1. “I have to change a tune
to my own way of doin’
it. That’s all i know.”
Billie
Holiday

2. Early Life
• Born April 7 1915 to Sadie Fagan.
• Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia despite the
popular belief that she was born in Baltimore.
• Her real name is not Billie Holiday, but Eleanora
Fagan. She took the first name of Billie Dove and
her father’s last name for her stage name.

3. Early Life
• Billie spent most of her childhood in Baltimore.
• Her father was believed to be the relatively
successful jazz musician Clarence Holiday. He had
very little part in her life growing up.
• Much of her childhood was spent with relatives
while her mother worked. Some of these friends
and relatives were known to be abusive.

4. Early Life
• Because Billie often skipped school, her mother was
taken to court for her truancy. The court sent her
to her first reform school because of this.
• When she was released the first time she went back
not long after. This time because she was accused
of seducing the man who raped her.
• After being released for the second time she turned
to prostitution.

5. Musical Beginnings
• From a very young age,
Billie was comforted by and
found solace in music. It
helped her deal with her
difficult childhood. She used
to sing along to the records
of Louis Armstrong and
Bessie Smith.

6. Musical Beginnings
• While working in the brothels of Harlem, New
York, Billie listened to a lot of jazz. She soon began
singing in nightclubs around the city.
• This was when she renamed herself Billie Holiday.
• At age eighteen, she was discovered by the
producer John Hammond while performing in
Harlem. Hammond was a crucial part of Billie
Holiday’s early years.

7. Musical Beginnings
• Thanks to Hammond, she got work with the
Clarinetist Benny Goodman singing vocals for a few
of the tracks.
• Her first recordings were all meant to be second
rate tracks specifically intended for African
American listeners. But Billie turned them into
masterpieces.
• In 1935, she also appeared in the film Symphony in
Black with Duke Ellington.

8. Musical Beginnings
• In 1935, she recorded
several singles including:
“What a Little Moonlight
Can Do” and “Miss Brown
to You.”

9. Musical Beginnings
• In 1937 she toured with
Count Basie. This allowed
her to later join Artie Shaw’s
group. She was the first
black singer to ever perform
with an all white band.
• Lester Young gave Holiday
the nickname Lady Day in
this same year.

10. Career
• Her stint with Artie Shaw’s group did not last very
long. She ended up leaving because of lack of
support from racist promoters are segregated
venues.
• Fed up with the racism endured while on tour, she
settled down at the first fully interracial club called
Cafe Society.
• Cafe Society was like a merger of European dinner
theatre and a black jazz club.

11. Career
• In her time at Cafe Society, Billie really developed
her signature style of singing and appearance. She
wore black gardenias in her hair and held her head
back when she sang.
• She debuted the songs “God Bless the Child” and
“Strange Fruit” while at Cafe Society.
• Many of Holiday’s songs reflected on stromy
relationships.

12. Career
• Some of these songs include
“My Man” and “T’ain’t
Nobody’s Business if I Do.”
• These songs reflect personal
abusive relationships and
experiences.

13. Billie Holiday’s voice has been
described as: expressive,
untrained, melancholic, rough,
and distinctively phrased.

14. Strange Fruit
• Strange Fruit is a song performed by Billie Holiday
and written by Abel Merropol. It is about the
southern lynchings of their time and the times
before.
• The song was so controversial that Colombia
Records was not willing to record Billie’s version
and many radio stations banned it.
• Many believe that the fact that radio stations
banned the song made it even more popular.

15. Strange Fruit
• Strange Fruit, despite it’s early arrival, helped
shape the civil rights movement. This haunting
song of mourning spurred activism in both the
black and white communities and fed the anti-
lynching campaign.
• Lyrics from this song were even sent to every
member of congress in hopes to achieve some sort
of anti-lynching legislation.

