Billie Holiday

• Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan Gough to Sadie Fagan.

• She was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame under the category of early influences

• She was famously known as ‘lady day’ as coined by saxophonist Lester Young her life long friend

• Billie childhood was full of pain, including being bounced from relative to relative, being raped and later being arrested for prostitution, this influenced much of her music.

• She chose her stage name from her favorite actress Billie dove, and her father Clarence Holiday

Accomplishments

1. Her most notable songs were “Strange Fruit” a song protesting lynching's in the south, and “God Bless the Child” written by lady day herself.

2. She was the first African American to play with a white orchestra.

3. She was in a film called ‘New Orleans’4. She later went on to tour Europe and sing5. Billie holiday was most known for how she

shaped jazz into a genre full of emotions, pain, sorrow, joy, and made each word burst with feeling.

Motives

While there is no clear statements of what lady day’s motives were, I feel that they were very clear. I think that she sang first for herself. She sang to console her grief, to try and heal her wounds. Secondly I believe, especially in the case of the recording of “Strange Fruit” that she sang to be equal and to help all those who weren’t.

Contemporaries

• Billie was inspired by artist such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bessie Smith. These people all help to show what the role a strong African American can have of the world, and in music

• Billie wasn’t just inspired however, she also inspired many famous works. For instance Dianna Ross played lady day in a movie of Billie holiday’s life, and won many awards for her part. Also Regina Specter, a contemporary English singer sings a song called ‘Lady' which is all about Billie Holiday.

Strange FruitSouthern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the popular trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant southThe bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias, sweet and freshThen the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluckFor the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to dropHere is a strange and bitter cry

Link to strange fruit

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Work cited• Dominic Lizama, Billie Holiday. March 1,

CMG solutions.

• Monsieur Baudelaire's, Strange Fruit, March 1, Youtube.

• Lasting Legacies, March 1, Legacy .com