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If Billie Holiday were alive today, she would be 100 years old. Those of us familiar with the life of Lady Day, as she was known, understand that living to anywhere near 100 was never in the cards for her. Hers was a tortured life that she was uniquely able to articulate in her vocal style. From physical abuse to heroin addiction, Billie experienced it all. She also experienced the harsh racial discrimination of her time as an African-American singer with the all-white Artie Shaw band. What many of us might not have known is she was born in Philadelphia. Walk along Spruce Street toward Broad, and there is a sign designating the place of her birth.
Billie got her “Lady Day” nickname from her friend and legendary jazz saxophonist Lester Young. In turn, she called Young “Prez.” Both nicknames stuck. I became a fan of Holiday from the first time I heard her sing, although regrettably I never saw her perform in person. She sang at Philly venues such as the Earle Theater. In my one trip to the Earle as a kid, I saw the great Lena Horne. Holiday also appeared often at the old Showboat at Broad and Lombard streets in the basement of the Douglas Hotel. I saw Miles Davis play at the Showboat. In an ironic note of sorts, Bette Midler appeared at the Showboat with her music director, a guy named Barry Manilow.
As a DJ fresh out of college working at WCMC in Wildwood, N.J., in the summer of 1960, I devoted an hour each Monday night at 9 to the music of Holiday and pianist George Shearing. It was a helluva musical hour, but not exactly suited to the tastes of a summertime Jersey resort in ’60. Folks tuning in to the station at that hour and expecting the usual format of top-40 rock ’n’ roll likely were in a state of shock.
Holiday interpreted a song lyric like no other vocalist with the exception of Frank Sinatra. While they both could swing, Billie and Frank were like great dramatic actors when it came to singing ballads. Both of them put their entire life experience, especially the pain and tragedy, into the lyric. A relatively pedestrian song such as “All The Way” rises to the level of greatness in each artist’s rendition of the song.
I experienced the singing of Holiday on an emotional level, but musical experts say that Billie was the first to sing a note behind the beat. She also wrote the lyrics to “Strange Fruit,” a song graphically describing the lynching of blacks in the South (as “the strange fruit hanging from Magnolia trees”). As one might expect, it became so controversial that many radio stations refused to play the song. Most white audiences at that time were used to lyrics that routinely rhymed “June” and “spoon.”
When I left Wildwood for Philadelphia and WWDB-FM, the nation’s only 24-hour jazz station at that time in September of ’60, my audience was much more receptive to Holiday (although one listener called me during one of her songs and complained that she sounded “drunk”). The correct adjective was “wistful.” Billie always sounded wistful to me.
Holiday achieved a measure of popularity when Diana Ross played her in a ’72 biopic “Lady Sings the Blues.” Ross was terrific. And some folks who never listened to jazz or had heard her now knew Holiday thanks to the performance of Ross. She sang the vocals in the film and even achieved a measure of the wistfulness of Lady’s voice. In the film, she wore a white carnation in her hair when she sang, the trademark of Holiday. Ross won a Golden Globe Award for her screen portrayal and an Academy Award nomination. If you’ve never seen the film, look for it when it is showing on Turner Classic Movies.
A couple of years ago, I was amazed to find out that my then-16-year-old granddaughter Eliza had discovered Holiday. I lent my collection of Billie’s recordings to my son-in-law to make copies for her. Imagine having a love of Lady Day in common with your granddaughter.
Years ago, my wife and I stayed at the Virginia Hotel in Cape May, N.J. At that time, there was an unusual pianist playing in the hotel lounge — unusual in that he didn’t just play the lounge standards, but mixed in the folk and rock tunes of the ’60s and ’70s. His name was Steve LaManna. He has a lush, romantic sound that he easily adapted to everything from Cole Porter to “Lady Jane” by the Rolling Stones.
I asked him one night to play “Diamonds & Rust,” a song that Joan Baez wrote about her youthful fling with Bob Dylan, and he complied with a haunting version of the song. Thereafter, each time my wife and I entered or left the lounge, LaManna played “Diamonds & Rust.”
I don’t know what made me think of LaManna the other day, but I looked him up on the Internet and sure enough he is still alive and performing in the area. In one of his albums, he included the song “Diamonds & Rust.”
I’d like to think it was for us. ■
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