biography
| name: |
Holiday, Billie
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originally Eleanora Fagan, nickname Lady Day
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1915–59)
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| biography:
| Jazz singer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She began recording in 1933, and her wistful voice and remarkable jazz interpretation of popular songs led to work with Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson. In the late 1930s she worked with the big bands of Count Basie and Artie Shaw, singing such memorable ballads as ‘Easy Living’ (1937) and ‘Yesterdays’ (1939), and her recordings have been a major influence on later pop and jazz singers. By the late 1940s she was falling victim to drug and alcohol addiction, and losing her voice, though not her technique. Her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (1956, actually written by William Dufty) was filmed in 1972. She died while under house arrest in a New York City hospital. |
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