Black & Blue - 2020
Black & Blue is a portrait of the iconic Billie Holiday. Billie was known for her distinctive singing voice and major contribution to the Jazz and Swing era. Billie Holiday is an ongoing inspiration and credit to many legends after her time. The title of the piece refers to the battles Billie went through as an African-American woman and the blues she so transparently expressed through her music. No matter how Black or Blue, Billie would leave you in awe with ease.
“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”
- Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was born Elanora Fagan on Wednesday 7th April, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania though she spent a lot of her childhood in Baltimore. She had many traumatic experiences throughout her life. When her mother travelled north to work as a maid, she would stay in a family house with cousins, grandparents and great grandparents. Her cousins were very abusive towards her but she loved her great grandmother. Sadly, one day they fell asleep side by side and Billie awoke to find her dead. Her great grandmother’s arm was wrapped around her and was stuck so had to be broken to release her. Billie spent a month in hospital for the shock.
When she was 10 years of age she was raped by a neighbour. Despite this at the police station she was not treated like a victim but instead put in a jail cell for 2 days and then sentenced to spend time in a Catholic institution. Whist there she was once punished by being locked in a room to sleep with the body of a dead girl.
Billie was big boned and had a voluptuous figure as a young teenager. Looking older allowed her to work before school minding babies, running errands and scrubbing steps. She was active and loved boxing as well as music and singing. At a point in time, she ran errands for a whorehouse and exchanged her wages for the owner to allow her to listen to Louie Armstrong and Bessie Smith on her Victrola. Billie was crazy for the actress Billie Dove and in her own words she “borrowed her name.”
In 1928 she moved to New York City with her mum and in the 1930’s began singing in local clubs. She had no formal music training but developed her own distinctive sound. At the age of 18 she was discovered by a producer while she was performing in a Harlem jazz club. Billie Holiday became a great success in the jazz scene and worked with numerous acts. She even got the chance to work with her idol Louis Armstrong. She starred in the 1947 film New Orleans playing the role of a maid.
During her career Billie Holiday met and befriended saxophonist Lester Young, who was part of Count Basie's orchestra. He gave Holiday the nickname "Lady Day". She toured with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1937. As an African American she often experienced racism. When performing at the Fox Theatre in Detroit with Count Basie’s Orchestra Billie was forced towear black face as she looked lighter than the band members. While touring she and her fellow bandmates would receive racist abuse nearly every day and be refused access to toilets, restaurants and hotels. And when performing at venues they were often told to use different entrances to segregate them from the white attendees. The following year she worked with Artie Shaw and his orchestra and became one of the first female African American vocalist to work with a white orchestra.
Billie Holiday met Abel Meeropol, an English high school teacher from the Bronx who had written Strange Fruit, originally a protest poem written in 1937 about the lynching of African Americans in the South. On the 20th April, 1939 Billie Holiday recorded Strange Fruit. It was performed countless times at New York's Café Society, the first racially integrated nightclub in the United States. Billie Holiday was deeply moved by the lyrics though even more so because the song reminded her of her father who had died as a result of being refused aid from a hospital because he was black. The song was extremely controversial and she even received a warning from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to never sing the song again. Holiday refused and kept singing the song. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Anslinger believed Holiday to be the symbol of everything that America had to be afraid of.
Although she was a great success in the music scene her personal struggles would lead her to drug and alcohol addiction. Harry Anslinger was a widely known racist and made it his mission to take Holiday down for her addiction and relentlessly pursued her all the way up until her death. She was arrested on drug charges multiple times and spent time in jail. Her battle with drugs and alcohol was taking its toll on her voice and career. She managed to make a few more albums and even undertook a European tour in 1954 before her demons got the better of her. Holiday still couldn't manage to part ways with her heroin habit, despite her poor physical condition. She died at the age of 44 on the 17th July 1959 from liver disease.
Billie Holiday was a resilient woman who faced endless obstacles in her lifetime. Though despite her ongoing battles she became one of the world’s most influential jazz musicians and touched the masses with the unique and distinct sound she crafted and the deep blues she so transparently expressed.