WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Okay, let's just jump right in. We are going 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:05.900 headfirst into the world of an absolutely incredible 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:08.919 figure today, Eleonora Fagan. Better known to 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:12.099 history as Billie Holiday. Right, or maybe even 00:00:12.099 --> 00:00:14.880 more famously by that indelible nickname given 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:17.600 to her by the great tenor saxophonist Lester 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.699 Young, Lady Day. And that nickname, it just... 00:00:21.079 --> 00:00:23.559 It says so much, doesn't it? It suggests this 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.399 kind of royalty, but also a deep fragility. When 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:28.920 we talk about Billie Holiday, we are really talking 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:31.019 about one of the most significant voices, not 00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:33.420 just in jazz, but in the entire history of American 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:35.579 popular singing. And the sources we're diving 00:00:35.579 --> 00:00:39.320 into today give us this comprehensive and really 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:41.320 complex look at her life. We're tracking her 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:43.840 art, her career highs, right alongside these 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.700 constant, crushing legal and personal struggles. 00:00:46.780 --> 00:00:49.219 It's a lot to unpack. It is. So our mission is 00:00:49.219 --> 00:00:50.960 to cut through that familiar... project story 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:53.140 and give you a shortcut to understanding the 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:55.479 depth of her genius. We want to find those key 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:57.780 insights that explain why she's still so eternal, 00:00:57.979 --> 00:01:01.020 even though she died so young at just 44. And 00:01:01.020 --> 00:01:03.060 I think we have to start with the primary insight 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:06.140 right away, because it is an absolute game changer 00:01:06.140 --> 00:01:08.760 for how you understand vocal performance. Okay. 00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:11.200 Holiday's style was revolutionary because it 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.239 was so heavily influenced not by other singers, 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:15.359 but by jazz instrumentalists. Like horns and 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:18.599 trumpets. Exactly. She fundamentally changed 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:20.739 the whole landscape of singing by manipulating 00:01:20.739 --> 00:01:23.659 phrasing and tempo in a new way. She wasn't just 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:26.000 singing on top of the rhythm section. Her voice 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.159 was, you know, integrated as an instrument within 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:31.519 it. That idea, the voices. a horn, that's what 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:33.459 really separates her from everyone who came before. 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:36.819 It's why her delivery feels so immediate, so 00:01:36.819 --> 00:01:39.480 improvisational. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:41.599 even says that Billie Holiday changed jazz forever 00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:44.439 because of that. She totally redefined what a 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:46.659 singer could do, both rhythmically and emotionally. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:48.739 It's just such a powerful legacy, especially 00:01:48.739 --> 00:01:51.560 considering how short her life was. Born April 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:56.370 7, 1915 in Philadelphia. Died July 17, 1959. 00:01:56.510 --> 00:01:59.730 From cirrhosis leading to pulmonary edema and 00:01:59.730 --> 00:02:03.049 heart failure. The contrast between that brief, 00:02:03.109 --> 00:02:05.930 brutal life and her internal impact is just staggering. 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:09.319 And the recognition all came so much later. decades 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:11.280 after she was gone. Right. We're talking four 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:14.120 posthumous Grammys for Best Historical Album, 00:02:14.219 --> 00:02:16.560 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:18.919 as an early influence, the National Rhythm and 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:21.000 Blues Hall of Fame. It's like it took the world 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.560 generations to finally catch up to what she was 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.659 doing. So to really understand the raw emotion 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.060 that became her signature, we have to look at 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:31.840 her beginnings. This first part of our deep dive, 00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:35.330 it's about her genesis. And it was. It was incredibly 00:02:35.330 --> 00:02:37.110 difficult. We're talking about her childhood 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:41.210 in Baltimore from 1915 to 1935. Difficult is, 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:44.189 putting it mildly, the word barely scratches 00:02:44.189 --> 00:02:47.590 the surface. Eleanor Fagan was born to an unwed 00:02:47.590 --> 00:02:50.129 teenage couple, Clarence Halliday and Sarah Julia 00:02:50.129 --> 00:02:53.159 Sadie Fagan. And her father, Clarence... He just 00:02:53.159 --> 00:02:55.159 wasn't around. He abandoned the family almost 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:57.919 right away to pursue his own career as a jazz 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:00.939 banjo player and guitarist, which is a heartbreaking 00:03:00.939 --> 00:03:03.060 irony given who his daughter would become. So 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:04.719 she never really had that stability from the 00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:08.539 start. No. Her mother, Sadie, often took what 00:03:08.539 --> 00:03:11.479 they called transportation jobs, working on passenger 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:14.080 railroads, which meant she was gone for long 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:17.560 periods. So for most of her first decade, Holiday 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:19.740 was raised largely by her mother's mother -in 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:22.199 -law, Martha Miller, back in Baltimore. It was 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:24.900 just profoundly unstable. And that instability 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:27.879 led directly to some pretty severe trauma. Absolutely 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.680 horrific trauma. The biographies detail this 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:32.800 event when she was only nine years old. She'd 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:34.620 been skipping school and she was brought before 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:36.879 the juvenile court and sent to a Catholic reform 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.500 school, the House of the Good Shepherd. And this 00:03:39.500 --> 00:03:42.860 is where something truly terrible happened. What 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.300 did the sources say about the punishment she 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:47.680 received there? It's just astonishingly cruel. 00:03:48.219 --> 00:03:51.360 As punishment for, you know, some minor misbehavior, 00:03:51.539 --> 00:03:53.960 the nuns locked the nine -year -old Holiday in 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:56.039 a room overnight with the body of a deceased 00:03:56.039 --> 00:03:58.759 girl. Oh, my God. Yeah. She talked about it later, 00:03:58.819 --> 00:04:01.319 the lasting psychological damage. She said she 00:04:01.319 --> 00:04:03.840 would, quote, dream about it and wake up hollering 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:07.120 and screaming for years. That one detail. It 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.080 just explains so much about the darkness she 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.259 carried with her. She was released after nine 00:04:11.259 --> 00:04:13.000 months, but of course she dropped out of school 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.719 completely by age 11. But the trouble just followed 00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:18.319 her. The sources detail another awful incident 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:22.319 in 1926. Her mother came home to find a neighbor 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:24.819 attempting to rape Holiday. And her mother fought 00:04:24.819 --> 00:04:27.399 him off. She did, and he was arrested. But the 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:29.500 bureaucratic consequence of this for Holiday 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:32.379 herself was just... It was terrible. She was 00:04:32.379 --> 00:04:34.319 sent back to the same institution. She was sent 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:36.100 back to the House of the Good Shepherd, this 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:39.639 time under protective custody. So, you know, 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:41.259 she's essentially being treated like a criminal 00:04:41.259 --> 00:04:43.420 or a ward of the state because she was a necessary 00:04:43.420 --> 00:04:45.459 witness in the rape case against her attacker. 00:04:45.819 --> 00:04:48.459 Wow. This cycle of being punished for things 00:04:48.459 --> 00:04:50.639 that were completely outside her control. It's 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:53.220 a critical part of her youth. She was finally 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:56.620 released in February 1927, almost 12 years old. 00:04:56.939 --> 00:04:59.379 And after all that, she was forced into just 00:04:59.379 --> 00:05:02.240 relentless work to survive, scrubbing marble 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.420 steps, running errands in neighborhood homes. 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:06.959 The sources mentioned she was also running errands 00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:09.699 in a brothel, which, I mean, that's just a shocking 00:05:09.699 --> 00:05:12.899 level of exposure for a child. It is. But this 00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:15.439 period of incredible hardship was also, strangely, 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.439 where she found her real education. It was around 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:20.939 age 12 that she first heard the records that 00:05:20.939 --> 00:05:23.550 would change everything. Louis Armstrong and 00:05:23.550 --> 00:05:26.870 Bessie Smith. Two very different voices. They 00:05:26.870 --> 00:05:29.980 were her entire world. She said Armstrong's West 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.920 End Blues was a huge influence, and she specifically 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:35.579 pointed to the scat duet with the clarinet as 00:05:35.579 --> 00:05:37.660 her favorite part. So it wasn't the lyrics, it 00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:39.560 was the instrumental conversation that got to 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:42.000 her. Exactly. And then Bessie Smith gave her 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.620 the blues, that raw emotional power, the storytelling. 00:05:45.259 --> 00:05:48.019 These records were her music teachers, long before 00:05:48.019 --> 00:05:51.019 she ever had a formal lesson. So by early 1929, 00:05:51.319 --> 00:05:53.600 she is in Harlem with her mother, and she starts 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:56.550 singing in nightclubs as a young teenager. This 00:05:56.550 --> 00:05:59.110 is where Eleanor Fagan starts to become Billie 00:05:59.110 --> 00:06:02.029 Holiday. She needed a professional name. She 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:04.189 took Billie from an actress she admired, Billie 00:06:04.189 --> 00:06:07.430 Dove, and Halliday from her absent father. She 00:06:07.430 --> 00:06:09.649 later dropped the extra fill to make it Holiday. 