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Billie Holiday was not one to hide her opinion. We see this when she produces her song "Strange Fruit." This song was known as the anthem of the Anti-Lynching Movement.  Holiday voiced her message through her music, this in turn showed others how to live together with peacefulness instead of violence.

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Billie Holiday- "Strange Fruit"

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Holiday died from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.

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Inductee Explorer | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

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Billie Holiday married Jimmy Monroe, a trombonist, in 1941. She later had an affair with Joe Guy, a trumpeter, who was her supplier of heroin.

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Billie Holiday Interesting Facts
Billie Holiday continues to feed our spirit - she is our wounded angel whose voice will never fade. By David Ritz, from Lady Sings the Blues
Billie Holiday was born as Eleanora Fagan Holiday on April 7, 1915 and she died on July 17, 1959 (age 44). Her father (Clarence Holiday) was only 15 and her mother (Sadie Fagan) was only 13 years old when Billie was born.

Eleanora hated her name, especially the nickname of Nora. Her father used to call her Bill because she was such a tomboy but she wanted a pretty name. She loved the actress, Billie Dove, so went with Billie.

Billie's great grandmother was a slave on a Virginia plantation and had 16 children by her white, Irish plantation owner Charles Fagan. Billie's grandfather was named after him.

As a child, Billie scrubbed the white marble steps with Bon Ami soap for white people around the neighborhood and was paid 5 cents. By the time she was age 16, she received 15 cents. She stated that often times their houses were dirty inside, but they always made sure their steps outside were clean.

When Billie lived on S. Durham Street (first at 217 and then at 219), her family was the first in the neighborhood to have gas and electricity. It made the neighbors mad when the gas pipes were installed as it brought out the rats.

Alice Dean's Whorehouse was on the corner nearest Billie's house (S. Durham St.). Blacks and whites were allowed in there and Billie used to lay out the Lifebuoy soap and towels. It was the only parlor that had a record player. Billie liked to listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, two musicians who would influence her music.

Billie's father wanted to be a musician and left when she was a young child. Her mother never got over him and never married (however he later married). Billie's mother, Sadie, moved to New York and Boston since she could earn more money working as a maid. She left Billie to grow up living with her grandparents and her cousin but mainly with her mother's older married half-sister.

When her mother returned to Baltimore, she found a 44 year old neighbor raping 11 year old Billie. The man was arrested and Billie was placed in protective custody at the House of the Good Shepherd. She was almost 12 years old when she was released. Soon after, Billie and her mother lived and worked at a whorehouse and both were arrested for prostitution. Her mother went back to Harlem as a maid and left Billie with her half-sister again.

Billie was 14 years old when she finally went to New York to be with her mother. Billie only finished the 5th grade. Her mother never went to school at all but Billie taught her to read and write.

For a period, her mother took in borders. One of them was Lester Young, who would later become a close friend and musical partner (saxophonist).

Later they lived with Florence Williams, the biggest madam in Harlem. Both Billie and her mother became prostitutes again but a few months later the house was raided and they went to prison. After a few months, they were released.

Billie's first singing job was at Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street in New York in 1929. Billie would not take tips off the table and made the men give the money to her. The other girls said "she thinks she's a lady" and that was the beginning of Billie's nickname "Lady Day." Years later her friend and musical partner, Lester Young, started calling her "Lady" but took "Day" from "Holiday" to make "Lady Day." And in later years, she started wearing a white gardenia in her hair.

According to Carmen McRae, friend and American jazz singer, Billie burned her hair once with curling tongs just before she had to go on stage. So Carmen went out to buy some flowers to put them on Billie's head to cover up her lost hair. There was a flower girl at the entry of the club so she bought gardenias. From that moment on Ms. Holiday wore gardenias in her hair.

Billie made her first record in 1933 - two songs with Benny Goodman and his Orchestra. One of the songs, " Riffin' the Scotch," sold 5,000 copies. She began recording under her own name in 1936 but was never given any royalties.

Fletcher Henderson's band was the first Negro band to work at the Rowland Ballroom and Billie's father played guitar with them.

Billie joined Count Basie's band in 1937. She could not read music but half of the people in the band could not either so most of the songs were all in their heads.

During a performance in Detroit while playing in Count Basie's band, the management at the club decided that if the spotlight was just right Billie looked white so they made her wear special grease paint to look darker. After a few performances she refused to wear the paint and quit.

When the band was traveling, Billie was not allowed to be in the dining room with her white members of the band because she was black. If she had to use the bathroom she found it was easier to stop along the side of the road and just go in the bushes. It is interesting to note that when Billie was a call girl, no one gave her any trouble when white men were her customers.

