Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday
Holiday and "Mister" backstage at the Downbeat club, New York, c. June 1946
Background information
Birth name	Eleanora Fagan
Born	(1915-04-07)April 7, 1915 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Origin	Harlem, New York, U.S.
Died	July 17, 1959(1959-07-17) (aged 44) New York City, New York
Genres	Vocal jazz, jazz blues, torch songs, swing, blues, R&B
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1933–1959
Labels	Brunswick, Vocalion, Okeh, Bluebird, Commodore, Capitol, Decca, Aladdin, Verve, Columbia, MGM
Associated acts	Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Carmen McRae, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Lester Young, Tony Scott
Website	www.billieholiday.com

Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. There were other jazz singers with equal talent, but Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.

Though she was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Holiday's bad health, coupled with a string of abusive relationships and ongoing drug and alcohol abuse, caused her voice to wither. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction to her damaged voice but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. A posthumous album, Last Recording, was released following her death.