THE GREAT BILLIE HOLIDAY---CLICK VIEW MORE COMMENTS TO SEE THE GREAT CLIPS---------10/28/2014 After many years with Count Basie, Billie Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to Strange Fruit, a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym Lewis Allan for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in Strange Fruit reminded her of her fathers death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it. Holiday left Columbia records and returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s like I Cover The Waterfront, Ill Get By, and Hes Funny That Way. She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, My Old Flame, How Am I To Know?, Im Yours, and Ill Be Seeing You, a Bing Crosby number one hit. She also recorded her version of Embraceable You, which would later be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005. God Bless the Child became Holidays most popular and covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboards songs of the year, selling over a million records. Milt Gabler became an A&R man for Decca Records as well as owning Commodore Records, and he signed Holiday to the label on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first recording for Decca was Lover Man (#16 Pop, No. 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 40s. Gabler said: I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. They were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. I went on my knees to him, Holiday said. I didnt want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me.[ On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record Lover Man and saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata said she was overwhelmed with joy. By the 1950s, Holidays drug abuse, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy. Holidays autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released an LP in June 1956 entitled Lady Sings the Blues. The album featured four new tracks, Lady Sings the Blues (title track), Too Marvelous for Words, Willow Weep for Me, and I Thought About You, as well as eight new recordings of Holidays biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included Travlin Light Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child. On December 22, 1956, Billboard magazine reviewed Lady Sings the Blues, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. Holiday is in good voice now, said the reviewer, and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following. Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child were called classics, and Good Morning Heartache, another reissued track in the LP, was also noted positively. On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall, a major accomplishment for any artist, especially a black artist of the segregated period of American history.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 16:19:11 +0000
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