Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to her mother “Sadie” Fagan, and Clarence Halliday (Holiday), who was a musician. She was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a great influence on jazz and pop singing during her career. And she has a great influence on today’s Jazz Singers. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by listening to jazz instrumentalists.
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“.
Billie Holiday had a difficult childhood. Her mother and father never married nor lived together. Her mother became pregnant at age thirteen then moved to Philadelphia, where Billie was born. With no support from her parents, Sadie arranged for Eleanora to stay with her older married half sister. Sadie often took what were then known as “transportation jobs”, serving on the passenger railroads. Eleanora was left to be raised largely by relatives. Eleanora suffered from her mother’s absences and leaving her in others’ care for much of the first ten years of her life.
The first book I read about Billie Holiday was her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, was sketchy about details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer. I still have the book and it is crumbling.
Eleanora frequently skipped school and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925 when she was not yet 10. She was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school. She was baptized there on March 19, 1925 and after nine months in care, was “paroled” to her mother on October 3, 1925. Sadie had opened a restaurant called the East Side Grill, where she and Eleanora worked long hours. By the age of 11, the girl had dropped out of school.
Sadie returned to their home in December 1926, to discover a neighbor raping Eleanora. Rich was arrested. Officials placed the girl at the House of the Good Shepherd in protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Eleanora was released in February 1927, nearly 12. Sadie and Eleanora wound up living with and working for a madam. During this time, Eleanora first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.