Billie_Holiday

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday was known, as one of America’s most memorable and influential all-time great jazz vocalist. The inspiration for many aspiring singers today, Holiday had a singular voice steeped in aching emotion and fueled by an uncanny sense of swing. She not only stamped her distinctive signature on such standards as "Night And Day," but she also contributed remarkable originals to the jazz canon, including "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless The Child." Influenced by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, Holiday not only sang with passion and conviction, but she also improvised with a trumpeter's sensibility. Born Eleanore Harris on April 7, 1915. Her father Clarence Holiday and mother Sadie Fagan were teenagers who resized in Baltimore, Maryland at the time. Her father was a professional guitarist and Banjo player whose parents didn’t approve of marriage cause of their lifestyle felt it was a scandal. After three years her parents decided to marry. Her father called her Bill, because she was a tomboy. Eleanor hated her name and took right to the name Bill. She liked the actress Billie Dove, so she decided to go from Bill to Billie Holiday. Billie lived a holiday, billie, new, music, jazz, singer, name, time, spot, recordings, record, life, later, father, decided, bill, age, after, york, years, took, started, smith, sing, signed, right, profound, professional, popular, parents, one, mother, memorial, made, home, holiday's, hall, girls, drugs, debut, called, bessie, york’s, world, worked, words, window, whose, week