Essay On Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was known for being an awesome Jazz singer. She was born April 7th, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a teenage Sadie Fagan.1

Holiday’s father (Believed to be Clarence Holiday, who was a successful jazz musician.) Left Sadie and Holiday. He did not acknowledge billie at all until after her first big success in jazz singing. 2 Holiday started skipping school, and her mother went to court over her absence. In January of 1925, Holiday was sent to a facility for troubled african american girls. She was the supposed to be there until an adult, but went back home in August the same year.3 Soon after, Holiday’s mother also left her and moved to new york, Holiday also moved to New York as well.4 around 1930, at the age of 15(ish)

Holiday began singing in local clubs.5

Holiday’s young adult life is when she started getting known. While in New York, she helped her mother around the house with housework,. She first got some publicity in 1933. While trying in a dance audition, she was asked if she could sing. Obviously, she could. After more singing at different places, John Hammond, a newspaper writer, put here in a column. This got Benny Goodman’s, a Jazz group leaders, attention. Goodman asked Holiday if she wanted to join them. She did. Holiday made her first debut on November 27, 1933.6

In Holiday’s Later life, she got into some trouble.

She continued to sing, but, in 1947, she was arrested and sent to prison for nine months due to having illegal drugs (heroin). In 1956, She wrote an Autobiography called “Lady Sings the Blues”. Nowadays, they made a movie after this book, also called “Lady Sings the Blues”.
After she wrote this book, she was, again, arrested for having illegal drugs. This time, however, Holiday was not put in prison. Instead, the police sent her to seek treatment to stop her dependence on these drugs. After a while, she found treatment, and the treatment she found worked. Even though she was no longer addicted to these drugs, The drugs ruined her health.

During her second major singing, in 1959, she sang two songs, and during the third, she had to be carried off the stage. She died later due to illnesses caused by the drugs she used to be dependent on, and alcohol. She was only 44.

Billie Holiday was not a very notable person until, in 1933, she got some publicity. She was very good at what she did, and she was very well known, but she lost her fight against drugs in 1959, when she had to be carried off-stage at her last performance, after singing only two songs.7 She had a huge influence on many other singers and jazz muscitionists of that

time.8