16. Strange Fruit
• The song was originally
written by Abel Meeropol, a
Jewish American school
teacher from the Bronx, as a
poem inspired by a picture.
The piece was later turned
into a song and with the
help of the owner of Cafe
Society, Billie was convinced
to sing it.

17. Strange
Fruit
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=s9FZMHNhJ80

18. Strange Fruit
• Meeropol, along with other artists and progressive
thinkers of the time, was taken in for questioning
by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
• They accused him and others for being members of
the communist party because of their anti-lynching
views.
• Despite all this, Strange Fruit was the number 16
popular songs just days after its release.

19. Importance and Legacy
• Billie Holiday has been said to synthesize the
quality of almost any singer who came before her.
And those who came after her looked for clues
from her as to what to do vocally.
• She crafted lyrics like those found in Strange Fruit
with her powerful expression and haunting voice
into a deep song with lots of feeling. Despite her
reluctance at first to take on the song, she
recognized its importance. The anger she felt about
the atrocities suffered by her people fed the feeling.

20. Personal Life and
Decline
• In 1941, Holiday married James Monroe and took
up his serious habit of opium.
• Even after this abusive and strained relationship
ended, her drug habits did not.
• For years Holiday had been a known user of
cannabis and alcohol, but she turned to more harsh
substances in little time.

21. Personal Life and
Decline
• In 1947, Holiday was arrested for the possession of
drugs. This caused her to be in jail for eight months
and lose her Cabaret License which meant she
could no longer play in bars or nightclubs.
• This loss of the ability to perform caused her to
return to the recording studios. But with her voice
slowly deteriorating, she found it difficult to
manage.

22. Late Musical Life
• The mid-nineteen fifties was
when Billie toured Europe.
• She also wrote her
autobiography, “Lady Sings
the Blues.”
• But relationships with
abusive lovers enabled drug
use and wasted away her
life’s earnings.

23. Decline
• Billie Holiday epitomized
the notion of the romantic
ideal performer. A struggling
artist. She was constantly
fighting back destructive
urges and demons in order
to create beautiful art.

24. Billie Holiday died on July 17,
1959

25. A few Quotes
• “I never hurt nobody but myself, and that’s
nobody’s business but my own.” -Holiday
• “No two people on Earth are alike, and its gotta be
that way in music or it isn’t music.” -Holiday

26. Bibliography
• "Billie Holiday Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 27 July 2012. <http://www.biography.com/people/
billie-holiday-9341902>.
• Strange Fruit. Directed by Joel Katz. 2002. California Newsreel. Independent Lens.
• Photo Credits
• "Billie Holiday." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 08 Feb. 2012. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Billie_Holiday>.
• "Musicians Who Died on This Date." Musicians Who Died on This Date. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://today-
this-musician-died.blogspot.com/>.
• "Swotti - Billie Holiday, The Most Relevant Opinions." Swotti. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Aug. 2012. <http://
swotti.starmedia.com/musicbands/billie-holiday_18977.htm>.
• http://www.last.fm/music/Billie+Holiday/+images/36278783
• "Billie Holiday Albums." BILLIE HOLIDAY. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://www.lyricspond.com/artist-billie-
holiday>.

27. Bibliography cont.
• "Protest Songs." : 1920's Artist: Abel Meeropol Aka "Lewis Allan" N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://
protestsongs20thcentury.blogspot.com/2009/01/artist-abel-meeropol-lewis-allen.html>.
• "Lyrics and Literacy." : Hate and Hope. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://lyricsandliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/billie-
holiday-strange-fruit.html>.
• "Get It How You Live." (paula Patton as Billie Holiday.). N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2012. <http://stoicallyemotive.tumblr.com/
post/7058257435>.
• "Billie-Holiday.com." Billie-Holiday.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Aug. 2012. <http://www.billie-holiday.com/>.
• "Contrarian Quarterly." : Billie Holiday Bday / Night in Tunisia. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Aug. 2012. <http://elissa.typepad.com/cq/
2005/04/happy_bday_bill.html>.