Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American singer known for her work in jazz and swing music. Her friend and music partner, Lester Young, gave her the nickname "Lady Day." Holiday made important contributions to jazz and pop singing. Her singing style, influenced by jazz musicians, helped create new ways to use rhythm and timing in music. She was recognized for her expressive voice and ability to improvise.

After a difficult childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem. A producer named John Hammond heard her and liked her voice. In 1935, she signed a recording contract with Brunswick. Her work with Teddy Wilson led to the popular song "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," which became a well-known jazz standard. During the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had success with record companies like Columbia and Decca. However, by the late 1940s, she faced legal problems and struggled with drug use. After a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She continued to have successful concerts in the 1950s, including two more sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Later in her career, her voice changed, and her final recordings received mixed reactions, though they were somewhat successful. Her last album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died on July 17, 1959, at age 44, due to cirrhosis and heart failure.

Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all given after her death, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, she was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame stated that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever." She was named one of the 50 Great Voices by NPR and ranked fourth on the Rolling Stone list of "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" (2023). Several films about her life have been made, including The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).

Life and career

Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia to an African American couple, Clarence Halliday and Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan (née Harris). Sadie moved to Philadelphia at age 19 after being forced to leave her parents' home in Baltimore, Maryland, because she became pregnant. Without help from her parents, Sadie arranged for Eleanora to live with her older married half-sister, Eva Miller, in Baltimore.

Soon after Eleanora was born, her father left the family to pursue a career as a jazz musician. Some historians believe the name on her birth certificate, "Frank DeViese," is incorrect. Others think it might have been a mistake made by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie, who used her maiden name Harris at the time, may have met him through her work. Sadie married Philip Gough in 1920, but the marriage ended after a few years.

Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a difficult childhood. Her mother worked on passenger trains, and Eleanora was mostly raised by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller. Sadie was often absent, and Eleanora spent her first decade of life in the care of others. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, Eleanora described her early life with some inconsistencies. However, these details were later confirmed by a biographer, Stuart Nicholson, in 1995.

At age nine, Eleanora attended Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore but often skipped classes. This led to her being taken to the juvenile court, where she was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school for girls. There, she was locked in a room with a dead girl as punishment for misbehavior. This experience deeply upset her, and she later said she dreamed about it and woke up screaming for years. After nine months, she was released in October 1925 and returned to her mother, who had opened a restaurant called the East Side Grill. Eleanora dropped out of school at age 11.

On December 24, 1926, Sadie returned home to find a neighbor trying to attack Eleanora. Eleanora fought back, and the man was arrested. Officials sent Eleanora back to the House of the Good Shepherd for protection as a witness in the case. She was released in February 1927 and found work running errands in a brothel and cleaning homes. Around this time, she first heard recordings by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. She especially admired the song "West End Blues," particularly the scat section with the clarinet. By the end of 1928, Sadie moved to Harlem, New York, leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller again. Eleanora joined her mother in Harlem by early 1929.

As a teenager, Eleanora began singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She chose her stage name, "Holiday," from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her father. At first, she used her father's birth surname, "Halliday," but later changed it to "Holiday." She performed with a neighbor, saxophonist Kenneth Hollan, from 1929 to 1931 at clubs like the Grey Dawn and the Brooklyn Elks Club. Benny Goodman remembered hearing her in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her fame grew, she performed at clubs such as the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a singer who later worked with Chick Webb. During this time, she also reunited with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.

In late 1932, 17-year-old Eleanora replaced Monette Moore at Covan's, a club in Harlem. Producer John Hammond, who had heard Moore sing, first heard Eleanora there in early 1933. Hammond helped Eleanora record her first songs in November 1933 with Benny Goodman. She recorded "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch," the latter becoming her first hit. Hammond praised her voice, saying she reminded him of a jazz genius and compared her favorably to Louis Armstrong.

