Billie Holiday, Lady Day

Sometimes the most remarkable artistic genius can emerge from the humblest of beginnings.  Sarah Julia Harris was born on August 16, 1895 in Baltimore, MD.  Disowned by her father, she was raised by her mother, who ultimately married another man and had two more children.  Like her siblings, Sarah, nicknamed “Sadie”, began working at cleaning jobs at an early age, a lack of education rendered her virtually illiterate.  She was employed on the railroad trains that operated between Baltimore and Philadelphia.  When she became pregnant at age nineteen, she was kicked out of her family’s home and fired from her job.  With few options, she agreed to be admitted into the Philadelphia General Hospital, performing menial tasks in exchange for shelter and care.  Her child was born on April 7, 1915.  This child had several versions of her first name listed on official documents, various approximations of the name Eleanora.  Although she started life as Eleanora Harris, eventually the world would come to know this illegitimate daughter of an unemployed domestic by a different name: Billie Holiday.

Fortunately, addiction had not yet seriously diminished her talent.  Performing mostly in New York, her trademark gardenia in her hair, 1943 and 1944 would be the high point of her live career.

This behavior would come to public attention when Billie Holiday and Joe Guy were arrested by federal narcotics agents in New York City for possession of heroin.  Drugs and hypodermic needles were found in a search of a room that both individuals had occupied in Philadelphia.  Despite a flimsy case, Billie disdained legal advice and plead guilty and was sentenced to a year and a day in a federal reformatory in Alderson, West Virginia.

Despite her legal problems and her lack of any recently recorded hits, Billie remained immensely popular.  Her persona, which had been that of someone “unlucky in love,” was now changing towards someone unlucky in life.  It didn’t take long for her to lapse back into addiction, which became the cause of cancelled recording sessions and missed concert dates.  If she did show up she would seem disinterested, would play a short set and disappear.  Clearly, her lifestyle was beginning to affect her performance.

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