00:06:09.990 --> 00:06:11.910 And then came the moment that changed it all. 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:15.610 She's 17, singing at a club called Coven's. And 00:06:15.610 --> 00:06:18.129 the legendary record producer John Hammond walks 00:06:18.129 --> 00:06:21.610 in. This is early 1933. Hammond had an ear for 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:24.649 talent. He was completely blown away. He immediately 00:06:24.649 --> 00:06:27.490 set up her recording debut at age 18 with Benny 00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:30.029 Goodman. But those first two songs, they really 00:06:30.029 --> 00:06:32.529 show you how confused the industry was by her 00:06:32.529 --> 00:06:35.029 talent. Right. The first one, Your Mother's Son 00:06:35.029 --> 00:06:37.709 -in -Law, was a total flop. Sold 300 copies. 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:40.689 But then her second track, Riff in the Scotch, 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:42.230 which came out just a few months later, sold 00:06:42.230 --> 00:06:45.410 5 ,000 copies. It was a hit. So the public immediately 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:47.009 knew the difference between the conventional 00:06:47.009 --> 00:06:50.399 stuff and her true innovative style. Yes. And 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:52.740 that cemented Hammond's belief in her. He compared 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:54.839 her directly to Louis Armstrong and said her 00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:57.980 singing almost changed my music tastes. He was 00:06:57.980 --> 00:06:59.920 amazed by her sense of lyric content at such 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:01.899 a young age. She wasn't just a singer. She was 00:07:01.899 --> 00:07:04.139 already an interpreter, an improviser. So that 00:07:04.139 --> 00:07:07.160 brings us into the next phase from 1935 to 1938. 00:07:07.860 --> 00:07:10.300 This is where she really defines her sound, but 00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:12.720 also where she comes face to face with the brutal 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:15.230 realities of segregation on the road. And this 00:07:15.230 --> 00:07:18.389 era is all about her collaboration with the pianist 00:07:18.389 --> 00:07:21.569 Teddy Wilson. John Hammond signs her to Brunswick 00:07:21.569 --> 00:07:24.730 Records with a very specific and kind of brilliant 00:07:24.730 --> 00:07:27.610 business plan. Which was to record pop tunes 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:31.209 for the growing jukebox market. Exactly. But, 00:07:31.329 --> 00:07:33.769 and this is the key, they were encouraged to 00:07:33.769 --> 00:07:35.990 play them in the swing style, which gave Holiday 00:07:35.990 --> 00:07:38.310 the space she needed to improvise and really 00:07:38.310 --> 00:07:40.629 make the songs her own. And that improvisation. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.860 That was her superpower, shaping the melody to 00:07:43.860 --> 00:07:46.939 fit the lyric. It was everything. But the producers, 00:07:47.079 --> 00:07:49.639 at first, they resisted. They wanted her to sound 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:51.959 more like Cleo Brown, who had a more conventional 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:53.939 style. They wanted her to conform. They did. 00:07:54.079 --> 00:07:56.980 But the market wanted Billie. The huge success 00:07:56.980 --> 00:07:59.279 of her recording of What a Little Moonlight Can 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:02.060 Do just completely changed everything. That was 00:08:02.060 --> 00:08:04.600 her claim to fame, and it cemented her status 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:06.980 as a true original. But the business side of 00:08:06.980 --> 00:08:08.759 this was, well, it was already pretty exploitative. 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:11.439 Oh, absolutely. Brunswick was running these sessions 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.019 on a shoestring. They were spontaneous, often 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:16.399 with no written arrangements. And to cut costs 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:18.819 even more, they paid Holiday a flat fee for each 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:22.420 session instead of royalties. A flat fee? That's 00:08:22.420 --> 00:08:25.100 brutal. That would haunt her for her entire career. 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:28.420 And yet these sessions produced enormous hits 00:08:28.420 --> 00:08:31.540 for the label. I Cried For You sold 15 ,000 copies. 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:34.039 Hammond himself called it a giant hit when most 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:35.639 records were selling three or four thousand. 00:08:36.059 --> 00:08:39.159 She was making them a fortune for, you know, 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:42.080 a fixed, tiny payment. So you see that pattern 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.659 established right away. Her artistic value was 00:08:44.659 --> 00:08:46.759 completely disconnected from her financial compensation. 00:08:47.320 --> 00:08:49.580 But this era also gave us one of the most important 00:08:49.580 --> 00:08:51.820 relationships in jazz history. Her connection 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:54.519 with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Their 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:57.740 rapport was just telepathic. He gave her the 00:08:57.740 --> 00:09:00.899 name Lady Day. And she called him Prez, for President 00:09:00.899 --> 00:09:03.759 of the Saxophone. Musically, it was a conversation. 00:09:04.139 --> 00:09:06.340 Young once said, it sounded like two of the same 00:09:06.340 --> 00:09:09.399 voices were the same mind. When you listen to 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:11.320 their record, she'll sing a line and his horn 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.570 will just answer it. It's magical. But all this 00:09:13.570 --> 00:09:16.009 artistic success had to be tested on the road, 00:09:16.110 --> 00:09:18.509 which was a brutal place for a black woman in 00:09:18.509 --> 00:09:21.389 the late 1930s. She had these short, difficult 00:09:21.389 --> 00:09:23.429 stints with Count Basie and then Artie Shaw. 00:09:23.730 --> 00:09:26.850 Her time with Count Basie in late 37 was just 00:09:26.850 --> 00:09:30.289 a grind. Low pay, constant travel. But Basie 00:09:30.289 --> 00:09:32.590 really respected her artistry. He said you couldn't 00:09:32.590 --> 00:09:34.509 tell her what to do. She knew exactly how she 00:09:34.509 --> 00:09:36.529 wanted to sound. And that artistic integrity, 00:09:36.889 --> 00:09:40.090 that refusal to compromise, it caused friction. 00:09:40.549 --> 00:09:45.149 It did. She was fired by February 1938. The official 00:09:45.149 --> 00:09:47.990 reasons were that she was temperamental and unreliable, 00:09:48.129 --> 00:09:50.870 but the real issue was she refused to sing songs 00:09:50.870 --> 00:09:53.409 she didn't believe in or change her style. But 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:55.750 just a month later, she joins Artie Shaw's orchestra, 00:09:55.990 --> 00:09:58.309 which was a truly groundbreaking move. Hugely 00:09:58.309 --> 00:10:00.549 groundbreaking. She became one of the first black 00:10:00.549 --> 00:10:02.629 women to work full -time and tour the segregated 00:10:02.629 --> 00:10:05.870 South with a white orchestra. It was a real moment 00:10:05.870 --> 00:10:08.610 of integration, but it came at a huge personal 00:10:08.610 --> 00:10:11.669 cost. Shaw tried to protect her, but the racism 00:10:11.669 --> 00:10:14.509 she faced was just relentless. The sources are 00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:16.669 very specific. In Louisville, Kentucky, someone 00:10:16.669 --> 00:10:18.830 in the crowd heckled her, called her a nigger 00:10:18.830 --> 00:10:21.230 bench. She lost her temper and had to be taken 00:10:21.230 --> 00:10:24.309 off stage. And the final insult, the last straw, 00:10:24.470 --> 00:10:26.990 as the sources put it, happened not in the South, 00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:30.129 but in New York City. At the Lincoln Motel. Because 00:10:30.129 --> 00:10:32.730 some white patrons complained, Holiday was told 00:10:32.730 --> 00:10:35.190 she had to use the service elevator, not the 00:10:35.190 --> 00:10:37.950 same one as her own white band members. That's 00:10:37.950 --> 00:10:41.049 just the ultimate humiliation. She left the band 00:10:41.049 --> 00:10:43.539 right after that. She said she was always made 00:10:43.539 --> 00:10:45.419 to leave and enter through the kitchen. This 00:10:45.419 --> 00:10:47.000 wasn't just about music anymore. It was about 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.059 basic human dignity. And yet, despite all of 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:54.460 this, by the end of the 30s, she was a huge commercial 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:57.340 star. I'm going to lock my heart. Hit number 00:10:57.340 --> 00:11:00.220 two on the pop charts. Songs like Easy Living 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:02.720 were becoming jazz standards. Her impact was 00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:06.080 undeniable, even if her treatment was just deplorable. 00:11:06.279 --> 00:11:09.820 Which brings us to part three. From 1939 to 1947, 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:12.759 this is the period of her most powerful political 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:15.759 statement and her absolute commercial peak. And 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:18.100 it all revolves around one song. Strange Fruit. 00:11:18.259 --> 00:11:20.460 A song that is so much more than a song, it's 00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:22.559 a protest anthem. It's based on a poem about 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:25.419 lynching by a writer named Abel Mirapole. And 00:11:25.419 --> 00:11:27.330 the way she performed it was... It was a piece 00:11:27.330 --> 00:11:29.029 of theater. Can you walk us through that ritual? 00:11:29.129 --> 00:11:31.870 It was incredibly specific, right? It was. At 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:34.509 the Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, an integrated 00:11:34.509 --> 00:11:37.330 club, the rules were strict. When she sang it, 00:11:37.370 --> 00:11:39.929 all service stopped. The lights would dim until 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:42.350 there was just a single, small spotlight on her 00:11:42.350 --> 00:11:44.929 face. So there were no distractions. Just her 00:11:44.929 --> 00:11:47.730 and the song. None. And on that final, chilling 00:11:47.730 --> 00:11:50.389 note, the image of the strange fruit hanging 00:11:50.389 --> 00:11:53.629 from the tree, all the lights would go out. Total 00:11:53.629 --> 00:11:56.539 darkness. When they came back up... She was gone. 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:00.720 No bow, no encore. Wow. So the audience was just 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:02.879 left in silence to absorb the horror of what 00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:04.980 they'd just heard. Exactly. It forced them to 00:12:04.980 --> 00:12:07.399 confront the reality of lynching. And for her, 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.820 this song was deeply personal. It connected back 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:13.120 to her father's death. Yes. Her father, Clarence, 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:15.279 died after being denied medical treatment in 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:17.759 Texas because of his race. She said the song 00:12:17.759 --> 00:12:19.840 reminded her of that, that the same issues that 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.399 killed him were still happening in the South. 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:23.980 In her record label, Columbia, they wanted nothing 00:12:23.980 --> 00:12:26.059 to do with it. They found it way too sensitive, 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:28.820 too politically dangerous. So a smaller label, 00:12:28.980 --> 00:12:31.519 Commodore Records, run by Milt Babler, agreed 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.720 to record it in April 1939. And despite being 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:37.419 effectively banned from the radio. It was a massive 00:12:37.419 --> 00:12:39.519 seller. She claimed it was her biggest selling 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:42.919 record, selling a million copies. A huge hit, 00:12:43.019 --> 00:12:45.580 all through word of mouth. And this is where 00:12:45.580 --> 00:12:47.559 the government persecution really starts to ramp 00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:50.740 up. The sources point to the Federal Bureau of 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:54.360 Narcotics. Or FBN. Yes, under the infamous Harry 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:56.980 Anslinger. There was a very strong allegation 00:12:56.980 --> 00:12:59.000 that the FBN started targeting Holiday specifically 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.360 because of strange fruit. That this was political 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:05.080 retaliation for her activism. But there's some 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:07.480 debate about that specific motivation, isn't 00:13:07.480 --> 00:13:09.960 there? There is. While there's no doubt that 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:12.639 Anslinger was a racist who relentlessly targeted 00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:15.220 black jazz musicians and that he did persecute 00:13:15.220 --> 00:13:17.480 Holiday, the idea that it was only because of 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:19.700 the song is something that became more prominent 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:23.259 after a 2015 book. The truth is, her drug use 00:13:23.259 --> 00:13:26.059 made her an easy target for him anyway. The persecution 00:13:26.059 --> 00:13:28.580 was real, but the exact starting point of the 00:13:28.580 --> 00:13:30.759 motivation is debated. So while she's dealing 00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:32.539 with all this political heat, her commercial 00:13:32.539 --> 00:13:35.659 career is just exploding. She has another massive 00:13:35.659 --> 00:13:39.159 hit with God Bless the Child. And that song has 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:41.500 one of the most personal origin stories you can 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:44.059 imagine. It came from a fight with her own mother, 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:46.919 Sadie. Over money, right? Yeah. Her mom had a 00:13:46.919 --> 00:13:48.919 restaurant and was always asking Billy for money. 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:52.200 One day, Billie needed cash herself and asked 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:54.860 her mom, who just flatly refused her. And in 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:56.740 her anger, she came up with that famous line. 00:13:56.940 --> 00:13:59.259 She stormed out and yelled, God bless the child 00:13:59.259 --> 00:14:01.779 that's got his own. She immediately turned that 00:14:01.779 --> 00:14:04.620 raw emotion into a song with Arthur Herzog Jr. 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:08.259 And it was a monster hit. Huge. Sold over a million 00:14:08.259 --> 00:14:11.059 records, top five song of the year in Billboard 00:14:11.059 --> 00:14:14.919 in 1941. It cemented her as an artist who could 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:18.580 turn her own lived pain directly into art. Then 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:21.899 she moves to Decca Records in 1944. And Milt 00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:24.120 Gabler, the same guy who recorded Strange Fruit, 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:27.019 now wants to make her a mainstream pop singer. 00:14:27.220 --> 00:14:29.240 Which leads to Lover Man, another one of her 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:31.399 biggest hits. And there's this incredible story 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:33.379 about that recording session. She wanted a string 00:14:33.379 --> 00:14:36.659 section. She begged Gabler for strings. At the 00:14:36.659 --> 00:14:39.039 time, that kind of lush arrangement was really 00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:41.860 only for singers like Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald. 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:44.100 She knew she deserved that same level of respect. 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:46.620 And what happened when she got it? When she walked 00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:48.480 into the studio and saw the full string ensemble 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:51.200 waiting for her, she was so overwhelmed with 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:54.000 emotion that she just, she had to leave the room 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.039 for a moment to compose herself. She knew it 00:14:56.039 --> 00:14:58.240 was a breakthrough moment. But even at this peak, 00:14:58.460 --> 00:15:00.960 the warning signs were there. This is when she 00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:03.919 makes her only major film, New Orleans, in 1947. 00:15:04.600 --> 00:15:07.639 And the experience was just awful. The producers, 00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:10.740 under pressure from racist audiences and McCarthyism, 00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:13.600 they minimized her and Louis Armstrong's roles 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:16.379 to avoid giving the impression that black people 00:15:16.379 --> 00:15:18.539 created jazz. So they were literally erasing 00:15:18.539 --> 00:15:20.799 her contribution in real time. She was furious. 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:23.600 She said they shot miles of footage of her music 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.529 and none of it was left in the picture. On top 00:15:26.529 --> 00:15:28.549 of that, her drug addiction was becoming a serious 00:15:28.549 --> 00:15:31.070 problem on set. The forces that would eventually 00:15:31.070 --> 00:15:34.009 bring her down, addiction and persecution, were 00:15:34.009 --> 00:15:37.289 closing in fast. Which takes us into the final 00:15:37.289 --> 00:15:41.210 tragic chapter of her life. From 1947 to 1959, 00:15:41.710 --> 00:15:44.289 an era of legal struggles and these incredible 00:15:44.289 --> 00:15:47.179 monumental comebacks. It's just such a jarring 00:15:47.179 --> 00:15:50.419 contrast. In 1947, she's at her absolute commercial 00:15:50.419 --> 00:15:52.899 peak. She'd earned a quarter of a million dollars 00:15:52.899 --> 00:15:55.279 in three years, which was a fortune back then. 00:15:55.659 --> 00:15:58.919 And then she's arrested for a narcotics possession 00:15:58.919 --> 00:16:01.720 in her New York apartment. She pleaded guilty. 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:04.460 She did. And she later said it was called the 00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:06.700 United States of America versus Billie Holiday. 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:09.019 And that's just the way it felt, like it was 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:11.519 her against the entire system. And the consequences 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:14.179 were just catastrophic for her career. She's 00:16:14.179 --> 00:16:17.139 sent to prison, but the real blow was losing 00:16:17.139 --> 00:16:20.120 her New York City cabaret card. Can you explain 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.360 what that meant? This was the weapon they used 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:25.320 against her. The cabaret card was an ID you had 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:27.100 to have to perform anywhere in New York City 00:16:27.100 --> 00:16:30.139 that sold alcohol. By revoking it, they effectively 00:16:30.139 --> 00:16:32.620 barred her from working in almost every jazz 00:16:32.620 --> 00:16:35.080 club in the city. So they just gutted her main 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:37.809 source of income. Completely. And this was devastating 00:16:37.809 --> 00:16:40.129 because her records were often out of print in 00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:43.429 the 50s. The sources say she received a royalty 00:16:43.429 --> 00:16:48.750 check for $11 in 1958. $11 for a global icon. 00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:51.350 That's insane. The revocation of that card was 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:55.340 effectively a financial execution. And yet, right 00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:57.899 after she gets out of prison, she pulls off one 00:16:57.899 --> 00:17:00.340 of the most legendary comebacks in music history. 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:02.559 She's released early for Good Behavior in March 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:05.799 1948. A comeback concert is booked at Carnegie 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:08.240 Hall. She was terrified that no one would show 00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:11.660 up for a convicted felon. But they did. The show 00:17:11.660 --> 00:17:15.339 sold out 2 ,700 tickets in advance. It set a 00:17:15.339 --> 00:17:17.220 record for the venue at the time. It was this 00:17:17.220 --> 00:17:20.259 massive show of public support transcending all 00:17:20.259 --> 00:17:22.380 the legal labels. And the night itself was... 00:17:22.900 --> 00:17:25.599 Incredibly dramatic. There's an almost unbelievable 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:27.960 story about the gardenias she wore in her hair. 00:17:28.119 --> 00:17:30.960 Yes. Someone sent her a box of her signature 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.740 gardenias. As she was pinning them to her head, 00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:36.599 she accidentally drove the hat pin deep into 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:38.839 her scalp. Oh, my God. She said she didn't feel 00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:41.359 anything until the blood started rushing down 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:43.880 in my eyes and ears. She somehow finished the 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.279 show, took three curtain calls, and then collapsed 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:49.460 backstage. That image. Yeah. The white flower 00:17:49.460 --> 00:17:51.740 and the hidden pain. It's a perfect metaphor 00:17:51.740 --> 00:17:54.299 for her entire life. But the legal system wasn't 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:56.440 done with her. She was arrested again in 1949. 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:59.819 And by the 1950s, her health was just in a free 00:17:59.819 --> 00:18:03.240 fall. Drug use, drinking, abusive relationships. 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:06.900 It was all taking its toll. This is when her 00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:09.799 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. comes out 00:18:09.799 --> 00:18:12.619 in 1956. Which was ghostwritten by William Dufty. 00:18:12.740 --> 00:18:15.299 And we know now that the book, while powerful, 00:18:15.559 --> 00:18:18.839 left a lot out. What kind of things? Dufty, likely 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:21.519 due to legal threats and the social norms of 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:24.539 the 50s, suppressed details about her bisexuality 00:18:24.539 --> 00:18:26.839 and her relationships with famous figures like 00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:29.720 Orson Welles and the actress Tallulah Bankhead. 00:18:30.099 --> 00:18:33.019 It presented a dramatic story, but it wasn't 00:18:33.019 --> 00:18:36.039 the full, complex truth. But even as her body 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:38.420 was failing, her art was still transcendent. 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:40.390 at another sold -out concert at Carnegie Hall 00:18:40.390 --> 00:18:43.009 in 1956. And people who were there, like the 00:18:43.009 --> 00:18:45.970 writer Nat Hentoff, described this metamorphosis 00:18:45.970 --> 00:18:48.809 on stage. In rehearsal, she seemed weak, her 00:18:48.809 --> 00:18:50.990 voice was thin, but when the lights went down 00:18:50.990 --> 00:18:52.950 for the show, she became erect and beautiful 00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:55.369 and sang with all of her power. It's like the 00:18:55.369 --> 00:18:57.710 performance itself kept her alive. Hentoff called 00:18:57.710 --> 00:19:00.410 her undeniably the best and most honest jazz 00:19:00.410 --> 00:19:03.049 singer alive. She was creating this raw, incredible 00:19:03.049 --> 00:19:05.289 art even as she was physically falling apart. 00:19:05.630 --> 00:19:07.829 Her final recordings are... just heartbreaking 00:19:07.829 --> 00:19:11.650 to listen to lady in satin from 1958 with a huge 00:19:11.650 --> 00:19:15.730 40 -piece orchestra the conductor ray ellis said 00:19:15.730 --> 00:19:17.809 he saw her crying while listening to the playback 00:19:17.809 --> 00:19:21.599 of i'm a fool to want you He said at first he 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:23.640 was listening for technical perfection, but later 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:26.279 he realized the greatness was in the raw, painful 00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:28.359 emotion of her performance. And of course, there's 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.480 that famous TV appearance on The Sound of Jazz 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:34.099 in 1957. The performance of Fine and Mellow with 00:19:34.099 --> 00:19:36.839 Lester Young. It's so poignant to watch now because 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:38.960 you can see how frail they both are. They were 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.539 both less than two years from death. It feels 00:19:41.539 --> 00:19:43.619 like their final conversation all done through 00:19:43.619 --> 00:19:46.380 music. Her own final year was just a tragedy 00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:49.200 compounded by more persecution. She was diagnosed 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:52.960 with cirrhosis in early 1959. By May, she was 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:54.900 in the hospital for liver and heart disease. 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:58.000 And while she was lying there dying, agents from 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.480 the FBN came to her room. And they arrested her 00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:03.059 in her hospital bed. They placed her under house 00:20:03.059 --> 00:20:05.660 arrest and handcuffed her to the bed for narcotics 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:08.859 possession. That's just, that's a level of cruelty 00:20:08.859 --> 00:20:12.769 that's hard to even comprehend. to deny a dying 00:20:12.769 --> 00:20:15.390 woman dignity in her final moments. It's the 00:20:15.390 --> 00:20:17.529 ultimate example of the state's obsession with 00:20:17.529 --> 00:20:20.910 her. She received her last rights on July 15th. 00:20:21.009 --> 00:20:23.990 And she died two days later, on July 17, 1959, 00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:29.410 44 years old. And the final tragic detail, she 00:20:29.410 --> 00:20:31.630 died with only 70 cents in the bank. And the 00:20:31.630 --> 00:20:33.829 New York Times published a short obituary on 00:20:33.829 --> 00:20:36.930 page 15 with no byline. It shows you how far 00:20:36.930 --> 00:20:38.950 her public stature had fallen at that moment. 00:20:39.009 --> 00:20:41.269 A forgotten genius, at least for a little while. 00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:44.569 OK, so for this final part, let's focus on what 00:20:44.569 --> 00:20:47.839 survived all of that. The artistry, the modern 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.039 interpretations of her work, and her incredible 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:52.180 legacy. Because the artistry is why we're still 00:20:52.180 --> 00:20:54.079 talking about her. And we have to go back to 00:20:54.079 --> 00:20:56.740 that core idea, her voice as an instrument. She 00:20:56.740 --> 00:20:58.960 didn't have formal training, so she learned rhythm 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:01.119 and phrasing from the horn players. She would 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.039 literally ask them to play a line so she could 00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:06.299 copy it with her voice. Yes. Early on, she'd 00:21:06.299 --> 00:21:08.619 ask someone like Lester Young to repeat an improvised 00:21:08.619 --> 00:21:10.839 phrase, and then she would sing it. She would 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:13.539 intentionally sing behind the beat. or rush ahead 00:21:13.539 --> 00:21:16.500 of it playing with the time just like a saxophonist 00:21:16.500 --> 00:21:19.779 would it gave her delivery that signature elastic 00:21:19.779 --> 00:21:23.019 emotional pull and the biggest stars who came 00:21:23.019 --> 00:21:25.339 after her they knew exactly where that sound 00:21:25.339 --> 00:21:28.680 came from frank sinatra for one sinatra's quote 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:31.960 from 1958 is just it's the ultimate endorsement 00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:34.779 he said she was and still remains the greatest 00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:38.049 single musical influence on me and that she was 00:21:38.049 --> 00:21:40.509 unquestionably the most important influence on 00:21:40.509 --> 00:21:42.589 American popular singing in the last 20 years. 00:21:42.769 --> 00:21:45.509 So the man who basically defined popular singing 00:21:45.509 --> 00:21:47.910 for the next generation was saying he learned 00:21:47.910 --> 00:21:50.109 it all from Lady Day. He learned how to inhabit 00:21:50.109 --> 00:21:52.410 a lyric, how to bend the timing, how to tell 00:21:52.410 --> 00:21:54.730 a story. She wrote the blueprint for modern pop 00:21:54.730 --> 00:21:57.410 vocalists. And beyond the pure musical technique, 00:21:57.710 --> 00:22:00.549 modern scholars have looked at the deeper social 00:22:00.549 --> 00:22:03.589 and political meaning in her work. Right. Moving 00:22:03.589 --> 00:22:06.650 beyond just the tragic victim narrative. The 00:22:06.650 --> 00:22:09.049 scholar Angela Y. Davis has this really powerful 00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:12.069 argument that Holiday's performances were about 00:22:12.069 --> 00:22:14.769 claiming personal autonomy and independence for 00:22:14.769 --> 00:22:17.789 black women. Davis points to songs like Take 00:22:17.789 --> 00:22:20.589 Nobody's Business If I Do. She argues that Holiday 00:22:20.589 --> 00:22:22.769 was creating this persona that challenged the 00:22:22.769 --> 00:22:24.809 expectations of how black women were supposed 00:22:24.809 --> 00:22:27.809 to behave. The songs are about owning your choices, 00:22:27.869 --> 00:22:30.529 your pain, your life, without asking for permission 00:22:30.529 --> 00:22:33.660 or approval. So she was carving out a space for 00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:36.640 black female self -determination. Exactly. And 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:38.740 of course, Strange Fruit cemented her place in 00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:40.839 the long tradition of African -American musical 00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:43.759 protest. Scholars agree this wasn't an accident. 00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:46.460 She knew the power of that song and she chose 00:22:46.460 --> 00:22:49.140 to keep singing it. no matter the cost. And her 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:51.839 public stature, which was so low when she died, 00:22:51.940 --> 00:22:54.660 it just grew and grew in the years after. Exponentially. 00:22:54.819 --> 00:22:56.960 She was voted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame 00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:00.720 in 1961. Columbia reissued 100 of her early records. 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:03.240 And then came the films, which introduced her 00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:06.500 to a whole new generation. The 1972 movie Lady 00:23:06.500 --> 00:23:09.809 Sings the Blues with Diana Ross was huge. earned 00:23:09.809 --> 00:23:12.750 Ross an Oscar nomination. And more recently, 00:23:12.950 --> 00:23:15.869 the 2021 film The United States vs. Billie Holiday 00:23:15.869 --> 00:23:19.430 tried to reframe her entire story. How did that 00:23:19.430 --> 00:23:22.329 film change the narrative? It explicitly aimed 00:23:22.329 --> 00:23:24.849 to portray her not just as a tragic singer or 00:23:24.849 --> 00:23:26.609 a drug addict, but as a civil rights leader. 00:23:26.829 --> 00:23:29.470 It also, you know, it put back in the parts of 00:23:29.470 --> 00:23:31.769 her life that her own autobiography left out, 00:23:31.809 --> 00:23:34.289 like her bisexuality. It was an attempt to restore 00:23:34.289 --> 00:23:37.309 the full, complex person she was. And her legacy 00:23:37.309 --> 00:23:40.109 is literally set in stone now, too. It is. There's 00:23:40.109 --> 00:23:42.549 a statue of her in Baltimore with panels inspired 00:23:42.549 --> 00:23:45.009 by strange fruit. There's one planned for Queens. 00:23:45.369 --> 00:23:47.769 U2 wrote Angel of Harlem as a tribute to her. 00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:49.980 The U .S. Postal Service put her on a stamp. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:52.140 The cultural echoes are just everywhere. Her 00:23:52.140 --> 00:23:55.000 entire turbulent life poured through that one 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:57.400 -of -a -kind voice created something absolutely 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:00.480 eternal. It really did. So to wrap up this deep 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:02.519 dive, let's try to synthesize the key takeaways. 00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:06.099 Billie Holiday's life was this. This brutal gauntlet 00:24:06.099 --> 00:24:09.519 of poverty, trauma, racism, and addiction. But 00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:11.640 every single one of those painful experiences 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:14.359 fueled the emotion and the revolutionary style 00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:16.779 of her music. She turned it all into art and 00:24:16.779 --> 00:24:19.450 protest. And what's so incredible is her resilience. 00:24:19.750 --> 00:24:22.349 Think about it. The system, specifically the 00:24:22.349 --> 00:24:25.089 FBN and the loss of her cabaret card, was designed 00:24:25.089 --> 00:24:27.410 to completely silence her, to bankrupt her. It 00:24:27.410 --> 00:24:29.470 should have ended her career. Right. It blocked 00:24:29.470 --> 00:24:31.329 her from working in the clubs, her main source 00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:33.819 of income. But her greatest triumphs in her final 00:24:33.819 --> 00:24:36.460 years, those sold out record breaking concerts 00:24:36.460 --> 00:24:39.200 at Carnegie Hall, they happened in huge concert 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:41.700 venues completely outside the control of that 00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:45.140 cabaret system. She found a way around the machinery 00:24:45.140 --> 00:24:47.500 that was trying to crush her. She went straight 00:24:47.500 --> 00:24:49.900 to the public. She did. And that raises a really 00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:53.160 profound final thought for you to consider. We 00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:55.480 know that Billie Holiday, a woman who influenced 00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:57.619 nearly every singer that came after her, died 00:24:57.619 --> 00:25:00.140 with just 70 cents in her bank account. So the 00:25:00.140 --> 00:25:03.140 question is, how much of her true artistic value 00:25:03.140 --> 00:25:05.940 was ever really recognized or compensated in 00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:08.839 her lifetime versus how much do we, through our 00:25:08.839 --> 00:25:11.000 posthumous celebration and consumption of her 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.539 music, still owe to the knowledge and the art 00:25:13.539 --> 00:25:15.920 she left behind? A question that reframes the 00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:19.059 whole idea of artistic justice. A really powerful 00:25:19.059 --> 00:25:21.880 thought to end on. Thank you for diving into 00:25:21.880 --> 00:25:23.880 the genius and the struggle of Lady Day with 00:25:23.880 --> 00:25:24.079 us.