The legendary jazz/blues vocalist Billie Holiday certainly needs no introduction here. Anyone interested in classic and vintage jazz and blues will know her music and inimitable style of singing. No music collection is complete with out at least one Billie Holiday album.
There has also been much written about Billie, some true, some not, some good, some not so good, but one story I recently came across was how she got the name "Lady Day". This is an excerpt from the book "Wishing On the Moon (The Life and Times of Billie Holiday)" written by Donald Clarke and published by Penguin Books, 1994.
"....she had occasionally been called Lady since the early days in Harlem clubs, when she was reluctant to take the tips off the table...Lester (Young) had nicknames for everybody: he called (Count) Basie "Holy"; he called his younger brother, drummer Lee Young, "Little Pea". It was Lester who called trumpeter Harry Edison "Sweets". Will Friedwald says that he dubbed Ella Fitzgerald "Lady Time". Jazz already had an Earl, a Duke and a so-called "King of Swing"....Anyway, this was America, and Franklin D.Roosevelt was the biggest man around, and as Lester was the President of the saxophone, Billie called him "Prez" for short. He though that she must be the First Lady, named her "Lady Day", and reasoned that Sadie (Billie's mother), must be called "Duchess". All the names stuck for the rest of their lives..."
So while you ponder and digest that, here are a couple of Billie Holiday releases that cover a good cross section of her musical output.