Billie's biggest selling record was " Strange Fruit " in 1939. The song was derived from a poem about the lynching of a black man written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish teacher who used the pseudonym Lewis Allan. It was Billie's protest against the times.

The sadness she expressed in "Strange Fruit," Duke Ellington's melody, " Solitude," and many other songs, mirrored the hard and tragic life she led. Her vocal range was just over an octave, but she made each song her own.

Her mother wanted to start her own restaurant and Billie gave her money. The restaurant was called Mom Holiday's and was on 99th Street in New York. On many occasions she asked Billie for money since it wasn't doing well. One time Billie needed money and asked her mother for some but her mother wouldn't give her a dime. Billie said " God bless the child that's got his own " and walked out. A few weeks later, she co-wrote the lyrics for that song, which soon became a big hit. The song reached number 25 on the charts in 1941. In 1976 it was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Billie married Jimmy Monroe, a trombonist, in 1941. However she also had an affair with Joe Guy, a trumpeter, who supplied her with heroin. On several occasions, she was arrested for drugs. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also broke the relationship with Guy, but not from the drugs.

By the 1950s the alcohol and drug addictions caused her voice to become coarse and not as vibrant. In 1957 she married Louis McKay, who tried to get her off drugs but to no avail.

Billie found out she had cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. She was taken to a hospital and was under police guard for possession of illegal drugs but died from pulmonary edema and heart failure on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44. She died with 70 cents in the bank.

(Data from the autobiography Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday and William Dufty, www.billieholiday.com and www.wikipedia.com)

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Billie Holiday continues to feed our spirit - she is our wounded angel whose voice will never fade. By David Ritz, from Lady Sings the Blues Billie Holiday was born as Eleanora Fagan Holiday on April 7, 1915 and she died on July 17, 1959 (age 44).

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In 1947 she was arrested for drug use, which led to her spending months in jail for possession.

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all." She saw her voice as a musical instrument, as she explained in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff. "I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise . . . What comes out is what I feel."

Not only did she mesmerize us with her voice, Holiday also lived a fascinating life filled with tremendous ups and downs. She managed to survive a difficult childhood-often left in the care of cold-hearted relatives and even spent time in a Catholic reform school before joining her mother in New York City. Before she found fame as a singer, Holiday did whatever it took to survive, including working a prostitute for a while. She became one of jazz's great stars, performing with likes of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Holiday even appeared in a film with Duke Ellington. Her great talent, however, was later diminished by bad relationships and alcohol and drug abuse.

It's been 100 years since this amazing performer made her debut in the world. To celebrate her centennial, let's take a few minutes to explore the life and music of the great Lady Day.

The woman you know as Billie Holiday started out life as Eleanora Harris, according to her birth certificate. Some sources say she was also known as Eleanora Fagan. Her parents, Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, were both teenagers when she was born, and her musician father took off when she was still a baby. That strained relationship didn't stop her from borrowing his last name when she became a performer. During her childhood, she also used her stepfather's last name, Gough, after her mother married longshoreman Phil Gough for a time.

The name "Billie" came from silent movie star Billie Dove, whom Holiday adored. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, she wrote "I don't think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. I was crazy for her." Oddly enough, Billie Dove was actually the stage name of Lillian Bohny.

Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith were among Holiday's biggest early influences. As a child, she even took a job doing chores and running errands for a local madam in exchange for a chance to play records on the madam's Victrola. Holiday later got a chance to work with Armstrong with the two of them starring in the 1947 musical New Orleans.

"Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" proved to be Holiday's only major chart success. Released in 1944, the song had been written for her by Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez and James Sherman. It climbed to the number 5 spot on the R&B charts the following year and made it into the top 20 of the pop charts as well.

Saxophonist Lester Young gave Holiday her famous nickname "Lady Day." Holiday returned the favor, choosing to rename him "Pres" (or "Prez" depending on the source). The nickname was short for president of the saxophone, according to Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. The pair became friends in the mid-1930s and later toured together with Count Basie. They also recorded together on a number of different projects, including her 1957 television special The Sound of Jazz. Biographer Farah Jasmine Griffin described Young as Holiday's "creative soulmate."

"Strange Fruit" was one of her biggest and most controversial hits. The song's lyrics came from a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher and social activist. He was inspired to write it after seeing a photograph of a lynching. The image so deeply disturbed him that he penned the poem in protest of racial violence. Meeropol later set the poem to music, and the resulting song found its way to Billie Holiday. She started performing it at Café Society, an integrated nightclub in New York. Columbia, her record label at the time, didn't want her to record the song at first because of its controversial subject matter. Holiday ended up releasing the song on the Commodore label in 1939, and it went on to sell a million copies.

