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 | Guilty (Previously Unissued Breakdown And Chatter) | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
2 | This Is Heaven To Me | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
3 | My Man (Mon Homme) (Previously Unissued Alternativ | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
4 | Gimme A Pigfoot (And A Bottle Of Beer) | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
5 | Solitude | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
6 | The Blues Are Brewin' | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
7 | 'Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do (Previously Unis | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 2) |
8 | God Bless The Child | A Women's Voice |
9 | Guilty | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
10 | Dream Of Life | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
11 | Let's Dream In The Moonlight | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
12 | Under A Blue Jungle Moon | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
13 | Baby, I Don't Cry Over You (Previously Unissued Al | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
14 | Long Gone Blues | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
15 | Big Stuff | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
16 | You're Too Lovely To Last | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
17 | What Shall I Say? | Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 7: 1938-1939 |
18 | Don't Explain | Billie Holiday: The Complete Decca Recordings |
19 | No More (Alternate) | The Complete Decca Recordings (Disc 1) |
20 | Baby Get Lost | Billie Holiday: The Complete Decca Recordings |