While continuing to record with Wilson, starting in 1937, she also began to lead her own dates which found her opening and closing each tune while leaving room for the horn players to make their statements. During 1935-42 she was often featured with Teddy Wilson’s recording groups, which generally found her taking her turn with the other soloists, getting a chorus in the middle of the song. But the Billie Holiday Story really got going later that year when John Hammond began teaming her on records with all-star swing groups led by pianist Teddy Wilson.īillie Holiday’s career and recordings can easily be divided into three periods. The young vocalist continued to grow during the next year and she had a small part as a wronged woman in the Duke Ellington film short Symphony In Black in early 1935, singing a single chorus. The numbers, “ Your Mother’s Son-In-Law” and “ Riffin’ The Scotch,” never caught on and today are only significant for giving listeners the earliest glimpse of a nervous Holiday. He arranged for her to record two songs later in the year with a small group led by Benny Goodman. As her singing improved and became more individual, she began to get better musical jobs and was discovered by the young producer John Hammond in early 1933. She began singing in night clubs that year when she was just 14. In 1929 she started calling herself Billie Holiday, naming herself after actress Billie Dove while taking her father’s last name. She heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, both of whom became her idols and influences. Eleanora dropped out of school when she was 11 and survived some harrowing episodes that left her feeling unloved and with a lifelong inferiority complex, leading to many bad decisions later on. Her mother was evicted from her parent’s home after she became pregnant, made a living as best she could, and often left her daughter under the indifferent care of relatives. Born Eleanora Fagan on Apin Baltimore, Maryland, her Dad was rhythm guitarist Clarence Holiday who for a few years was a member of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra.Īlthough she would have liked a close relationship with her father, he abandoned the family shortly after her birth and in the 1930s was sometimes embarrassed that he had an adult child.

He was 18, she was 16 and I was three.” Truth is that when she was born, her father was 17, her mother was 19, and they never got married. She begins her colorful (but not always accurate) memoir Lady Sings The Blues with “Mom and Dad were just a couple of kids when they got married. Holiday’s early years were turbulent and are still somewhat shrouded in mystery.

Lady sings the blues by billie holiday