Billie Holiday - 1915-1959
American Singer and Songwriter
I have loved the sound of Billie Holiday's voice for as long as I can remember. Instantly recognisable, haunting and emotional. I have found myself in tears so many times just by getting lost in the spirit of what she is singing. And if you wonder how a voice alone can carry so much emotion, well Billie's early life was filled with so much despair and heartache, emotion must have be oozing from her pores.
Billie was an illegitimate child, her mother just thirteen years old at the time of giving birth. Due to the necessity to work, Billie (or Eleanora, as she was back then) spent much of her early life cared for by a family member. She often truanted from school, this seeing her in court before the age of 10, she had completely dropped out of school at age 11.
Billie was raped by a neighbour, still aged just 11 years old. At 14, both she and her mother found themselves working as prostitutes, they were arrested for this and both served time in prison. It was whilst working in a brothel that Billie first begin to perform as a singer.
She made her recording début aged 18 and the rest, as they say, is history.
Like many of the greats, Billie had her battles with booze and drugs. She was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver but continued to drink. In the same year she was taken to hospital, suffering from liver and heart disease. As she lay in the hospital dying, she was arrested for drug possession. She remained in the hospital, under police guard, until she took her last breath.
She died with $0.70 in her bank account.
Crikey I didn't know about her life. Amazing stuff Sal! x
ReplyDelete