Billie Holiday Research Papers

Billie Jo a girl born in Oklahoma Panhandle 1920. She loved playing piano. Her life had many obstacles that affected her physically and emotionally. But worst of all she had family problems.

In 1924 she went back to live with her mother, traveling and being schooled all over the state until she was fourteen. At the age of fourteen she decided to drop out of school and go to work. Because she was talented and light skinned it was not hard for her to find a job. She became a chorus girl in Harlem’s Cotton

It is said that this hard lifestyle began to affect her work. Her songs were no longer filled with youthful emotions, but a sort of bitter regret. Even with the change in her music still had a great impact on other artists of her time and later. (www.numberonestars.com, 2010)

     During 1936, Holiday toured with groups led by Jimmie Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson, then went back to New York for several more recording sessions. In later January of 1937, she recorded several songs with a small group from one of Hammond's newest discoveries, Count Basie's Orchestra. Tenor Lester Young, who'd known Billie from previous engagements, and trumpeter Buck Clayton were

“I’m always making a comeback but nobody even tells me where i’ve been’’ stated Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday was one of the greatest jazz vocalists of her time. She had a music involved childhood, a career in jazz music and also a unique element to her career. In fact, Holiday’s love for music started when she was very young.

The 1930’s was a decade of extremely hard times, following the stock market crash and an extreme depression. In spite of the tremendous hardships in America during this decade, it also became a time of great music that is still remembered today. Jazz music was highly popular in this time, and Billie Holiday was a famous jazz performer. She stood out from many other musicians because of her intense and passionate performances. Jazz arose from “unacceptable” segments of society, but quickly grew like wildfire. We often think of the 1930’s as the decade that jazz became civilized, and famous throughout popular culture through the work of pioneering artists like Billie Holiday. People did not own televisions or cable, so radio was their main source of entertainment, and music during this decade was both up beat and a source of relaxation. “Strange Fruit” defied musical category because it was considered too artsy to be folk, and too explicitly political to fit into jazz. This is why “Strange Fruit” became such a powerful phenomenon. Many other artists later took on this song, changing the genre but still portraying the same message. Nina Simone dramatized “Strange Fruit” in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. More important artists like Jeff Buckley, Rene Marie, Labor Camp Orchestra, and many others made their own rendition on the song, still leaving all of their audiences moved by the powerful imagery of the lyrics.

Marilyn Reese Sheppard was a rich Cleveland physician. She was the wife of Dr, Samuel Sheppard. She was born in April 1923, in Cleveland Ohio. Marilyn was murdered on July 4th 1954 in Bay Village Ohio. She was found in the couples lake house brutally beat to death with about 20 to 30 blows to the head. Her son, Sam Reese, who was seven years old, was in the room next to his mothers during the murder. Her husband Samuel was sleeping on the couch that night when he woke to what he thought was his wife calling his name. He went to the bedroom and found his wife being beaten by a “bushy haired man”. The husband had been badly beaten as well. He claimed he had “grappled with one or two men” before he had been knocked out. He had sustained severe

Growing up as sharecropper her whole life, Fannie Lou had faced the struggles of a black sharecropper since the age of six, where she was tricked into picking cotton (Myers Asch, 54). Her family has a home of their own and animals when she was twelve, but soon lost it due to white farmers sabotaging them by poisoning their animals (Myers Asch, 55). Moving on, Lou had an education of her own, where she “[s]he had been a solid student at the local school, winning spelling bees and doing well in reading” (Myers Asch, 55). In addition, she raised two children while living in the Hamer home, where she tried her best to make condition for their sharecroppers “decent” by doing outside jobs (Myers Asch, 58). Due to these conditions and events in Lou’s

Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, is best known as one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. “Lady Day” as her friends like to call her, shared a vocal style inspired by jazz instruments as well as the artist she listened to growing up. Holiday was discovered at the age of 18. It was not long after that her beauty and voice graced stages all over the United States. Billie’s career lasted twenty-six years before she passed away in 1959, due to drug and alcohol use. Since then, much more of her music has been released and she is still considered a phenomenal performer as well as a powerful influence in music.

Soon Eleanora found the opportunity to perform in Harlem nightclubs, therefore making her official debut as a singer. She soon adopted the stage name Billie Holiday, based off of the screen star Billie

Billie Holiday, originally named Eleanora Fagan, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her parents were both teenagers when she was born. Her mother was 13 years old and her father was 15 years old. On June 12th while Billie Holiday was in the hospital she was under arrest in her hospital bed for possession of narcotics. Louis Armstrong and Miss Smith was a huge influence on her singing career. Miss Holiday took her professional name from her father Clarence Holiday. Billie Holiday, went to New York with her mother in 1928.

Her first records include “Bo Weavil Blues” and “Moonshine Blues.” By 1928, however, Paramount records canceled her contract, and she recorded her last record. She officially retired from singing in 1935 and began to earn a living by the operating a couple theaters.

As a slight outlet for all the unfortunate events in her life, she started singing in clubs which is eventually when she “renamed herself Billie after the film star Billie Dove” (Billie Holiday Biography.com). When she was singing at a jazz club in Harlem at the age of just 18, she was noticed by John Hammond , a

Paget Brewster was earlier doing some local television in San Francisco; then she received her first breakthrough in the form of series Friends. She played the role of Chandler and joey's girlfriend, Kathy on Friends and that embarked her venture in this field also. Paget later bagged some good positions owing to her skills and finally landed the role of Emily Prentiss on Criminal Minds. It was this role that earned her everything from name, fame and money and soon she made her way to the list of big stars. Today she has a massive $245 million which is quite huge, and the credit goes to her skills and hard work.

The poem’s words echo through your mind, revealing a haunting display. Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, performed Strange fruit. She sang the poem not in a melody, but in a screeching tone creating an alarming show. The timbre of her voice’s pitch was intense. In other words, the way Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit in a serious voice, confirms that the poem is not to joke about because it is based on a true story. It is important to realize, that the poem relates to history because it demonstrates how demented racism dominated in the