Sonntag, 17. Juli 2016

17.07. Abraham „Abe“ Laboriel, Coot Grant, Harriet Lewis, Janice Scroggins, Zoot Money, Margie Evans * Bill Perry, Roosevelt Sykes, Sam Myers, Billie Holiday, Ernie Lancaster +












1893 Coot Grant*, + unbekannt
1925 Peppermint Harris*
1939 Spencer Davis*
1940 Margie Evans*
1942 Zoot Money*
1947 Abraham „Abe“ Laboriel*
1959 Billie Holiday+
1983 Roosevelt Sykes+
1996 Bryan James "Chas" Chandler+
2006 Sam Myers+
2007 Bill Perry+
2014 Ernie Lancaster+
Harriet Lewis*
Janice Scroggins*
Deano Matthias*










Happy Birthday

 

Abraham „Abe“ Laboriel   *17.07.1947

 



Abraham „Abe“ Laboriel (* 17. Juli 1947 in Mexiko-Stadt) ist ein amerikanischer Bassist des Fusion-Jazz.
Laboriel ist Sohn eines Gitarrenlehrers und verlor mit vier Jahren die Kuppe seines linken Zeigefingers. Er lernte Gitarre bei seinem Vater und spielte als Rock'n Roll-Gitarrist in Mexiko, studierte jedoch zwei Jahre lang Ingenieurwissenschaften, bevor er sich für die Musik entschied und ab 1972 am Berklee College of Music Komposition studierte. Während des Studiums wechselte er zur Bassgitarre und spielte in Gruppen um Gary Burton und in der Bostoner Aufführung des Musicals „Hair“. 1973 war er für kurze Zeit Mitglied des Count Basie Orchestra, tourte mit Musikern wie Michel Legrand und Johnny Mathis. Auf Anraten von Henry Mancini zog er schließlich 1977 nach Los Angeles.
Dort arbeitete er sehr erfolgreich als Studiomusiker[1] und war an Film-Musiken beteiligt wie z.B. für Die Farbe Lila oder Nine to Five. Daneben spielte er mit Lee Ritenour, den er auf acht Alben begleitete, aber auch mit John Klemmer, George Benson, Larry Carlton, Don und Dave Grusin, Al Jarreau, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, David Benoit, Manhattan Transfer, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Tania Maria, Joe Sample, John Handy, Chris Beckers, Donald Fagen oder Diane Schuur.
Darüber hinaus gründete er 1980 die Band Koinonia, die immerhin vier durchaus erfolgreiche Alben herausbrachte. 1994 trat er bei verschiedenen europäischen Festivals auf. 2005 wurde ihm vom Berklee College of Music die Ehrendoktorwürde verliehen.[2]
Laboriel ist der Vater des US-amerikanischen Schlagzeugers Abe Laboriel Jr..
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Laboriel 

braham Laboriel, Sr. (born July 17, 1947) is a Mexican bassist who has played on over 4,000 recordings and soundtracks.[1] Guitar Player Magazine described him as "the most widely used session bassist of our time".[2][3] Laboriel is the father of drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and of producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel.

Laboriel was born in Mexico City. Originally a classically trained guitarist, he switched to bass guitar while studying at the Berklee College of Music. Henry Mancini encouraged Laboriel to move to Los Angeles, California and pursue a recording career.[4] His brother was the late Mexican rock & roll singer Johnny Laboriel.[5] Their parents were Honduran immigrants from the Garifuna coast.[5]

Laboriel has worked with artists of many music genres including the following:

Al Jarreau, George Benson, Alan Silvestri, Alvaro Lopez and Res-Q Band, Alvin Slaughter, Don Felder, Andraé Crouch, Andy Pratt, Andy Summers, Barbra Streisand, Billy Cobham, Carlos Skinfill, Chris Isaak, Christopher Cross, Crystal Lewis, Dave Grusin, Djavan, Dolly Parton, Don Moen, Donald Fagen, Elton John, Engelbert Humperdinck, Freddie Hubbard, Hanson, Herb Alpert, Herbie Hancock, Johnny Hallyday, Keith Green, Kelly Willard, Lalo Schifrin, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Leo Sayer, Lisa Loeb, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Nathan Davis, Paul Jackson Jr., Paul Simon, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Ron Kenoly, Russ Taff, Stevie Wonder, and Umberto Tozzi.

