Today is Billie Holiday's Birthday

Her legendary voice still haunts listeners. Billie Holiday will always be the standard.

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child", "Don't Explain", "Fine and Mellow", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing "Easy Living", "Good Morning Heartache", and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording. Music critic Robert Christgau called her "uncoverable, possibly the greatest singer of the century".

Enjoy the music:










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Woman rapes a dead man and gets pregnant

Image
So, stop me if you've heard this one. Woman has a last romp with a dead man and gets pregnant. No, this isn't the beginning of a short story, this is a true story . A 38 year old female mortuary worker is being held on $250,000 bond after becoming pregnant by one of her clients-a dead man. The alleged crime took place at the Mourning Glory Mortuary just outside of Lexington, Missouri. Police have charged Felicity Marmaduke with desecration of the dead and necrophilia. According to a statement made to police by Marmaduke, the alleged victim experienced a post mortem erection while being bathed. Being alone, Marmaduke straddled the dead man and proceeded have sex with him. Much to her surprise, the alleged victim came to orgasm after several minutes. A few weeks later, Marmaduke had a positive pregnancy test while receiving a routine medical exam. Upon telling her doctor the circumstances leading to the conception, the police were notified. Marmaduke was
Read more

Django Unchained or The live version of Catcher Freeman

Image
Forget what Spike Lee has to say about Django Unchained , I want to know if Aaron McGruder recognized his work on the big screen. After reading what Quentin Tarantino said about Roots , I had plans to sit this one out. Then I got an invite to see it.  Tarantino called out Roots as inauthentic as a part of his battle with Lee, who accurately said Django was disrespectful to his ancestors. About ten minutes into this overly long spaghetti western/blaxplotation flick, I wanted to make a tee shirt that would read, SPIKE WAS RIGHT.  Tarantino should've made a western with a black hero -- the slavery aspect of the movie was just so unnecessary. Granted, this movie is a work of fiction and not based on any historical slavery story. And yes, people go to the movies to be entertained, but overly violent movies aren't entertaining to me. However, I digress.  The fact that some many people are talking about how "original" this movie is proves one thing: Y'all don
Read more

We can be so petty

Image
Sixteen year old Gabby Douglas won a gold medal in the London Olympics. She's the first African American to ever, EVER, win gold in the all around gymnastics. And you petty people are talking about her hair? And when I say YOU PEOPLE, I'm looking at the media. The Huffington Post : I really thought you all were more progressive than this. I guess your progression stops at the African American hairline. The New York Times points out how people weren't happy for Gabby. It kind of only matters that her mother, her beautiful mother, was over the moon proud of her child. And at the end of the day -- this is all that matters: Douglas, a 16-year-old who left her Virginia Beach, Va., home and her family when she was 14 so she could train and learn better gymnastics in Iowa, won the Olympic gold medal Thursday at the North Greenwich Arena. She led from start to finish, scoring 62.232 and leaving a pair of Russians, Victoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina, as disconsolate silv
Read more