A century ago, the famous Billie Holiday was born, whose life was filled with constant suffering. As a child, she was rejected by her family, raped at the age of 11, she smoked marijuana, alcohol and heroin completely ruined her life.
Eleanora Feigen (1915 - 1959), better known by her stage name Billie Holiday, was an American jazz singer and songwriter, also known as "Lady Day".
Her tragic fate served everyone but her; it was an inspiration, an inspiration, a subject of regret or rebuke. Many wanted to be like her, others aspired to be everything else that she is not, but the truth about the famous Billie Holiday, blues diva, is hidden under sophisticated dresses and stage make-up, under layers of discrimination and racism, where little Lady Day gives her last couple to hear another tone.
She had no education, she had no wealth, she only had her voice and her talent that erased all those shortcomings and left them exactly where they belong, at the very bottom. Music and jazz have been her passion since she was a child, when she listened to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong as brothels as an eight-year-old, but it was not possible to make money from such a passion. So long after that she cleaned other people's houses and then worked as a prostitute in order to get some money for herself and her mother.
The night it all started, as well as the night she thought it would all end for her, happened a few years after she moved to New York when she wandered the streets looking for some job to pay her rent.
She entered the bar, requested an audition for the position of dancer, played the only two steps she knew about and of course was rejected. The pianist, who played that night, feeling sorry for himself, asked Billie if she could sing, and thus she showed her phenomenal talent.
After that night, when she got the job of a singer, the young Lady Day moves up the ladder of fame, performing in clubs, recording her first records, traveling with large orchestras, both "black" and "white".
A different, defiant and unloved woman
She was good, too good as many claimed, and she was aware of that, so the other singers watched her jealously in those years when she started her music career. She never played, she could not read notes, so improvisation was her most beautiful decoration; as she says, the same song does not have to be sung in the same way every time, but the feeling in a given situation pulls her to her side, which gives her novelty and makes her fresh and different. She made many songs on her own and always brought a part of herself, a part of her emotions and her life experience into them; each song is carefully woven by her personal tragedy that has accompanied her since childhood.
Civil rights movement icon
With the song Strange Fruit, which she began singing in 1939, she dealt directly with racism. Based on the verses of Abel Meeropol, the song was a direct condemnation of the lynching of blacks, then still a regular occurrence in South American states. Columbia considered it too risky to record the song. John Hammond didn't want to sign the production either.
Strange Fruit was eventually released by Commodore Records, and the song became her biggest hit, a symbol of the civil rights movement, turning Lady Day into an icon of the American left and a social phenomenon. Time magazine declared it the song of the century.
Memories of Billie Holiday
Songs written for Billy Holiday and in which she participated, such as "Lover Man", "Hush Now", "Don't Explain" or "Long Gone Blues", are still as well known today as in her short life. But a number of other classics such as George Gershwin's hits "You Got to My Heart" or "I Can't Get Started" also gave their distinctive stamp. In addition to the white flower in her hair that "Lady Day" always wore, she was also remembered for her subtle interpretation. And even when her voice got rougher with age, Billie Holiday gave him magic with rhythm.
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