When Laboriel recorded his three solo albums ‒ Dear Friends, Guidum, and Justo & Abraham, he recruited a cast of musicians that included Alex Acuña, Al Jarreau, Jim Keltner, Phillip Bailey, Ron Kenoly, and others. His son Abe Laboriel Jr. performed drums.

Laboriel was a founding member of the bands, Friendship and Koinonia. He plays live regularly with Greg Mathieson, drummer Bill Maxwell, and Justo Almario. Laboriel is now in the band Open Hands with Justo Almario, Greg Mathieson, and Bill Maxwell.

In 2005, Abraham was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Berklee College of Music.


Case of the Blues-Abraham Laboriel.mov 
The extraordinary bass player Abraham Laboriel started off with a little improv slow blues riff, then the rest of the band joined in making it up as they played. Hadley Hockensmith on guitar, Bill Maxwell on drums, Greg Mathieson on organ, and Phil Driscoll on trumpet. Phil also mashed up some lyrics from 2 or 3 songs, made up a few others and the result is this infectious blues number I'm calling "Case of the Blues." Great musicians making fantastic music on the fly.








Coot Grant   *17.07.1893, +unbekannt

(Leola B. Pettigrew)




Coot „Cutie“ Grant (* Alabama als Leola B. Pettigrew) war eine US-amerikanische Vaudeville Blues-Sängerin, Gitarristin und Songwriterin.
Coot Grant war der Künstlername der Sängerin Leola B. Pettigrew, die nach ihrer Heirat mit Wesley „Kid“ Wilson, der auch musikalisch ihr Partner war, Leola Wilson hieß. Sie lernten sich 1905 kennen; zuvor war Coot Grant als Tänzerin in Vaudeville-Truppen aufgetreten. In der Zeit vor dem Kriegsausbruch vor 1914 war sie durch Europa und Südafrika getourt; dabei wurde sie von ihrem Mann am Klavier oder der Orgel begleitet. Sie traten auch unter Pseudonym wie Patsy Hunter oder bizarren Bühnennamen wie Catjuice Charlie, Kid Wilson, Jenkins, Socks und Sox Wilson auf.
Grant und Wilson traten und nahmen auch unter den Bezeichnungen Kid and Coot bzw. Hunter and Jenkins mit Jazzmusikern wie Fletcher Henderson, Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet und Louis Armstrong auf, gastierten in Musikkomödien, reisenden Shows und Revuen. 1933 hatte sie einen Auftritt in dem Film Emperor Jones an der Seite des Sängers Paul Robeson.
In Erinnerung bleibt Grant auch durch ihre Aktivitäten als Songwriterin; das Paar schrieb zusammen ungefähr 400 Songs, am bekanntesten „Gimme A Pigfoot“, der einer der Hits der Bluessängerin Bessie Smith war. Weitere bekannte Titel waren „Dem Socks Dat My Pappy Wore“ und der „Throat Cutting Blues“. Grant nahm auch unter eigenem Namen 1926 einige Country Blues-Titel in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Gitarristen Blind Blake auf.
Mitte der 1930er Jahre ließ der Erfolg des Paars nach; es entstanden noch Aufnahmen im Jahr 1938. Mezz Mezzrow holte dann die beiden Ende 1947 ins Studio, als er mit ihnen Material („Breathless Blues“, „Really the Blues“) für sein eigenes Label King Jazz einspielte. Grant trat noch weiter auf, nachdem sich ihr Mann 1948 aus der Musikszene zurückzog, geriet aber dann in Vergessenheit, sodass über ihren weiteren Verbleib nichts bekannt ist.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coot_Grant 