In 1935, Eleanora had a small role in Duke Ellington's film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life, where she sang "Saddest Tale." That same year, Hammond signed her to Brunswick Records to record pop songs with pianist Teddy Wilson. Their collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," which became her most famous song. Brunswick initially wanted her to sound like another singer, Cleo Brown, but after the song's success, they recognized her as a unique artist. She later recorded under her own name for Vocalion Records.

A frequent musical partner was saxophonist Lester Young, who had stayed at her mother's house in 1934. Young called her "Lady Day," and she called him "Prez." He said their music sounded like it came from the same mind.

In late 1937, Eleanora briefly sang with Count Basie's big band. The band traveled frequently and performed in clubs across cities. Eleanora chose the songs she sang and helped arrange them, often focusing on themes of love and heartbreak. Songs like "Summertime," from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, became hits. Basie noted that Eleanora had a strong say in how the band performed her songs. Some of her recordings with Basie, such as "I Can't Get Started," are still available today.

Illness and death

Health problems from years of drug and alcohol use led to Holiday's death. By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis. Although she had stopped drinking as her doctor instructed, she soon began drinking again. By May 1959, she had lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg). Her manager, Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and her friends tried to convince her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver and heart disease. While in the hospital, agents from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) came to her room and placed her under house arrest, handcuffing her to the bed for narcotics possession. On July 15, Holiday received last rites. Two days later, she died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m., from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis.

In her final years, Holiday was tricked out of her money by McKay and died with $0.70 in the bank. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband was reported on NPR in 2012. Her funeral took place on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. Michael P. Grace ll, a songwriter and theater producer in Manhattan, paid for the funeral.

Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who announced Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday, described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:

When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000 ($11,044.52 in 2025), and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print.

Holiday's public recognition grew after her death. In 1961, she was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, and Columbia reissued nearly 100 of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross's portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy Awards.

Singer Adelaide Hall secretly visited Holiday at Metropolitan Hospital on or around June 12, 1959. Hall's account of the visit was recorded by journalist Max Jones in 1988. Hall's friend, Iain Cameron Williams, and author of Hall's biography, knew about the visit but did not share the information publicly until 2022, after finding transcripts of Jones's tape. George Jacobs claims Frank Sinatra also visited Holiday on her deathbed and promised to provide her with heroin she wanted.

Artistry

Holiday's singing style made her performances easy to recognize throughout her career. Her ability to improvise helped her succeed even though she did not have formal musical training. Holiday said she wanted her voice to sound like an instrument. She was influenced by trumpeter Louis Armstrong and singer Bessie Smith. Early in her career, she sometimes asked her instrumentalists to stop and repeat an improvised musical line if she thought she could use it in a song.

Holiday's final major recording, a 1958 album called Lady in Satin, included a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis. In 1997, Ellis said about the album:

Frank Sinatra was influenced by Holiday's performances on 52nd Street during his youth. In 1958, Sinatra told Ebony magazine about how her music affected him.

Scholarly interpretations

Several scholars have studied the wider social and political messages in Holiday's music. Angela Y. Davis wrote that some of Holiday's songs showed ideas about personal freedom and emotional strength for Black women. In her book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Davis mentions the song "T'ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do" as an example of Holiday using her voice to challenge expectations about how people should behave and their roles in society.

Davis also discusses Holiday's performance of "Strange Fruit," describing it as one of the first and most important songs in American music that spoke out against racial violence. Scholars note that Holiday continued to sing the song even when faced with professional and legal challenges. Her way of performing the song helped draw national attention to the issue of lynching. These interpretations connect Holiday to a long history of African American music used to protest injustice and have influenced how later writers understand her artistic and political importance.

Accolades and legacy

Billie Holiday was given several Esquire magazine awards during her lifetime. After her death, she was honored with induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was built in Baltimore. The statue was completed in 1993 and includes panels showing images inspired by her famous song "Strange Fruit." The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in the Upton neighborhood of Baltimore. Holiday is also shown in a Romare Bearden mosaic at the Upton metro station. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.

