Who was Billie Holiday and how did she die?
A BIOGRAPHICAL film about legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday was released on Hulu on Friday, February 26.
During the late 1930s, Holiday released her hit single Strange Fruit, which is considered one of the first great protest songs aimed at sending a political message.
Who was Billie Holiday?
Born April 7, 1915, Eleanora Fagan, better known by her stage name Billie Holiday, was an American jazz and swing music singer.
Nicknamed “Lady Day,” Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music.
Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
She began singing in nightclubs in Harlem where she was heard by producer John Hammond.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca.
By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse.
After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.
During the 1950s, her career continued to rise selling out Carnegie Hall on two more occasions.
Holiday’s final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958.
She won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973.
How did she die?
Holiday died of of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.
By May 1959, Holiday had lost 50lbs and was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease.
Her funeral Mass was held held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan.
She was buried at Saint Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx.
What are her most famous works?
Holiday’s first major single, Riffin’ The Scotch, sold 5,000 copes.
It was released under the name Benny Goodman & His Orchestra in 1933.
She had 16 best-selling songs by 1937, making the year her most commercially successful.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record Strange Fruit, which made the charts at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
Her single, God Bless the Child, sold over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard’s year-end top songs of 1941.
When was Billie Holiday vs United States released?
United States vs Billie Holiday was released on Friday, February 26, on Hulu.
The biographical film is based on Johann Hari’s 2015 book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days Of The War On Drugs.
Most read in Entertainment
Throughout the film, the timeline jumps between different period of Holiday’s career and glimpses at the wider war on drugs – as well as the early war on jazz music.
In the 1940s, Holiday is targeted by the government in an effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial song, Strange Fruit.
The flick focuses on how much Holiday was exploited by the predatory people and systems around her.