Coot Grant (June 17, 1893 – unknown)[1] was an American classic female blues, country blues, and vaudeville, singer and songwriter.[3] Her own stage craft, plus the double act with her husband and musical partner, Wesley "Kid" Wilson, was popular with African American audiences in the 1910s, 1920s and early 1930s.[2][4]

Biography

One of fifteen offspring, she was born Leola B. Pettigrew in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.[2] The first part of her eventual stage name came from a derivation of her childhood nickname, 'Cutie'. She began work in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, appearing in vaudeville, and the following year toured South Africa and across Europe with Mayme Remington's Pickaninnies. She was sometimes billed as Patsy Hunter. In 1913, she married the singer, Isiah I. Grant, and they worked on stage together before his death in 1920. She married Wesley Wilson the same year,[2] but he surpassed her on stage names being later variously billed as Catjuice Charlie (in a brief duo with Pigmeat Pete), Kid Wilson, Jenkins, Socks, and Sox Wilson. He played both piano and organ, whilst Coot Grant strummed guitar as well as sing and dance.[3]

The duo's billing also varied between Grant and Wilson, Kid and Coot, and Hunter and Jenkins, as they went on to appear and later record with Fletcher Henderson, Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong. Their variety was such that they performed separately and together in vaudeville, musical comedies, revues and traveling shows. This ability to adapt also saw them appear in the 1933 film, The Emperor Jones, alongside Paul Robeson.[3]

In addition to this, the twosome wrote in excess of 400 songs over their working lifetime.[5] That list included "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)" (1933) and "Take Me for a Buggy Ride", which were both made famous by Bessie Smith's recording of the songs, plus "Find Me at the Greasy Spoon" and "Prince of Wails" for Fletcher Henderson. Their own renditions included the diverse, "Come on Coot, Do That Thing" (1925), "Dem Socks Dat My Pappy Wore," and "Throat Cutting Blues" (although the latter remains unreleased)."[3]

In 1926, Grant joined up with Blind Blake, and recorded a selection of country blues renditions.[3] These were Blake's debut recordings.[2] Although Grant and Wilson's act, once seen as a serious rival to Butterbeans and Susie,[2] began to lose favor with the public by the middle of the 1930s, they recorded further songs in 1938.[3] Their only child, Bobby Wilson, was born in 1941.[6] By 1946, and after Mezz Mezzrow had founded his King Jazz record label, he engaged them as songwriters.[3] In that year, the association led to their final recording session backed by a quintet incorporating Bechet and Mezzrow.[6] In December 1948, The Record Changer magazine reported that Coot Grant and Kid Sox Wilson opened a new show in Newark, NJ, "an old time revue called 'Holiday in Blues.'"

Wilson retired in ill health shortly thereafter,[5] but Grant continued performing into the 1950s.[3] In a May 1951 Record Changer magazine poll, she was listed among a roster of notable female vocalists, although she received less than five votes in the poll, while the top spot - Bessie Smith - received 381 votes. In January 1953, one commentator noted that the couple had moved from New York to Los Angeles, but were in considerable financial hardship.[7] Grant's popularity waned to such an extent that no official details have been uncovered concerning her death.[3]

Her entire recorded work, both with and without Wilson, was made available in three chronological volumes in 1998 by Document Records.



Coot Grant and Kid Wilson - Stevedore Man (1926) 











Harriet Lewis   *17.07.