In the book The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Jazz, jazz historian Loren Schoenberg said, "no one would dispute that Billie Holiday is the definitive Jazz Singer."

Frank O'Hara's poem from 1959, "The Day Lady Died," ends with a description of Holiday performing at the Five Spot Café near the end of her career and the effect of that performance on her audience. The song "Angel of Harlem" by the Irish rock band U2, released as a single in December 1988, was written as a tribute to Holiday. In 1994, the United States Postal Service released commemorative stamps showing Holiday's image as part of the "Legends of American Music" series. In 2019, Time magazine created 89 new covers to honor women of the year starting from 1920; it chose Holiday for 1939.

The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Diana Ross, who also won a Golden Globe Award for her role.

Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels wanted to show Holiday's legacy as "a civil rights leader… not just a drug addict or a jazz singer." The film also shows Holiday's bisexuality and her relationship with Tallulah Bankhead. Day won a Golden Globe and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress but did not win.

Holiday is the main character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. The play takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination. In 2014, she won a Tony Award. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews from the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.

Holiday was portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in the episode "God Bless the Child" of the CBS television series Touched by an Angel.

Discography

Billie Holiday recorded music for several record companies. From 1933 to 1942, Columbia Records released her songs through its other companies, Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records, and OKeh Records. In 1939 and 1944, she recorded for Commodore Records. From 1944 to 1950, she worked with Decca Records. She briefly recorded for Aladdin Records in 1951. From 1952 to 1957, she recorded for Verve Records and its earlier version, Clef Records. She returned to Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finished her recording career with MGM Records in 1959. Before long-playing vinyl records became popular, many of Holiday’s songs were released on 78-rpm records. Only Clef, Verve, and Columbia released albums during her lifetime that were not collections of older songs. After her death, many collections of her music were released, including full sets of her recordings and live performances.

In 1986, Joel Whitburn’s company, Record Research, gathered information about the popularity of songs from before the rock and roll era. The company published its findings in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday’s songs are listed on the pop charts created by Whitburn.

Holiday began her recording career with a song called “Riffin’ the Scotch,” which sold 5,000 copies. It was released under the name “Benny Goodman & His Orchestra” in 1933.

Many of Holiday’s early songs were released under the name “Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra.” During this time, she sang a few lines before other musicians took turns playing solos. Wilson, a famous jazz pianist, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. Together, they recorded 95 songs.

In July 1936, Holiday began releasing songs under her own name. These songs were released under the band name “Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra.” One of her most famous songs, “Summertime,” sold well and reached number 12 on the pop charts. This was the first time the song appeared on a chart. A later version by Billy Stewart reached number 10 in 1966.

In 1937, Holiday had 16 best-selling songs, making it her most successful year. That year, she had her only number one hit on the pop charts, “Carelessly.” Another popular song, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray, and Fred Astaire. Holiday’s version ranked number 6 on the year-end chart for 1937.

In 1939, Holiday recorded her most successful song, “Strange Fruit,” for Commodore Records. It reached number 16 on the pop charts for the 1930s.

In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, including the Best Selling Retail Records chart, which later became the Hot 100. None of Holiday’s songs appeared on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only listed the top ten songs in some issues. Songs that were not major hits or from independent labels were not highlighted.

In 1941, “God Bless the Child” sold over a million copies and ranked number 3 on Billboard’s year-end top songs list.

On October 24, 1942, Billboard started publishing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday’s songs appeared on the chart: “Trav’lin’ Light” with Paul Whiteman, which reached number 1, and “Lover Man,” which reached number 5. “Trav’lin’ Light” also reached number 18 on Billboard’s year-end R&B chart.

Filmography

• 1933: The Emperor Jones, worked as an extra
• 1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
• 1947: New Orleans
• 1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet

(1) = Can be found on audio
(2) = Can be found on DVD