Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday

by Robert O'Meally

Narcotics, jail, sexual abuse, and prejudice are often our first associations concerning the life of the great jazz singer, but this biography recalls only Holiday as artist. O'Meally (English, Barnard Coll.) puts her tragedy and talent into perspective, and what emerges is a critique of a singer. The book's first section is outstanding in this regard, employing stories, quotes, and interviews in describing Holiday's technique. Holiday and William Dufty's Lady Sings the Blues ( LJ 8/56) is a serious and inspirational account; O'Meally's treatment is also serious, but he offers psychological analysis as well. Referring to the subtitle, O'Meally writes, "Through her music . . . she faced down a world full of trouble . . . her songs were confrontations." No index or footnotes are provided, but there is a large selected bibliography. - Ina M. Wise, Chicago

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If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday

by Farah Jasmine Griffin

This rumination on the famous jazz singer is a mix of hagiography, music appreciation and criticism of past biographers, yet on its own terms, it works. Griffin (Who Set You Flowin'?: The African-American Migration Narrative), associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, sets out to examine the mythic figure Holiday created over the years, but she states from the outset that her book is not meant to be a formal biography or musical study. She is, though, determined not to see Holiday as a tragic victim. Probably the best-known book about Holiday is her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, written "with" William Dufty (Griffin claims that Dufty actually created the book from talks and previously published interviews with Holiday). Griffin repeatedly points out errors in that work (e.g., it opens claiming that when Holiday was born, her mother was only 13, when in fact she was 19) and speculates as to why such errors might have been made intentionally (e.g., to portray her mother not as promiscuous but rather as the young victim of an older man). Griffin writes in a pleasant, easy tone, and many of her observations about the litany of notorious stereotypes applied to Holiday are astute, but the book suffers from a tendency to circle back over the same themes rather than expanding upon them. On several occasions, for example, Griffin compares Holiday to other artists, like Bessie Smith, L'il Kim and Mary J. Blige, only to decide that none can compete with Holiday; but then Griffin's trajectory changes again, and she devotes "the last chapter of this book... to Abbey Lincoln," whom she believes belongs in the same "pantheon" as Holiday and offers an alternative extension of her legacy. While this book sometimes wanders, in doing so it mimics the very music and elusive character it is describing; and while she has not organized her arguments in a superior fashion, Griffin engages readers throughout with her consistently intriguing observations. -- Loretta Barrett.

Readers should note that this is not a straightforward biography of Holiday (1915-59); it is more an invitation to discover a view of the singer grounded not in attention-grabbing headlines and sensationalism but in reality and, perhaps most importantly, in how Holiday's music spoke to listeners and celebrated and reflected their lives. Emotionally and intellectually, Griffin (English, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Who Set You Flowin'; Stranger in the Village) demonstrates a true fealty to Holiday's artistic achievements. Using several facets, including social and political commentary, poetry, and personal experiences, she reveals Holiday as a real person rather than a mixture of the myths and images created by managers, critics, and others who held sway over her, often not having Holiday's best interests at heart. While Griffin's book isn't the last word on Holiday, it does prove to be an excellent antidote to the often ridiculous material that has been written about Lady Day over the years. For music and African American collections. -- William G. Kenz, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhead

Release Date: 04/30/2002

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Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song

by David Margolick, Hilton Als

Recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday in 1939, "Strange Fruit" is considered to be the first significant song of the civil rights movement and the first direct musical assault upon racial lynchings in the South. Originally sung in New York's Cafe Society, these revolutionary lyrics take on a life of their own in this revealing account of the song and the struggle it personified. Strange Fruit not only chronicles the civil rights movement from the '30s on, it examines the lives of the beleaguered Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol, the white Jewish schoolteacher and communist sympathizer who wrote the song that would have an impact on generations of fans, black and white, unknown and famous, including performers Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and Sting.

About the Author

David Margolick is a contributor to Vanity Fair and the former National Legal Affairs Editor for the New York Times. A four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he is the author of Undue Influence and At the Bar. He lives in New York City.

Release Date: 01/23/2001

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Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

by Angela Y. Davis

The female blues singers of the 1920s, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Bessie Smith, not only invented a musical genre, but they also became models of how African American women could become economically independent in a culture that had not previously allowed it. Both Smith and Rainey composed, arranged, and managed their own road bands. Angela Y. Davis's study emphasizes the impact that these singers, and later Billie Holiday, had on the poor and working-class communities from which they came. The artists addressed radical subjects such as physical and economic abuse, race relations, and female sexual power, including lesbianism. Ma Rainey was well known as a lover of women as well as men, and her song "Prove It on Me" describes a butch woman who dresses like a man and dates women. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism places the fluid sexuality of these women within a larger context of African American artists' attempts to subvert and recreate America. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