 



Eine Nacht mit Jazz, Blues, moderner Musik, mit einem Hauch geschmackvollen Gospels.
Harriet Lewis; eine international, professionelle Künstlerin/Songschreiberin,
die bereits 8 CDs' vorweisen kann.
Sie ist eine beeindruckende, ansprechende und absolut kontrollierte Sängerin, gebürtig von der Ostküste der USA.
Harriet geht bis zu Ihrer Grenze, um uns zu zeigen und zu beweisen, dass sie eine wirkliche 'First Lady' dieses Millenniums ist. Sie weiß, was sie will und wie sie dies umsetzten kann.
Sie stellt in Ihrer Art eine engagierte, selbstlose, verlässliche und feminine "Grande Dame" der Musik dar.
Harriet ist eine Zusammenstellung aus rauhem/klammen Blues, sexy/romantischen Balladen und gesungenem traditionellen Gospel.
Harriet Lewis, beweißt sich als Legende ihrer Aera.
1) Harriet Lewis wurde in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, als Tochter jamaikanischer Einwanderer geboren.
a) Mit 12 Jahren hat sie in der heimischen "Baptisten Kirche" zu singen angefangen. Dann wurde sie selbst Leiterin des Baptisten Chors, der in Pennsylvania und über dessen Grenzen hinaus, Konzerte bestritt.
b) Später bildete Sie mit Hilfe Ihrer Mutter einen Kinderchor, bestehend aus 5-17 jährigen Kindern.
2) Ihre erste musikalische Grundausbildung erhielt Harriet am Sherwood Recreation Center in Philadelphia, PA.
a) Dort studierte sie Tanz, was die verschiedenen Stilrichtungen, wie Ballet, Tab, Modern Jazz, African und Modeling beinhaltete.
b) Während dieser Zeit hat sie begonnen, diese verschiedenen Tanzstile in Ihre Gesangsvorführungen einzubauen; was ihr wiederum half, viele Amateur- Wettbewerbe zu gewinnen.
3) 1967, wurde Harriet, unter dem Label "Philadelphia International Records", eine der Gründungsmitglieder der "FORGET ME KNOTS".
a) Diese Verbindung und ihr stimmliches Talent, wurden von Musik produzierenden Größen, wie:
PATTIE LABELLE, BILLY PAUL, THE O JAY'S, 3 DEGREES, INTRUDERS,DEL PHONICS,HAROLD MELVIN & THE BLUE NOTES, DONALD BYRD & BLACK BIRDS, TEDDY PENDEGRAST, BOBBY HUMPHREY, FOUR TOPS, PIECES OF A DREAM & MELBA MORE
verehrt und gefragt.
b)Später sang sie für die Plattenfirmen "Blue Note Label", "Golden Production" und "Sal Sol Orchestra" als Background-Sängerin.
4) Nachdem Harriet ihre theoretische Stimm- und Musikausbildung bei der Philadelphia Musik Akademie abgeschlossen hatte, unterschrieb sie einen 2 Jahresvertrag für eine Konzerttournee mit Philly Groove Recording Künstler "Raw Image".
5) 1973, gründete Harriet ihre erste eigene Band "POSH" und wurde als absolute #1, der weiblichen Jazzsängerinnen in Philadelphia, PA. anerkannt und verehrt.
6) 1980, ist Harriet in die amerikanische Armee eingetreten, wo sie während ihres Einsatzes weiterhin Konzerte gab. Als sie an der West Point Military Academy stationiert war, gab sie Unterricht in Theater- und Gesangskunst. In dieser Zeit hat Harriet ein musikalisches Wettbewerbprogramm ins Leben gerufen, wodurch Sie sehr beliebt wurde.
7) Harriet wurde auch engagiert, um vor Würdenträger aus Japan, Afrika, Korea, Frankreich und den U.S.A. zu singen. Während dieser Zeit, teilte sie sich die Bühne mit Berühmtheiten, wie das Charlie Byrd Trio, Gregory Hines, George Benson, Earl Klugh, Jennifer Holiday und vielen vielen anderen.
8) Nachdem Harriet nach Stuttgart, Deutschland, umgezogen war, hat sie begonnen, in hiesigen Hotels' und Clubs' aufzutreten. Dies führte dazu, dass sie die besten deutschen Musiker kennenlernte, darunter auch Pops Wilson, mit dessen Orchestra sie zusammen bis heute noch auftritt. Zwischen Harriet und Pops entstand eine außergewöhnlich, "magische" Freundschaft, die durch ihre erste gemeinsame CD " A touch of elegance" besiegelt wurde.
9) Harriet hat in der Zwischenzeit zwölf weitere CDs' produziert. Ausschnitte können sie sich unter der Rubrik "Discography" anschauen und anhören.
Harriet eröffnete Konzerte für LUTHER VANDROSS, MARIAH CAREY, THE WEATHER GIRLS,ERIC CLAPTON,LISA STANSFIELD,CRASH TEST DUMMIES,HEINO,"Comedian" OTTO,MICHAEL BOLTON,"'THE KING OF POP" MICHAEL JACKSON,RAY CHARLES und vielen anderen. Siehe Ihre "Musikbiographie".
10) Durch Ihren musikalischen Erfolg wurde Harriet, 1995, als beste europäische Soul, Blues, Jazz Sängerin vom deutschen Rock- + Popmusikverband ev. mit dem Musik Oskar ausgezeichnet.
Harriet ist eine Künstlerin, deren Energie und musikalische Leidenschaft, durch stetige qualitative Korrektur und kritische Verbesserung Ihrer Auftritte, das Licht ihres Sternes zum gluehen bringt.
Treue Fans sagten einmal, dass Harriet ihrem Publikum als Prinzessin gegenübertritt und als KOENIGIN die Bühne wieder verlässt.
Wie ein geschliffener Diamant, ist Harriet Lewis ein musikalisches Genie, was einen königlichen Rahmen verdient.
http://www.swingin-wiwa.de/2007/themen/interpreten/soulfinger/harriet-lewis.htm

