VOICES IN THE SKY.....Billie Holiday
Born Eleanora Fagan on 7 April 1915 and abandoned by her parents as a baby, former teenage prostitute Billy Holiday’s troubled upbringing in 1920’s Maryland remains pivotal to one of the greatest jazz voices of the 20th century.
At 22 she joined Count Basie and his band but had a row and was fired a year later. Then she joined bandleader Artie Shaw.
Billie embarked on a musical career that was dogged by personal turmoil, including heroin addiction and an abusive marriage to a Mafia enforcer.
In 1959, she collapsed after two numbers at a Greenwich Village concert and went into hospital with cardiac failure and liver problems.
Lady Day, as she was known, died on 17 July 1959 at the age of 44, leaving behind a legacy of performances that mirrored a lifetime of drugs, violence and heartache. The official cause of death was listed as lung congestion complicated by heart failure.
Finest Recordings, 2024
Коментари
Постави коментар