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.