Holiday's life sometimes inspired her art. She wrote the lyrics for her much beloved work, "God Bless the Child," after a fight with her mother about money, according to Holiday's autobiography. Holiday worked with Arthur Herzog Jr. on this tune and several others, including "Don't Explain." The phrase "Don't Explain" is what Billie uttered to her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, came home with lipstick on his collar.

Holiday wrestled with her addictions until the very end. According to several reports, she started using heroin in the early 1940s during her marriage to Jimmy Monroe. She was arrested on drug charges in 1947 and ended up spending months in jail for possession. Two years later, Holiday was once again caught with drugs by the police.

By the 1950s, Holiday's battle with drugs and alcohol was taking its toll on her voice and career. She managed to make a few more albums and even undertook a European tour in 1954 before her demons got the best of her. Feeling ill, she went into a New York hospital in May 1959 where she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Holiday still couldn't manage to part ways with her heroin habit, despite her poor physical condition. She was busted by the police in her hospital room for drug possession that June. Holiday never stood trial for the charges, however. She died on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.

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Billie Holiday Centennial: 7 Fascinating Facts about Lady Day

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all."

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One of her biggest and most controversial hits was her song "Strange Fruit."

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all." She saw her voice as a musical instrument, as she explained in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff. "I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise . . . What comes out is what I feel."

Not only did she mesmerize us with her voice, Holiday also lived a fascinating life filled with tremendous ups and downs. She managed to survive a difficult childhood-often left in the care of cold-hearted relatives and even spent time in a Catholic reform school before joining her mother in New York City. Before she found fame as a singer, Holiday did whatever it took to survive, including working a prostitute for a while. She became one of jazz's great stars, performing with likes of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Holiday even appeared in a film with Duke Ellington. Her great talent, however, was later diminished by bad relationships and alcohol and drug abuse.

It's been 100 years since this amazing performer made her debut in the world. To celebrate her centennial, let's take a few minutes to explore the life and music of the great Lady Day.

The woman you know as Billie Holiday started out life as Eleanora Harris, according to her birth certificate. Some sources say she was also known as Eleanora Fagan. Her parents, Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, were both teenagers when she was born, and her musician father took off when she was still a baby. That strained relationship didn't stop her from borrowing his last name when she became a performer. During her childhood, she also used her stepfather's last name, Gough, after her mother married longshoreman Phil Gough for a time.

The name "Billie" came from silent movie star Billie Dove, whom Holiday adored. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, she wrote "I don't think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. I was crazy for her." Oddly enough, Billie Dove was actually the stage name of Lillian Bohny.

Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith were among Holiday's biggest early influences. As a child, she even took a job doing chores and running errands for a local madam in exchange for a chance to play records on the madam's Victrola. Holiday later got a chance to work with Armstrong with the two of them starring in the 1947 musical New Orleans.

"Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" proved to be Holiday's only major chart success. Released in 1944, the song had been written for her by Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez and James Sherman. It climbed to the number 5 spot on the R&B charts the following year and made it into the top 20 of the pop charts as well.

Saxophonist Lester Young gave Holiday her famous nickname "Lady Day." Holiday returned the favor, choosing to rename him "Pres" (or "Prez" depending on the source). The nickname was short for president of the saxophone, according to Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. The pair became friends in the mid-1930s and later toured together with Count Basie. They also recorded together on a number of different projects, including her 1957 television special The Sound of Jazz. Biographer Farah Jasmine Griffin described Young as Holiday's "creative soulmate."

"Strange Fruit" was one of her biggest and most controversial hits. The song's lyrics came from a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher and social activist. He was inspired to write it after seeing a photograph of a lynching. The image so deeply disturbed him that he penned the poem in protest of racial violence. Meeropol later set the poem to music, and the resulting song found its way to Billie Holiday. She started performing it at Café Society, an integrated nightclub in New York. Columbia, her record label at the time, didn't want her to record the song at first because of its controversial subject matter. Holiday ended up releasing the song on the Commodore label in 1939, and it went on to sell a million copies.

Holiday's life sometimes inspired her art. She wrote the lyrics for her much beloved work, "God Bless the Child," after a fight with her mother about money, according to Holiday's autobiography. Holiday worked with Arthur Herzog Jr. on this tune and several others, including "Don't Explain." The phrase "Don't Explain" is what Billie uttered to her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, came home with lipstick on his collar.

Holiday wrestled with her addictions until the very end. According to several reports, she started using heroin in the early 1940s during her marriage to Jimmy Monroe. She was arrested on drug charges in 1947 and ended up spending months in jail for possession. Two years later, Holiday was once again caught with drugs by the police.

