Billie Holiday

Paper Summary:

This paper charts the life and successes of Billie Holiday, one of the most well-known Jazz singers of the twentieth century. The paper describes her early years, her career successes, and her turbulent personal life. The paper also discusses her drug addiction and, briefly, her influence on the world of Jazz.

From the Paper:

"Billie was born in 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; her father, Clarence Holiday, was a guitarist, and her mother was Sadie Fagan. Her parents never married, and Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan Gough; some suggest that "Sadie was allegedly only 13 at the time" (Hollywood Graves); in addition, the father's name on her birth certificate is that of Frank DeViese - the mystery and controversy of her birth would later be an echo of much of her later life. . Like many children during the depression, Holiday suffered many years of neglect, culminating in being sent to Catholic Reform school, apparently after it emerged that she had been raped. After only two years, she escaped, and (according to her autobiography), began working as a teenage prostitute."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Auburn, James "Billie Holiday: The Lady Who Sang and Lived the Blues" December 6, 2007 http://www.musicbizadvice.com/billie_holiday_rediscovered_talent.htm BBC radio "Billie Holiday"
• Downbeat.com "Billie Holiday" http://www.downbeat.com/artists/window.asp?aid=56&aname=Billie+Holiday
• Focusdep.com "Billie Holiday" http://www.focusdep.com/biographies/Billie/Holiday
• Hughes, Andy (2007) "Who was Bessie Smith?" http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/article1911.html
• Nicholson, Stuart "Billie Holiday" The Observer, 21st September 2003.

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