Nickname: Lady Day
Genre: Jazz
Most Momorable Recording: "God Bless The Child"
Followers: St. Vincent, Chrisette Michele, Eilen Jewell, Cold War Kids, Iza Eirado, Corinne Bailey Rae, Alexa Ray Joel, Linnzi Zaorski, Sophie Milman, White Magic, Regina Spektor, CocoRosie, Nellie McKay, Amy Winehouse, Elan, Agneta Engstrom, Lina, Billie Davis, CéU, Roberta Gambarini, Lori Davidson, Audra Kubat, Joanna Eden, Shirley Witherspoon, Martirio, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Uvee Hayes, Lhasa de Sela, Jody Sandhaus, Pat Cisarano, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Fiona Apple, Madeleine Peyroux, Alice Day, Rosetta Howard, Sheila Landis, Hanna Richardson, Dolores Parker, Carmen McRae, Maria Howell, Bobby Henderson, Julie Christensen, Thelma Carpenter, Abbey Lincoln, Professor and Maryann, Yusef Lateef, Karen Dalton, Anita O'Day, Amina, Patty Waters, Sylvia Syms, Jean Carne, Eileen Farrell, Carrie Smith, Monica Zetterlund, Dinah Washington, Edward Vesala, Roscoe Mitchell, Susannah McCorkle, Karin Krog, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bill Henderson, Fionna Duncan, Urszula Dudziak, Jack DeJohnette, Betty Carter, Ruth Brown, Ran Blake, Mildred Bailey, Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, Joan Armatrading, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, and many more.
Genre: Jazz
Most Momorable Recording: "God Bless The Child"
Followers: St. Vincent, Chrisette Michele, Eilen Jewell, Cold War Kids, Iza Eirado, Corinne Bailey Rae, Alexa Ray Joel, Linnzi Zaorski, Sophie Milman, White Magic, Regina Spektor, CocoRosie, Nellie McKay, Amy Winehouse, Elan, Agneta Engstrom, Lina, Billie Davis, CéU, Roberta Gambarini, Lori Davidson, Audra Kubat, Joanna Eden, Shirley Witherspoon, Martirio, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Uvee Hayes, Lhasa de Sela, Jody Sandhaus, Pat Cisarano, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Fiona Apple, Madeleine Peyroux, Alice Day, Rosetta Howard, Sheila Landis, Hanna Richardson, Dolores Parker, Carmen McRae, Maria Howell, Bobby Henderson, Julie Christensen, Thelma Carpenter, Abbey Lincoln, Professor and Maryann, Yusef Lateef, Karen Dalton, Anita O'Day, Amina, Patty Waters, Sylvia Syms, Jean Carne, Eileen Farrell, Carrie Smith, Monica Zetterlund, Dinah Washington, Edward Vesala, Roscoe Mitchell, Susannah McCorkle, Karin Krog, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bill Henderson, Fionna Duncan, Urszula Dudziak, Jack DeJohnette, Betty Carter, Ruth Brown, Ran Blake, Mildred Bailey, Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, Joan Armatrading, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, and many more.
The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. Almost fifty years after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing. Billie Holiday's highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band. She made clear her debts to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong (in her autobiography she admitted, "I always wanted Bessie's big sound and Pops' feeling"), but in truth her style was virtually her own, quite a shock in an age of interchangeable crooners and band singers.
With her spirit shining through on every recording, Holiday's technical expertise also excelled in comparison to the great majority of her contemporaries. Often bored by the tired old Tin Pan Alley songs she was forced to record early in her career, Holiday fooled around with the beat and the melody, phrasing behind the beat and often rejuvenating the standard melody with harmonies borrowed from her favorite horn players, Armstrong and Lester Young. (She often said she tried to sing like a horn.) Her notorious private life -- a series of abusive relationships, substance addictions, and periods of depression -- undoubtedly assisted her legendary status, but Holiday's best performances ("Lover Man," "Don't Explain," "Strange Fruit," her own composition "God Bless the Child") remain among the most sensitive and accomplished vocal performances ever recorded. More than technical ability, more than purity of voice, what made Billie Holiday one of the best vocalists of the century -- easily the equal of Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra -- was her relentlessly individualist temperament, a quality that colored every one of her endlessly nuanced performances.
