No 2. Billie Holiday (1915-1959)

Billie Holiday was born in Baltimore on April 7, 1915, the daughter of a 15 year-old musician and a 13 year-old housemaid. Her childhood was both harsh and short: she was confined to a Catholic Institution as a victim of rape at 10 and became a prostitute at the age of 13. She began performing in night clubs at 15, having discovered that singing could save her from servility and whoring.

"I had decided I was through turning tricks, but I had also decided I wasnÕt going to be anybodyÕs damn maid"

Discovered by Benny Goodman in 1933, she made records with Lester Young [who named her Lady Day] and went on tour with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. She hated the road, however, especially the almost continual racism. Characteristically, she expressed her anger in song: ÔStrange FruitÕ Ð her own composition - was a bitter anti-lynching song which must have been the most surprising hit record of 1939.

Billie became a Heroin addict around 1944, to add to her other self-destructive habits of strong booze and weak, unreliable men. She spent much of the last 15 years of her life swinging between jails and sanatoriums Ð neither of which cured her of the "white junk" she found so plentiful in the clubs where she sang. Despite this she covered her needle tracks with long elegant black gloves and recorded songs Ð ÔDonÕt ExplainÕ; TÕAint NobodyÕs Business if I DoÕ etc Ð which speak directly of the problems that devastated her.

BillieÕs strength and determination is shown most clearly in the closing lines of her own brutally honest autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues [1956]: "This time the doctors have told me, with any kind of luck, I should be able to stay straight for two whole years. Who can ask for anything more? If you expect nothing but trouble, happy days will turn up. If you expect happy days, look out. But no doctor can tell you anything your own bones donÕt know. Who can tell what detours lie ahead? Another trial? Sure. Another jail? Maybe. But if youÕve beat the habit again, no jail on earth can worry you too much. Tired? You bet. But all that IÕll soon forget with my manÉ."

John Brooke