Holiday, Billie
Billie Holiday is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Her inimitable phrasing – singing slightly behind the beat – gave her songs an air of wistfulness that was purely instinctive, for she had no training or technical knowledge.
Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, she was raised in Baltimore and New York City, calling herself “Billie” after the film star Billie Dove and “Holiday” after her father, Clarence Holiday, a top jazz guitarist. She first heard jazz recordings of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith when she was working in a brothel. Having escaped from there, she worked as a singer in various Harlem nightclubs until she was discovered by the legendary record producer John Hammond, who introduced her in 1933 to Benny Goodman, with whose band she made her first recordings.
The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, © Market House Books Ltd 1998
