Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 - July 17, 1959; born Eleanora Fagan Gough in Baltimore, Maryland, USA), also known as Lady Day, was an American singer generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices of all time, alongside Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. She sang with jazz greats like Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw - but it was her voice that was said to dominate the music of many others. Holiday was working for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to a song entitled Strange Fruit, which began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym ???Lewis Allen??? for the work. The poem was set to music and performed at teachers??? union meetings, where it was eventually heard by the manager of Cafe Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that - by her own admission - left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in ???Strange Fruit??? reminded her of her father???s death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it. She approached Columbia about recording the song, but was refused due to the subject matter of the song. She arranged to record it with Commodore (Milt Gabler???s alternative jazz label) in 1939. She would
1 | Big Stuff (First Version) | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
2 | What Shall I Say? | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
3 | I Loves You Porgy | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
4 | Don't Explain | Billie Holiday: The Complete Decca Recordings |
5 | Everything Happens For The Best | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
6 | Hello, My Darling | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
7 | My Man (Mon Homme) (Previously Unissued Alternativ | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
8 | Solitude | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
9 | Under A Blue Jungle Moon | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
10 | My Man (Remix) | Mezzanine De L'Alcazar Vol.4 - Dinner time (Disc 1 |
11 | Strange Fruit | Verve Remixed |
12 | You Can't Lose A Broken Heart (With Louis Armstron | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
13 | Girls Were Made To Take Care Of Boys | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
14 | Please Tell Me Now | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
15 | Big Stuff (Previously Unissued Breakdown And Chatt | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
16 | Good Morning Heartache | Billie Holiday: The Complete Decca Recordings |
17 | Easy Living | The Complete Decca Recordings |
18 | You've Changed | Columbia Jazz Masterpiece Sampler, Vol. 1 |
19 | Baby, I Don't Cry Over You (Previously Unissued Al | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
20 | Guilty (Previously Unissued Breakdown And Chatter) | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |