WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 Imagine being like the defining voice of American 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:05.419 jazz, right? I mean, you've sold a million records. 00:00:05.599 --> 00:00:07.740 You've completely rewritten the rules of popular 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.300 music. And you've played these sold out comeback 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:12.619 shows at Carnegie Hall to standing ovations. 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:16.579 And yet you die at the age of 44 handcuffed to 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:20.280 a hospital bed by federal agents with exactly 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.370 70 cents to your name. It is, I mean, it is just 00:00:23.370 --> 00:00:26.690 one of the most jarring contrasts in modern musical 00:00:26.690 --> 00:00:29.809 history. It really is. The gap between her monumental 00:00:29.809 --> 00:00:32.969 cultural impact and the brutal reality of her 00:00:32.969 --> 00:00:35.869 daily life is, well, it's almost hard to comprehend. 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:39.009 Exactly. So today we are taking a deep dive into 00:00:39.009 --> 00:00:42.070 the life, the career, and the incredibly complex 00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:45.390 legacy of Eleonora Fagan. Right. But you and 00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:47.130 obviously the rest of the world know her as Billie 00:00:47.130 --> 00:00:49.490 Holiday. Yes. And the mission for this deep dive 00:00:49.490 --> 00:00:51.549 isn't just to, you know, recite a tragedy. No, 00:00:51.549 --> 00:00:53.490 not at all. We want to figure out how a woman 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:56.130 with absolutely zero formal musical training 00:00:56.130 --> 00:00:58.729 throughout all the roles of music completely 00:00:58.729 --> 00:01:02.229 revolutionized American singing and really used 00:01:02.229 --> 00:01:04.909 her voice as a weapon for survival. Because that 00:01:04.909 --> 00:01:07.250 surface level image we all have. You know, the 00:01:07.250 --> 00:01:11.370 tragic jazz icon in the gardenia dress. It really 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:14.209 strips her of her agency. Yeah. It hides the 00:01:14.209 --> 00:01:17.329 absolute genius of what she was doing on a technical 00:01:17.329 --> 00:01:19.609 and a cultural level. OK, so let's unpack this 00:01:19.609 --> 00:01:22.069 because to understand the music, we really have 00:01:22.069 --> 00:01:24.629 to start with the crucible that forged her. Right. 00:01:24.689 --> 00:01:26.870 We're talking about Baltimore in the 1910s and 00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:30.549 20s and her early life isn't just like. background 00:01:30.549 --> 00:01:33.069 context. No, it's the psychological foundation 00:01:33.069 --> 00:01:35.469 of her entire sound. Yeah, so she was born in 00:01:35.469 --> 00:01:40.349 1915 to unwed teenage parents who separated almost 00:01:40.349 --> 00:01:43.469 immediately. Right, her father, Clarence Holliday, 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:46.069 he abandoned the family to pursue a career as 00:01:46.069 --> 00:01:50.010 a jazz musician. And her mother, Sadie, was essentially 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:52.090 a child herself, so she struggled constantly 00:01:52.090 --> 00:01:54.129 to keep them afloat. Right. She would often have 00:01:54.129 --> 00:01:56.450 to leave young Eleonora in the care of relatives 00:01:56.450 --> 00:01:59.530 while she traveled for transportation jobs. So 00:01:59.530 --> 00:02:02.109 right from the start, there is this profound 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:04.310 lack of stability. And that lack of stability 00:02:04.310 --> 00:02:07.269 escalated into some severe, horrifying trauma 00:02:07.269 --> 00:02:09.810 very quickly. Yeah, it did. When she was just 00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:12.069 nine years old, she was sent to a Catholic reform 00:02:12.069 --> 00:02:13.810 school called the House of the Good Shepherd. 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:16.979 And her crime was literally just skipping classes. 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.080 Right. But the punishment she endured there is, 00:02:20.099 --> 00:02:23.400 I mean, it's unspeakable. It's awful. The nuns 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:25.680 locked her in a room overnight with the body 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:29.379 of a deceased girl. Yeah. She was nine. The historical 00:02:29.379 --> 00:02:32.479 accounts say this was a trauma so deep that for 00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:34.759 years afterwards, she would wake up screaming 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:36.810 in the middle of the night. What's really fascinating 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:40.289 here though is how these early brutal experiences 00:02:40.289 --> 00:02:43.409 forcefully stripped away any illusion that the 00:02:43.409 --> 00:02:45.870 world was, you know, a safe or predictable place. 00:02:45.949 --> 00:02:48.930 Yeah, she grew up fast. By the age of 11, she 00:02:48.930 --> 00:02:51.430 had dropped out of school completely. She was 00:02:51.430 --> 00:02:53.909 out in the world scrubbing marble steps and kitchen 00:02:53.909 --> 00:02:56.530 floors in neighborhood homes. And she even started 00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:59.509 running errands for a local brothel. Right. But 00:02:59.509 --> 00:03:01.789 I want to pause on that brothel because amidst 00:03:01.789 --> 00:03:04.439 all that grit and survival, That is actually 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:07.500 where a massive musical spark happens. Yes, absolutely. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:09.780 While she was running those errands, she was 00:03:09.780 --> 00:03:12.099 hearing the records of Louis Armstrong and the 00:03:12.099 --> 00:03:14.439 great blues singer Bessie Smith playing on the 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:16.840 phonograph. Just absorbing all of it. Right. 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:18.919 And think about this for a second. She didn't 00:03:18.919 --> 00:03:21.520 learn to sing by standing in a church choir. 00:03:21.659 --> 00:03:24.120 No. She didn't have a vocal coach teaching her 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.120 scales. She learned by listening to jazz records 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:30.080 and mimicking the horns. Yeah. It makes me think 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:34.699 of, like, A lead guitarist in a rock band. Holliday 00:03:34.699 --> 00:03:38.159 didn't just sing the lyrics on a page. She played 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:41.960 her voice like a solo instrument. That is a phenomenal 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:45.300 analogy. And this brings up probably the most 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:47.960 crucial aspect of her artistry. OK. Because she 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:50.719 lacked formal classical training, she didn't 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:53.259 know the rules of how a singer was supposed to 00:03:53.259 --> 00:03:55.960 perform. Right. Therefore, she wasn't boxed in 00:03:55.960 --> 00:03:58.800 by them. It allowed her to pioneer an entirely 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.759 new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Wait, 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:03.460 I want to make sure we really get this. When 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:06.419 we say she manipulated phrasing and tempo, how 00:04:06.419 --> 00:04:08.900 exactly does that work? Sure. What is she doing 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:10.860 physically that other singers weren't doing? 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:13.360 So think of a standard pop singer of that era. 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:16.480 They are taught to hit the lyric right on the 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.500 downbeat. OK. Imagine a metronome ticking, tick, 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:22.279 tick, tick. A traditional singer hits the note 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:24.519 exactly on the tick. Right. But Holliday wouldn't 00:04:24.519 --> 00:04:26.420 do that. She would sing behind the beat. Oh, 00:04:26.420 --> 00:04:28.699 interesting. Yeah, she would drag a lyric out, 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:31.019 delivering it just a fraction of a second late, 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:34.180 or she would rush a phrase to get ahead of the 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:38.019 band. It created this incredible lazy tension. 00:04:38.139 --> 00:04:40.740 Wow. The listener is subconsciously waiting for 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:42.879 her to catch up to the music, which, you know, 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:44.939 forces you to hang on to every single syllable 00:04:44.939 --> 00:04:47.500 she sings. That makes so much sense. It creates 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:49.839 an emotional weight because of the delay. Exactly. 00:04:49.939 --> 00:04:52.079 But I'm trying to wrap my head around the logistics 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:56.379 of this. If she has zero formal training and 00:04:56.379 --> 00:05:00.439 she can't read sheet music, how is she actively 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:03.360 commanding a jazz band filled with classically 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:05.959 trained veteran musicians? Wouldn't they just 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.459 look at her and ignore what she was doing? You 00:05:08.459 --> 00:05:11.819 would think so, yeah. But her ear was so impeccable 00:05:11.819 --> 00:05:14.300 and her sheer confidence was so overwhelming 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:16.860 that she just commanded the room. Early in her 00:05:16.860 --> 00:05:19.879 career, her improvisational skills were so sharp, 00:05:20.029 --> 00:05:24.350 that she would actually make her accompany instrumentalists 00:05:24.350 --> 00:05:27.470 stop playing mid -song. Were you serious? Yeah. 00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:30.129 She would make them repeat a horn line she had 00:05:30.129 --> 00:05:32.509 just improvised vocally if she thought it worked 00:05:32.509 --> 00:05:34.980 better for the arrangement. She was dictating 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:38.319 the music to the musicians. Which is just incredible 00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:40.819 audacity. It really is. And for you listening, 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:44.120 consider how often we view a lack of traditional 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:47.459 credentials as a weakness. Oh, constantly. Society 00:05:47.459 --> 00:05:49.759 constantly tells you that if you don't have the 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:52.500 degree or the formal training, you're at a massive 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:55.620 disadvantage. But for Billie Holiday, that exact 00:05:55.620 --> 00:05:57.800 lack of classical training was her superpower. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.899 Yeah, it forced her to invent a completely original 00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:03.600 musical language. Right. And the next step in 00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:06.079 her evolution is taking that completely unique 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:09.319 improvised language straight into the segregated 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:12.060 male -dominated world of big band jazz in the 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:14.540 1930s. Right. And you can't talk about that era 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:16.519 without talking about her incredible partnership 00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:19.139 with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Oh, 00:06:19.139 --> 00:06:22.180 of course. They have this profound musical connection. 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:23.959 Young actually said they sounded like two of 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:26.759 the same voices or the same mind. Exactly. He 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:28.779 was the one who gave her the famous nickname 00:06:28.779 --> 00:06:32.879 Lady Day and she called him Prez. If you listen 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:35.620 to their recordings together from the late 30s, 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:38.540 it's like eavesdropping on a private conversation. 00:06:38.899 --> 00:06:41.759 You can literally hear them communicating, anticipating 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.319 each other's musical choices without any written 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:46.639 arrangements. That's so cool. But here's where 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:48.879 it gets really interesting, though. We naturally 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:51.399 picture the glamour of the swing era. Yeah, the 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:53.860 romanticized version. Right. We imagine the big 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:56.259 bands, the dancing crowds, the beautiful tailored 00:06:56.259 --> 00:06:59.620 clothes, but we have to push back on that romanticized 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:01.879 idea of the touring jazz musician. Absolutely. 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:04.620 Because she soon started working with Count Basie, 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:07.100 and then she joined Artie Shaw's band, and she 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:09.139 became one of the first black women to work with 00:07:09.139 --> 00:07:12.060 a white orchestra and tour the segregated South 00:07:12.060 --> 00:07:15.160 full -time. Yeah. I mean, I can't even imagine 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:17.620 how much of her creative energy she had to waste. 00:07:18.839 --> 00:07:21.860 fighting for basic human dignity on those tours. 00:07:22.259 --> 00:07:25.180 It was an exhausting, soul -crushing amount of 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:28.959 energy. The blatant racism she faced was relentless. 00:07:29.300 --> 00:07:31.560 Yeah. There's a well -documented incident in 00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:34.639 Louisville where a man in the audience called 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:37.959 her a nigger wench and demanded she sing another 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:41.120 song. Ugh, that's just... Yeah, and understandably, 00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:43.579 she lost her temper and was escorted off the 00:07:43.579 --> 00:07:46.350 stage. Right. Even with Artie Shaw, who by all 00:07:46.350 --> 00:07:49.089 accounts actively defended her and insisted she 00:07:49.089 --> 00:07:51.389 sit on the bandstand with the white musicians 00:07:51.389 --> 00:07:53.689 rather than waiting in the back. Yay. The systemic 00:07:53.689 --> 00:07:56.769 pressure from promoters and venue owners was 00:07:56.769 --> 00:07:58.730 just too much. And the breaking point didn't 00:07:58.730 --> 00:08:00.370 even happen in the Deep South. It happened in 00:08:00.370 --> 00:08:03.050 New York City. Yeah. In November of 1938. At 00:08:03.050 --> 00:08:05.509 the Lincoln Hotel. White patrons complained about 00:08:05.509 --> 00:08:08.029 her simply being in the main spaces of the hotel. 00:08:08.209 --> 00:08:11.060 Right. So the management forced her. the star 00:08:11.060 --> 00:08:13.420 singer of the band, to use the service elevator 00:08:13.420 --> 00:08:15.579 to get to the stage. It's unbelievable. She had 00:08:15.579 --> 00:08:17.399 to enter and leave the spotlight through the 00:08:17.399 --> 00:08:18.980 kitchen. But this is where we have to establish 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:22.079 her agency. Holliday was not a passive participant 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:25.899 who just quietly swallowed these indignities. 00:08:26.279 --> 00:08:28.819 No, definitely not. Even back with Cal Basie, 00:08:29.300 --> 00:08:32.559 she actively chose her own songs to portray a 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:36.220 very specific persona of a woman who was tough 00:08:36.220 --> 00:08:39.950 but unlucky in love. She flat out refused to 00:08:39.950 --> 00:08:42.669 be told what to do musically. Yeah. And that 00:08:42.669 --> 00:08:45.289 friction, you know, the agonizing racial indignities 00:08:45.289 --> 00:08:48.370 of touring combined with her intense desire for 00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:51.429 artistic control is the exact catalyst that propelled 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:54.179 her to leave the big bands. She wanted a solo 00:08:54.179 --> 00:08:56.419 career where she could control her own environment. 00:08:56.600 --> 00:08:58.919 And that desire for a controlled environment 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:02.000 leads her to Cafe Society, which was an integrated 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:04.700 nightclub in Greenwich Village. Leaving the big 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:07.720 bands sets the stage for what is arguably her 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:10.220 defining revolutionary stance against racism. 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:12.340 Because this is where she was introduced to a 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:15.379 song called Strange Fruit. Strange Fruit was 00:09:15.379 --> 00:09:17.759 written by a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:20.950 named Abel Miropol. He wrote it originally as 00:09:20.950 --> 00:09:23.470 a poem, expressing his horror at the lynching 00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:26.149 of black Americans in the South. Now, when Holliday 00:09:26.149 --> 00:09:28.210 was first presented with the song, she hesitated. 00:09:28.529 --> 00:09:30.789 Why? Was she worried about the backlash from 00:09:30.789 --> 00:09:33.460 white audiences? Well, that was certainly a risk, 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:36.220 but the hesitation was much more deeply personal. 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:40.419 The vivid, visceral imagery in the song immediately 00:09:40.419 --> 00:09:43.259 reminded her of her father's death. Right, Clarence. 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:45.559 Yeah, her father had died in Texas because he 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:47.580 was denied medical treatment for a lung disorder 00:09:47.580 --> 00:09:51.100 strictly due to racial prejudice. Wow. So the 00:09:51.100 --> 00:09:54.460 song touched a very raw, agonizing nerve. But 00:09:54.460 --> 00:09:57.429 she ultimately decided to perform it. And she 00:09:57.429 --> 00:10:01.009 didn't just sing it. She created a set of striking 00:10:01.009 --> 00:10:04.070 non -negotiable performance roles that turned 00:10:04.070 --> 00:10:07.090 the song into a haunting theatrical event. It 00:10:07.090 --> 00:10:09.429 was brilliant. She instructed the waiters to 00:10:09.429 --> 00:10:11.990 stop serving and silence the cloud completely. 00:10:12.389 --> 00:10:15.149 Yeah. The room lights were dimmed to pitch black 00:10:15.149 --> 00:10:18.509 except for a single stark spotlight illuminating 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:21.009 only her face. Wow. She would sing the song. 00:10:21.049 --> 00:10:22.950 And on the very final note, there would be a 00:10:22.950 --> 00:10:24.889 sudden total blackout. And when the lights came 00:10:24.889 --> 00:10:27.289 back on, she was gone from the stage. No bow, 00:10:27.330 --> 00:10:29.710 no encore. It was a master class in commanding 00:10:29.710 --> 00:10:33.350 a room. It was so incredibly powerful that her 00:10:33.350 --> 00:10:36.269 record label at the time, Columbia, actually 00:10:36.269 --> 00:10:38.649 found the subject matter too sensitive and refused 00:10:38.649 --> 00:10:40.990 to record it. They were just terrified of alienating 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:43.529 their Southern distributors. Exactly. So she 00:10:43.529 --> 00:10:45.649 went to a smaller independent label, Commodore 00:10:45.649 --> 00:10:49.470 Records, and recorded it in 1939. And that version 00:10:49.470 --> 00:10:52.179 of Strange Fruit... went on to sell a million 00:10:52.179 --> 00:10:54.200 copies. It became her biggest selling record. 00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:57.299 Yes, it did. Now, this brings up a massive historical 00:10:57.299 --> 00:10:59.679 debate regarding the aftermath of this song, 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:01.960 specifically regarding the Federal Bureau of 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:04.980 Narcotics or the FBN. Right. For a listener today, 00:11:05.379 --> 00:11:06.980 hearing that the United States government might 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:10.200 actively target a jazz singer over a song sounds 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:12.559 a bit like a modern conspiracy theory. Yeah. 00:11:12.779 --> 00:11:16.360 But in the context of the 1940s drug war, How 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:18.879 plausible is this? Well, it's a heavily debated 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.759 question among historians. You have journalist 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.879 Johann Hari, who argued in his 2015 book that 00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:28.620 the head of the FBN, Harry Anslinger, specifically 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:31.620 targeted Holliday because she sang Strange Fruit. 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:34.379 Hari's argument is that Anslinger was deeply 00:11:34.379 --> 00:11:37.559 racist, hated the political defiance of the song, 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:41.000 and used her known drug addiction as a convenient 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:43.740 excuse to destroy her. Right. But on the flip 00:11:43.740 --> 00:11:46.460 side, you have jazz scholars like Lewis Porter 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:49.299 who completely push back on that narrative. Yes, 00:11:49.299 --> 00:11:51.919 they do. Porter points out that there's no actual 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:54.399 paper trail or archival evidence proving the 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:56.379 government cared about the song itself. Right. 00:11:56.659 --> 00:11:59.600 He argues it was strictly a ruthless, aggressive 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:02.740 drug pursuit, typical of the era, and that the 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:05.399 FBN didn't need a political motive to go after 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:08.460 a high profile addict. Exactly. So it's a fascinating 00:12:08.460 --> 00:12:11.600 historical dispute about the exact internal motives 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:13.539 of the government. So we have to look at both 00:12:13.539 --> 00:12:15.679 sides impartially. Right. It depends on which 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:18.620 historical interpretation you follow. Yeah. But 00:12:18.620 --> 00:12:20.399 regardless of Whether it was a political hit 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:23.639 job or just a merciless drug war, the end result 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:26.519 for Billie Holiday was the same. She was relentlessly 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:29.519 pursued. So what does this all mean? Well, strange 00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:31.840 fruit transformed her. Yeah, it did. She wasn't 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:33.840 just a popular club singer anymore. She was a 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:37.179 cultural lightning rod. She was making an unapologetic, 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:40.220 deeply dangerous statement against racial violence 00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:43.580 on a national scale. And unfortunately, that 00:12:43.580 --> 00:12:47.179 massive commercial and cultural peak didn't magically 00:12:47.179 --> 00:12:50.840 solve her personal problems. In fact, her absolute 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:54.139 commercial zenith arrived at the exact same time 00:12:54.139 --> 00:12:56.019 that her personal life and her legal troubles 00:12:56.019 --> 00:12:58.799 really began to spiral out of control. Yeah, 00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:01.629 let's look at the early 40s. It's fascinating 00:13:01.629 --> 00:13:04.250 how much of her greatest art was born from intense 00:13:04.250 --> 00:13:07.190 personal conflict. Even the origin of her massive 00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:09.590 hit, God Bless the Child, came from a bitter 00:13:09.590 --> 00:13:12.409 family dispute. Oh, this story is wild. She went 00:13:12.409 --> 00:13:14.110 to her mother, who she affectionately called 00:13:14.110 --> 00:13:17.850 the Duchess, to ask for a loan. Right. Now, her 00:13:17.850 --> 00:13:19.549 mother was running a restaurant that Holliday 00:13:19.549 --> 00:13:21.389 had actually helped fund in the first place, 00:13:21.809 --> 00:13:24.779 but her mother turned her down flat. Wow. So 00:13:24.779 --> 00:13:27.379 Holliday stormed out, furiously shouting the 00:13:27.379 --> 00:13:29.559 phrase, God bless the child that's got his own. 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.539 Yeah. She literally took that angry parting shot, 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:35.639 sat down with the pianist, and transformed it 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:38.480 into a million selling classic. She was brilliant 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:42.220 at transmuting pain into commerce. And by 1944, 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:46.539 she moved to Deca Records, which... really highlights 00:13:46.539 --> 00:13:49.860 her ambition to elevate her status in the pop 00:13:49.860 --> 00:13:52.940 world. Okay, how so? Well, she practically begged 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:56.139 her producer, Milk Gabler, to let her record 00:13:56.139 --> 00:14:00.100 the song Lover Man with a massive sweeping string 00:14:00.100 --> 00:14:02.899 arrangement. Oh, like Sinatra. Exactly. She wanted 00:14:02.899 --> 00:14:05.779 the same grand orchestral treatment that white 00:14:05.779 --> 00:14:08.299 pop stars were getting. And when she walked into 00:14:08.299 --> 00:14:10.480 the studio and actually saw the string section 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.679 waiting for her, she was overjoyed. That's amazing. 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:17.419 But then we hit 1947 and the bottom falls out. 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:20.139 She's at her commercial peak, making huge money 00:14:20.139 --> 00:14:23.139 for the era, and she is arrested in her New York 00:14:23.139 --> 00:14:25.860 apartment for narcotics possession. She's strung 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:28.039 out, she's physically ill, she feels completely 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:30.139 abandoned by her high -priced lawyer, so she 00:14:30.139 --> 00:14:32.299 pleads guilty. And the judge sentences her to 00:14:32.299 --> 00:14:35.159 federal prison in West Virginia. But as terrible 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:37.340 as prison was, that wasn't even the most devastating 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:39.840 consequence for her career, was it? No, not at 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:41.940 all. The long -term devastation came from the 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:44.710 legal fallout when she got out. If we connect 00:14:44.710 --> 00:14:47.269 this to the bigger picture of how cities police 00:14:47.269 --> 00:14:50.549 morality, the sheer cruelty of the system becomes 00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:53.850 obvious. Because of her felony drug conviction, 00:14:54.330 --> 00:14:56.529 Holliday was stripped of her New York City cabaret 00:14:56.529 --> 00:14:59.830 card. Wait, explain that. The city basically 00:14:59.830 --> 00:15:03.049 bans its biggest star from working. Yeah. How 00:15:03.049 --> 00:15:05.669 does a cabaret card actually work? So it was 00:15:05.669 --> 00:15:08.350 a draconian system put in place after prohibition. 00:15:08.850 --> 00:15:11.940 By law, Anyone performing in a venue that sold 00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:14.799 alcohol in New York City had to carry a police 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:17.080 -issued cabaret card. OK. And the police would 00:15:17.080 --> 00:15:19.539 routinely deny or revoke these cards for people 00:15:19.539 --> 00:15:21.820 with criminal records, particularly drug offenses. 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:25.039 Wow. So the very city where she had built her 00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:27.799 fame, the epicenter of the jazz world, legally 00:15:27.799 --> 00:15:29.879 barred her from making a living in its intimate, 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.340 lucrative jazz clubs. That is a staggering economic 00:15:33.340 --> 00:15:35.159 blow. I mean, it forces her out of the clubs 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:37.179 where she thrives and pushes her into having 00:15:37.179 --> 00:15:40.009 to book larger, less intimate concert halls just 00:15:40.009 --> 00:15:41.889 to make a living. Exactly. But the resilience 00:15:41.889 --> 00:15:45.230 she shows here is unreal. Only days after she 00:15:45.230 --> 00:15:48.090 is released from federal prison in 1948, she 00:15:48.090 --> 00:15:50.710 stages a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. She 00:15:50.710 --> 00:15:53.190 completely sells out the venue, breaking box 00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:55.830 office records. And the detail from that specific 00:15:55.830 --> 00:15:58.929 night at Carnegie Hall is just haunting. Yeah. 00:15:59.090 --> 00:16:01.289 Someone had sent her a box of gardenias, you 00:16:01.289 --> 00:16:03.490 know, her trademark flower that she always pinned 00:16:03.490 --> 00:16:06.129 in her hair. Right. She was so rushed and anxious 00:16:06.129 --> 00:16:08.909 before going on stage that she grabbed the flowers 00:16:08.909 --> 00:16:11.919 and without looking, stuck a hat pin through 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:14.419 the gardenias and pushed directly into the side 00:16:14.419 --> 00:16:16.720 of her head. Oh my god, and she didn't stop. 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:20.120 No. She unknowingly performed the concert with 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.080 blood running down her face and into her eyes. 00:16:22.159 --> 00:16:24.440 It's so intense. She pushed through the entire 00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:26.820 set and then passed out cold after the third 00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:31.029 curtain call. It is such a visceral, almost disturbingly 00:16:31.029 --> 00:16:33.629 literal image of a woman bleeding for her art. 00:16:33.870 --> 00:16:35.850 Yeah, she was pushing through agonizing pain 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:37.509 just to give the audience what they came for. 00:16:37.629 --> 00:16:39.909 Which naturally brings us to her final years. 00:16:40.090 --> 00:16:43.269 Right, the 1950s and the era of the album Lady 00:16:43.269 --> 00:16:45.509 and Satin. By this point, she had been robbed 00:16:45.509 --> 00:16:48.210 of her primary club income for years. She was 00:16:48.210 --> 00:16:52.269 battling severe chronic addiction and her physical 00:16:52.269 --> 00:16:55.309 instrument, her vocal cords, was beginning to 00:16:55.309 --> 00:16:57.899 fail her. Yeah, she releases an autobiography 00:16:57.899 --> 00:17:00.220 around this time called Lady Sings the Blues, 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:02.460 though it's heavily ghostwritten and watered 00:17:02.460 --> 00:17:05.000 down due to legal fears. Right, they left out 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.180 a lot of her more complex relationships with 00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:09.539 people like the actor Charles Lawton or Tallulah 00:17:09.539 --> 00:17:12.099 Bankhead. But it's her music from this final 00:17:12.099 --> 00:17:14.640 chapter that is so striking. Her voice had changed 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.779 drastically. It was raspy. It was cracked. Yeah. 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:20.599 When she recorded the album Lady in Satin with 00:17:20.599 --> 00:17:24.200 the conductor Ray Ellis, he initially really 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:26.759 disliked her performance. He was listening to 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.000 it purely technically, hearing the missed notes 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.539 and the frayed edges. But the genius of Billie 00:17:32.539 --> 00:17:34.819 Holiday wasn't about hitting perfect notes anymore. 00:17:35.559 --> 00:17:37.900 Weeks later, Ellis listened to the playback again 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:41.740 and it hit him. He realized how emotionally devastating 00:17:41.740 --> 00:17:45.099 and truly magnificent her performance was. The 00:17:45.099 --> 00:17:47.799 wear and tear on her voice actually added to 00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:50.220 the weight of the lyrics. I want to ask you the 00:17:50.220 --> 00:17:53.019 listener a question here. Think about how we 00:17:53.019 --> 00:17:56.440 consume art and celebrity today. Are we still 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:58.460 guilty of this? Yeah. That's a good question. 00:17:58.819 --> 00:18:01.500 Are we still guilty of watching artists slowly 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:04.400 destroy themselves for our entertainment, applauding 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.579 the raw, authentic emotion of their trauma without 00:18:07.579 --> 00:18:09.720 actually doing anything to protect the person 00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:12.000 behind the microphone? It's a very uncomfortable 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:14.480 question, but it's a necessary one. Definitely. 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:17.119 The jazz critic, Nat Hentoff, actually touched 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:19.759 on this dynamic when he reviewed one of her late 00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:22.559 Carnegie Hall shows. What did he say? Even as 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:24.759 he watched her body giving out, he noted that 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:28.319 her voice was steel edged and yet soft inside. 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:31.859 He wrote that she was undeniably the best and 00:18:31.859 --> 00:18:35.259 most honest jazz singer alive. Her interpretive 00:18:35.259 --> 00:18:37.579 genius never faded. It just deepened with the 00:18:37.579 --> 00:18:39.740 accumulated pain of her life. But the reality 00:18:39.740 --> 00:18:43.099 of her end is just profoundly tragic. It really 00:18:43.099 --> 00:18:45.559 is. By 1959, her body simply couldn't take it 00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:48.000 anymore. She was diagnosed with severe cirrhosis 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:50.839 of the liver. She had been repeatedly swindled 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:53.819 out of her earnings by an abusive husband, Louis 00:18:53.819 --> 00:18:57.079 McKay. And despite having sold millions of records 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:00.000 and shaping American music, she died with exactly 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.779 70 cents in her bank account. And then there's 00:19:02.779 --> 00:19:06.599 the final unimaginable indignity. While she was 00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:09.440 lying in Metropolitan Hospital in New York, actively 00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:12.680 dying of heart failure and pulmonary edema, special 00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:15.480 agents from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics raided 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.880 her hospital room. It's just sickening. They 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:20.920 claimed they found a small amount of narcotics, 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:24.660 arrested her on her deathbed, and literally handcuffed 00:19:24.660 --> 00:19:27.000 her to the bed frame. Just laugh. She died there 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.700 on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44, still under 00:19:30.700 --> 00:19:33.259 police guard. It is an incredibly heavy story. 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:35.779 It's infuriating. Yeah, it is. But as we wrap 00:19:35.779 --> 00:19:37.680 up this deep dive, I want to pivot away from 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:40.259 the tragedy. I want to offer you a completely 00:19:40.259 --> 00:19:42.759 different lens on Billie Holiday's legacy, one 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:45.319 that challenges the tragic victim narrative entirely. 00:19:45.539 --> 00:19:48.099 OK, I like this. The scholar, Angela Y. Davis, 00:19:48.299 --> 00:19:50.440 offers an incredibly powerful perspective on 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:54.150 this. She argues, What if we stop viewing Billie 00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:58.170 Holiday just as a tragic figure and instead listen 00:19:58.170 --> 00:20:01.089 to songs like Taint Nobody's Business If I Do 00:20:01.089 --> 00:20:05.170 as radical unapologetic declarations of personal 00:20:05.170 --> 00:20:08.210 autonomy? It's a brilliant framing. Davis makes 00:20:08.210 --> 00:20:10.250 the case that Holliday's music and the way she 00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:13.769 lived her life was actually a bold feminist challenge 00:20:13.769 --> 00:20:16.569 to societal expectations. We have to remember 00:20:16.569 --> 00:20:18.809 the concept of respectability politics during 00:20:18.809 --> 00:20:22.170 this era. There was an immense pressure on black 00:20:22.170 --> 00:20:24.430 Americans and black women in particular to be 00:20:24.430 --> 00:20:28.109 utterly flawless, polite, and submissive just 00:20:28.109 --> 00:20:31.029 to be granted basic human decency by the white 00:20:31.029 --> 00:20:33.509 establishment. Holliday completely refused to 00:20:33.509 --> 00:20:36.009 play that game. She was messy, she was demanding, 00:20:36.130 --> 00:20:38.250 she was loud, and she claimed the right to live 00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:40.650 her life exactly as she wanted consequences be 00:20:40.650 --> 00:20:42.529 damned. And understanding that completely changes 00:20:42.529 --> 00:20:44.930 how you hear her music. She wasn't just surviving, 00:20:45.109 --> 00:20:47.529 she was declaring her fierce independence every 00:20:47.529 --> 00:20:49.750 single time she stepped up to a microphone. Exactly. 00:20:49.829 --> 00:20:51.609 She was taking up space in a world that wanted 00:20:51.609 --> 00:20:53.990 her to be invisible. So I want to leave you with 00:20:53.990 --> 00:20:56.150 this thought to mull over. Think back to that 00:20:56.150 --> 00:20:58.190 kid we talked about at the beginning, sitting 00:20:58.190 --> 00:21:00.970 at a piano with a metronome, learning the rigid 00:21:00.970 --> 00:21:04.119 rules of how music and life are supposed to be 00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:06.940 played. Billy Holiday took that metronome and 00:21:06.940 --> 00:21:09.019 she threw it out the window. She sang between 00:21:09.019 --> 00:21:11.400 the beats. She lived between the rules. Beautifully 00:21:11.400 --> 00:21:13.859 said. The next time you listen to Lady Day, don't 00:21:13.859 --> 00:21:16.680 just listen for the pain or the tragedy. Listen 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:20.000 for the profound, defiant independence of a woman 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:21.920 who built her own instrument out of nothing. 00:21:22.859 --> 00:21:25.039 Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Go 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.779 listen to Strange Fruit, or God Bless the Child 00:21:27.779 --> 00:21:30.640 Today, with a completely new set of ears.