By the 1950s, Holiday's battle with drugs and alcohol was taking its toll on her voice and career. She managed to make a few more albums and even undertook a European tour in 1954 before her demons got the best of her. Feeling ill, she went into a New York hospital in May 1959 where she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Holiday still couldn't manage to part ways with her heroin habit, despite her poor physical condition. She was busted by the police in her hospital room for drug possession that June. Holiday never stood trial for the charges, however. She died on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.

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Billie Holiday Centennial: 7 Fascinating Facts about Lady Day

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all."

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Billie Holiday's name was inspired from the silent movie star Billie Dove.

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all." She saw her voice as a musical instrument, as she explained in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff. "I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise . . . What comes out is what I feel."

Not only did she mesmerize us with her voice, Holiday also lived a fascinating life filled with tremendous ups and downs. She managed to survive a difficult childhood-often left in the care of cold-hearted relatives and even spent time in a Catholic reform school before joining her mother in New York City. Before she found fame as a singer, Holiday did whatever it took to survive, including working a prostitute for a while. She became one of jazz's great stars, performing with likes of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Holiday even appeared in a film with Duke Ellington. Her great talent, however, was later diminished by bad relationships and alcohol and drug abuse.

It's been 100 years since this amazing performer made her debut in the world. To celebrate her centennial, let's take a few minutes to explore the life and music of the great Lady Day.

The woman you know as Billie Holiday started out life as Eleanora Harris, according to her birth certificate. Some sources say she was also known as Eleanora Fagan. Her parents, Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, were both teenagers when she was born, and her musician father took off when she was still a baby. That strained relationship didn't stop her from borrowing his last name when she became a performer. During her childhood, she also used her stepfather's last name, Gough, after her mother married longshoreman Phil Gough for a time.

The name "Billie" came from silent movie star Billie Dove, whom Holiday adored. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, she wrote "I don't think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. I was crazy for her." Oddly enough, Billie Dove was actually the stage name of Lillian Bohny.

Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith were among Holiday's biggest early influences. As a child, she even took a job doing chores and running errands for a local madam in exchange for a chance to play records on the madam's Victrola. Holiday later got a chance to work with Armstrong with the two of them starring in the 1947 musical New Orleans.

"Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" proved to be Holiday's only major chart success. Released in 1944, the song had been written for her by Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez and James Sherman. It climbed to the number 5 spot on the R&B charts the following year and made it into the top 20 of the pop charts as well.

Saxophonist Lester Young gave Holiday her famous nickname "Lady Day." Holiday returned the favor, choosing to rename him "Pres" (or "Prez" depending on the source). The nickname was short for president of the saxophone, according to Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. The pair became friends in the mid-1930s and later toured together with Count Basie. They also recorded together on a number of different projects, including her 1957 television special The Sound of Jazz. Biographer Farah Jasmine Griffin described Young as Holiday's "creative soulmate."

"Strange Fruit" was one of her biggest and most controversial hits. The song's lyrics came from a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher and social activist. He was inspired to write it after seeing a photograph of a lynching. The image so deeply disturbed him that he penned the poem in protest of racial violence. Meeropol later set the poem to music, and the resulting song found its way to Billie Holiday. She started performing it at Café Society, an integrated nightclub in New York. Columbia, her record label at the time, didn't want her to record the song at first because of its controversial subject matter. Holiday ended up releasing the song on the Commodore label in 1939, and it went on to sell a million copies.

Holiday's life sometimes inspired her art. She wrote the lyrics for her much beloved work, "God Bless the Child," after a fight with her mother about money, according to Holiday's autobiography. Holiday worked with Arthur Herzog Jr. on this tune and several others, including "Don't Explain." The phrase "Don't Explain" is what Billie uttered to her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, came home with lipstick on his collar.

Holiday wrestled with her addictions until the very end. According to several reports, she started using heroin in the early 1940s during her marriage to Jimmy Monroe. She was arrested on drug charges in 1947 and ended up spending months in jail for possession. Two years later, Holiday was once again caught with drugs by the police.

By the 1950s, Holiday's battle with drugs and alcohol was taking its toll on her voice and career. She managed to make a few more albums and even undertook a European tour in 1954 before her demons got the best of her. Feeling ill, she went into a New York hospital in May 1959 where she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Holiday still couldn't manage to part ways with her heroin habit, despite her poor physical condition. She was busted by the police in her hospital room for drug possession that June. Holiday never stood trial for the charges, however. She died on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.

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Billie Holiday Centennial: 7 Fascinating Facts about Lady Day

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Jazz legend Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said that "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all."

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Billie Holiday
(1915-1959)