She was born Eleanora Fagan on this day in 1915, but Lady Day is best known as Billie Holiday, the divine voice which was ranked fourth in Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was the lady "who changed jazz forever." As is sometimes the case, life did not treat her as she deserved; she died of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver at age 44, a victim of alcohol and drug abuse. At her death, her bank account totaled 70 cents, less than $7.50 in today's money, and was under house arrest in her hospital room for narcotics possession. She deserved better.
If she had done nothing else in her entire life, she gave us this song:
"Strange Fruit"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGY9HvChXk
But she also gave us these, and many others.
"Blue Moon"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4bZu56EylA
"Riffin' the Scotch"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1oajFwui-Q
"Summertime"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THflqYOqm3A
"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs4AUuZ9TKk
"God Bless the Child"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp349H8G0XQ
"Trav'lin Light"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnYINIgIvH0
"Lover Man"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soJwavwA-Os"
"Solitude"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiU-O8arVa8
"My Man"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvo9oeRh2E
"Crazy He Calls Me"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-qY58CB00U
"Embraceable You"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VaaGLNfrhI
"The Way You Look Tonight"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKa0ApHEtYA
"I'll Be Seeing You"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C5zYKIuoxg
"Gloomy Sunday"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ2AuLaClmk
"Easy Living"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ2AuLaClmk
We were lucky to have her for the brief time that we did.
Indeed.
ReplyDeleteLinking to the Commodore recordings en masse, at least on YT, less easy than it used to be, now that the Atlantic LP/album STRANGE FRUIT link is gone (for now, at least). I still remember first listening to that album as a kid...her reading of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" stuck with me as hard as "Strange Fruit" and "Gloomy Sunday"...Frank Sinatra's "all those chicks at my feet" version, first audited by me shortly thereafter, was rather an abrupt come-down.
BTW the tv series about recapturing precisely 100 escaped damned souls you recalled on George's blog the other day was BRIMSTONE, one of the several others I was groping through memory for, as well.
ReplyDeleteNo. I'm thinking of another, earlier one; it actually had the word "100" in the title. Damn my Swiss cheese memory!
DeleteNope. I was way off. It was THE 100 DEATHS OF BLACK JACK SAVAGE Daniel Hugh Kelly starred as a corrupt guy who tamed up with ghost pirate Black Jack Savage to save 100 people and avoid going to Hell. It only lasted for seven episodes in 1991. Roma Downey co-starred. It was first a TV movie, introducing the Disney series. (Michael Eisner appeared as himself in two episodes. Other episodes featured Tobin Bell, Michael Chiklis, Caroliine Williams, and Paul Ben-Victor.) Glen Morgan, James Wong, and Stephen J. Cannell were credited as co-creators.
DeleteOr was it 113? Probably they lowered their sites, if they announced 113 initially. John Glover good as Satan, I recall.
ReplyDelete