gordon Jenkins
When It’s Sleepy Time Down South - Leon René / Otis René / Clarence Muse
When You Are Away, Dear - Victor Herbert / Henry Blossom
When You’re Smiling - Mark Fisher / Joe Goodwin / Larry Shay
When Your Lover Has Gone - Einar Aaron Swan
Where Is The Sun? - John (?) Redmond / Lee David
Wherever You Are - Cliff Friend / Charlie Tobias
Who Loves You? - Davis / Cootes
Who Wants Love? - Gus Kahn / Franz Waxman
Why Did I Always Depend On You? - T. McRea / R. Smith / P. Greenwood
Why Was I Born? - Oscar Hammerstein II / Jerome Kern
Willow Weep For Me - Ann Ronell
With Thee I Swing - Basil George Adlam / Alexander Hyde / Stillman
Without Your Love - Johnny Lange / Stryker
Yankee Doodle Never Went To Town - Arthur Freed / Bernie Hanighan
Yesterdays - Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach
You Better Go Now - Irvin Graham / S. Bickley Reichner
You Can’t Be Mine (And Someone Else’s Too) - J.C. Johnson / C. Webb
You Can’t Lose A Broken Heart - James P. Johnson / Flournoy E. Miller
You Don’t Know What Love Is - Don Raye / Gene DePaul
You Go To My Head - Haven Gillespie / J. Fred Coots
You Gotta Show Me - Billie Holiday
You Let Me Down - Al Dubin / Harry Warren
You Showed Me The Way - Ella Fitzgerald / Teddy McRae / Chick Webb / Green
You Took Advantage Of Me - Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart
You Turned The Tables On Me - Sidney D. Mitchell / Louie Alter
You’re A Lucky Guy - Sammy Cahn / Saul Chaplin
You’re Driving Me Crazy - Walter Donaldson
You’re Gonna See A Lot Of Me - A. Hoffman / A. Goodhard / M. Curtis
You’re Just A No Account - S. Cahn / S. Chaplin
You’re My Thrill - Jay Gorney / Sidney Clare
You’re So Desirable - Ray Noble
You’re Too Lovely To Last - Teddy McRae / C. Beal / E. Fraser
You’ve Changed - Bill Carey / Carl Fischer
Your Mother’s Son-In-Law - Alberta Nichols / Mann Holiner
Yours And Mine - Arthur Freed / Nacio Herb Brown

"Equality" - Dr. Martin Luther King

"Equality" - Dr. Martin Luther King

Other Fave Billie Holiday Songs - They're ALL Faves

Billie and Coleman Hawkins.
Photographer: ?, F. Driggs Collection, 1950.

MORE THAN YOU KNOW
- Billy Rose / Edward Eliscu / Vincent Youmans

More than you know
More than you know
Man of my heart, I love you so
Lately I've found you on my mind
More than you know

Whether you're right
Whether you're wrong
Man of my heart, I'll string along
I need you so
More than you'll ever know

Loving you the way that I do
There's nothing I can do about it
Loving may be all you can give
But darling, I can't live without it

Oh, how I'd cry
How I'd sigh
If you got tired and said goodbye
More than I show
More than you'll ever know

LET'S DO IT
- Cole Porter

Chinks do it. Japs do it
Upper Lapland little Lapps do it
Let's do it
Let's fall in love

In Spain the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Lits do it
Let's do it
Let's tall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Finns
Folks in Siam do it
Think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines without means do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it
Let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams
'Gainst their wish do it
Even lazy jelly fish do it
Let's do it
Let's fall in love

Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks'em I know
Why ask if Shad do it
Waiter bring me Shad Roe

In the shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it
We'll do it
Let's do it
Let's fall in love

ST.LOUIS BLUES
- W.C. Handy

I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
'Cause, my baby, he's gone left this town
Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
I'll pack my truck and make my give-a-way

St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her
If it wasn't for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere
I got the St. Louis Blues
Blues as I can be
That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint'n rye
I love my man till the day I die

UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG
Sammy Kahn / Saul Chaplin / Mann Holiner / Alberta Nichols / L.E. Freeman

I'd wait for you
I'd slave for you
I'd be a beggar or a knave for you
If that isn't love, it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along

I'd gladly move
The earth for you
To prove my love, dear
And its worth for you
If that isn't love, it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along.

With all the words, dear, at my command
I just can't make you understand
I'll always love you darling
Come what may
My heart is yours
What more can I say?

I'd lie for you
I'd sigh for you
I'd tear the stars down from the sky for you
If that isn't love, it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along

With all the words, dear, at my command
I just can't make you understand
I'll always love you baby
Come what may
My heart is yours
What more can I say?

I'd lie for you
I'd cry for you
I'd lay my body down and die to you
If that isn't love, it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along

THE MAN I LOVE
- George and Ira Gershwin

Someday he'll come along
The man I love
And he'll be big and strong
The man I love
And when he comes my way
I'll do my best to make him stay
He'll look at me and smile
I'll understand
Then in a little while
He'll take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both won't say a word
Maybe I shall meet him Sunday
Maybe Monday, maybe not
Still I'm sure to meet him one day
Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day
He'll build a little home
That's meant for two
From which I'll never roam
Who would, would you
And so all else above
I'm dreaming of the man I love

I'M YOURS
- Johnny Green / E.Y. Harburg

Ask the sky above
And ask the earth below
Why I’m so in love
And why I love you so
Couldn't tell you though I tried do
Just why I'm yours
When you went away
You left a glowing spark
Trying to be gay as
Whistling in the dark
I am only what you make me
Come take me
I'm yours

How can I happy
I would be to beg or borrow
For sorrow
With you
Even though I knew
Tomorrow
You'd say we were through
If we drift apart
Then I'll be lost and alone
Though you use my heart
Just for a steppin’ stone
How can I help dreaming of you
I love you
I'm yours

How can I happy
I would be to beg or borrow
For sorrow
With you
Even though I knew
Tomorrow
You'd say we were through
If we drift apart
Then I'll be lost and alone
Though you use my heart
Just for a steppin’ stone
How can I help dreaming of you
I love you
I'm yours

HERE IT IS TOMORROW AGAIN
- P. Gibson / Roy Ringwald

See the house lights start to blink
And the sky is turnin' pink
Gosh what will the neighbors think
Cause here it is tomorrow again

We could share a perfect day
But we've danced the night away
Guess you'd better hit the hay
Cause here it is tomorrow again

We saw the sunset in the sky
Soon we'll see the dawn
Mother Nature's about to rise
And Father Time is marchin' on

Did you hear my daddy yell?
We've been leaning on the bell
Kiss me quick and run like sixty
Because here it is tomorrow again

"Billie Holiday" - Carole Hand, artist,

art.com

"Bluenote - Los Angeles" - La Duke, artist

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