In her provocative book, Davis, the well-known sixties radical, professor and author (Women, Culture, and Politics; Women, Race, and Class) finds, in the work of three pivotal artists of the blues and jazz era, "rich terrain for examining a historical feminist consciousness that reflected the lives of working-class black communities." Through her close readings of their lyrics, which she transcribed (and presents as the book's second half), Davis explores the meanings behind the performances of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith. Toppling the prevailing image of the tragic blues woman, she finds that the songs don't portray the desolate and deserted woman; rather, "the most frequent stance assumed by the women in these songs is independence and assertiveness?indeed defiance?bordering on and sometimes erupting into violence." She also offers ample evidence to dispute claims that women's blues were personal, not political, arguing that their songs created consciousness by naming the issues. Her readings of Billie Holiday's lyrics are less successful, perhaps because it is difficult to capture in words Holiday's subversive renderings of popular love songs. Still, Davis's book should be read by both scholars and music aficionados for its expressive reading of these singers' complex works.

Release Date: 01/26/1999

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Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday

Disc: 1
1. What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday
2. These Foolish Things - Billie Holiday
3. I Cried For You - Billie Holiday
4. Summertime - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
5. Billie's Blues - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
6. If You Were Mine - Billie Holiday
7. A Fine Romance - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
8. Easy To Love - Billie Holiday
9. I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
10. I Must Have That Man - Billie Holiday
11. Me, Myself And I - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
12. They Can't Take Away From Me - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
13. Easy Living - Billie Holiday
14. A Sailboat In The Moonlight - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
15. Travelin' All Alone - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
16. When A Woman Loves A Man - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
17. You Go To My Head - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
18. My Man - Billie Holiday
Disc: 2
1. I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me - Billie Holiday
2. The Very Thought Of You - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
3. I Can't Get Started - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
4. Long Gone Blues - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
5. Sugar - Billie Holiday
6. Some Other Spring - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
7. Them There Eyes - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
8. The Man I Love - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
9. Body And Soul - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
10. Swing, Brothers, Swing - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
11. Night And Day - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
12. Let's Do It - Billie Holiday
13. God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
14. Solitude - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
15. I Cover The Waterfront - Billie Holiday
16. Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
17. Until The Real Thing Comes Along - Billie Holiday
18. All Of Me - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra

Release Date: 10/02/2001

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Billie Holiday - Greatest Hits (Sony)

1. Miss Brown To You - Billie Holiday
2. What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday
3. I Cried For You - Billie Holiday
4. Billie's Blues (I Love My Man) - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
5. A Sailboat In The Moonlight - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
6. I Can't Get Started - Billie Holiday
7. When A Woman Loves A Man - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
8. Some Other Spring - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
9. Solitude - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
10. God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
11. Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
12. The Very Thought Of You - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
13. Body And Soul - Billie Holiday

So there I was on a hot and smoggy afternoon, on an L.A. Freeway stuck in rush hour traffic, with plenty of time to choose just the right music to spend the two hours it would take to go the ten miles home. Rummaging through my tapes and rejecting most, there she was..my recently purchased Billie Holiday tape. I popped it in and spent the most delightful time in my car with this music.

Billie's soulful,soothing and uniquely recognizable vocals, accompianied by such greats as The Teddy Wilson Orchestra, Count Basie and His Orchestra, Lester Young on Sax, Buck Clayton on Trumpet, Freddie Green on Guitar,Jo Jones on Drums, and many more wonderful artists,had me smiling and took me away to another time and place. I loved it so much I listened to it several times on the drive.

The album is a great mix of Blues, Standards and songs that just say "Billie!", and You may just want to sing along.This wonderful treat includes "A Sailboat in the Moonlight"(Lombardo/Loeb)), "I Can't Get Started"(Gershwin/Duke),"Solitde"(Ellington/Mills/Delange),"God Bless The Child"(Holiday/Herzog),my personal favorite, "What a Little Moonlight Can Do"(Woods), the oh so marvelous "The Very Thought of You"(Noble), and of course "Billie's Blues(I Love My Man"). There are thirteen intoxicating tracks in all(see buying info for complete list), that will have you humming them for days after.

It's a very good recording of these old songs, although a little low and does have to be turned up a few notches in volume. You'll be under the infulence of Billie from the minute you start listening...and..you won't care about that guy who just cut you off!!!!

A great addition to your Billie Holiday collection or a great way to get to know her! But watch out! You may get hooked! -- L. Shirley "Laurie's Boomer Views" (fountain valley, ca United States)

Release Date: 11/17/1998

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Love Songs

1. All Of Me
2. You Go To My Head
3. Until The Real Thing Comes Along
4. My Man
5. The Very Thought Of You
6. Easy Living
7. They Can't Take That Away From Me
8. I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
9. Them There Eyes
10. Night And Day
11. The Man I Love
12. Me, Myself And I
13. The Way You Look Together
14. If You Were Mine
15. I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
16. Let's Do It

Release Date: 03/12/1996

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