Certainly no singer has been more mythologized and more misunderstood than Billie Holiday, who helped to create much of the mystique herself with her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. "Now, finally, we have a definitive biography," said Booklist of Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday, "by a deeply compassionate, respectful, and open-minded biographer [whose] portrait embraces every facet of Holiday's paradoxical nature, from her fierceness to her vulnerability, her childlikeness to her innate elegance and amazing strength." Clarke was given unrivaled access to a treasure trove of interviews from the 1970s—interviews with those who knew Lady Day from her childhood in the streets and good-time houses of Baltimore through the early days of success in New York and into the years of fame, right up to her tragic decline and death at the age of forty-four. Clarke uses these interviews to separate fact from fiction and, in the words of the Seattle Times, "finally sets us straight. . .evoking her world in all its anguish, triumph, force and irony." Newsday called this "a thoroughly riveting account of Holiday and her milieu." The New York Times raved that it "may be the most thoroughly valuable of the many books on Holiday," and Helen Oakley Dance in JazzTimes said, "We should probably have to wait a long time for another life of Billie Holiday to supersede Donald Clarke's achievement."

"Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade ... jazz writer John Szwed considers how [Holiday's] life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy"--Amazon.com.

A biography of one of the most widely admired jazz singers of all time.

The life and times of Billie Holiday.

Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award The stunning voice and hard life of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday is revealed through evocative, accessible poetry. In 1915, Sadie Fagan gave birth to a daughter she named Eleanora. The world, however, would know her as Billie Holiday, possibly the greatest jazz singer of all time. Eleanora's journey to become a legend took her through pain, poverty, and run-ins with the law. By the time she was fifteen, she knew she possessed something that could possibly change her life--a voice. Eleanora could sing. Her remarkable voice led her to a place in the spotlight with some of the era's hottest big bands. Through a sequence of raw and poignant poems, New York Times best-selling and award-winning poet Carole Boston Weatherford chronicles the singer's young life, her fight for survival, and the dream she pursued with passion.

Eleanora Fagan rocketed to fame like a shooting star during the two decades spanning 1937 and 1957. She soared to stardom on the wings of a unique voice and songs sung sad. As Billie Holiday, she overcame personal crises and racial bigotry to become what many consider to be America’s premier jazz vocalist of the twentieth century. Then, like a flamed–out meteor, she crashed and burned in the throes of alcohol and drug addiction. Lady Day, as Billie was known to her friends and admirers, joined a handful of jazz musicians who can truly be called legendary. Her voice was one of a kind; her lyrical interpretations, intimate—and often sensually expressive or disturbingly bitter. She profoundly influenced her fellow musicians, not only in jazz, but in every other musical genre. Billie’s life and legacy are emblematic of both triumph and tragedy: She overcame more than her share of adversities, but she could not conquer her urge to self-destruct.

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Artist Songbook). Two dozen songs are presented in this centenniel edition saluting jazz musician and singer/songwriter Billie Holiday. It includes piano/vocal/guitar arrangements of: Billie's Blues (I Love My Man) * Crazy She Calls Me * Don't Explain * Easy Living * God Bless' the Child * Good Morning Heartache * I'll Be Seeing You * Lady Sings the Blues * Now or Never * Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin' All the Time) * Strange Fruit * Them There Eyes * and more.