Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, often called the "Lady", was the 17th
April 1915 in Baltimore. Her mother was 13 years old, when Billie
Holiday was born.
Eleanora Gough McKay, this was her real name, spend her childhood
in the streets of Baltimore’s ghettos. There she got very early
into contact with all the bad aspects of live. When she was ten
years old she was raped by the mother’s subtenant. He got into
jail for some years and she had to go into an asylum. Billie Holiday
stayed there for a few months, although she should stay there until
she grew up. There she also learned how to get in short period to
some money. After leaving this institution she got a prostitute in a
small flat in Harlem.
In the age of 15 she was arrested for prostitution and had to go
for four months into a women-jail at Welfare Island.
After these four months she did not had any many. She tried
earning some by asking for a dancing-job in pub in Harlem. They did
not want her as a dancer, but asked her, if she could sing. So she
got singer in a pub in Harlem, a kind of "in"-pub at this
time.
Many rich people visited this pub and she got very popular. Some
of these were John Hammond and Benny Goodmann, which also worked on
the Count Basie’s career. Joe Glaser
got her manager.
In 1933 she recorded her first album with John Hammond and Benny
Goodmann. This LP was not one of the best ones, but in 1935 she
recorded her first successful LP, accompanied by Teddy Wilson’s
band. In the following years they worked very much together.
In 1946 she worked on a film called "New Orleans" with Louis
Armstrong.
On of the greatest successes were "Strange Fruit" and
"My Man".
She was, besides Ella Fitzgerald
and Bessie Smith, one of the masters in jazz-singing.
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