Harriet Lewis was born in 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of God fearing Jamaican parents. She began singing in her local Baptist Church when she was 12 and became the director of their Baptist choir who travelled throughout Philadelphia. She later formed a junior choir of her own with the help of her mother consisting of children between the ages of 5 and 17. They performed concerts throughout the Eastern coastal region of the US singing a cappella vocal arrangements by Harriet.

    She received her first formal training at Sherwood Recreation Centre in Philly and here she studied dance including ballet, tap, modern jazz, African and modelling and it was here that she began to incorporate dance styles into her vocal performances winning many local talent competitions. In 1967 Harriet became one of the founder members of the Philadelphia International Records recording group ‘The Forget Me Knots’ and it was with this label that she recorded background vocals with Pattie Labelle, Billy Paul, The O Jay’s, Prince Charles’ main squeeze The Three Degrees, The Intruders, The Del Phonics, The Four Tops, the wonderful Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, the terrific Donald Byrd, etc etc; It was with the latter group that she eventually moved to the famous Blue Note label to work on background tracks for Blue Note, Gold Production and Sal Soul Orchestra.

    After completing Voice and Music Theory at the Philadelphia Music Academy Harriet signed on for a two-year road tour with Philly groove artists ‘Raw Image’. In 1973 Harriet formed her own band ‘POSH’, which soon became recognised as one of the foremost bands in Philadelphia. When she arrived in Stuttgart, Germany she worked the nightclub and hotel circuits and was soon in demand by some of Germany’s elite jazz and blues musicians. She has opened for Luther Vandross, Eric Clapton, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles and many others. From a cappella, gospel to full-blown jazz orchestra’s Harriet has done it all.
http://www.shakedownblues.co.uk/biography_read.php?e_id=86


Gregor Hilden Band And Harriet Lewis on a new DVD 








Janice Scroggins   *17.07.1955



Janice Scroggins (* 1955 in Idabel, Oklahoma; † 27. Mai 2014 in Portland, Oregon[1][2]) war eine US-amerikanische Blues- und Jazzpianistin, die in der Musikszene von Oregon aktiv war.
Janice Scroggins erhielt ab drei Jahren Klavierunterricht von ihrer Mutter und ihrer Großmutter, die beide Kirchenorganistinnen waren; letztere prägte ihren am Stride-Piano orientierten Stil. Sie besuchte die afroamerikanische Booker T. Washington School. Musikalisch geprägt wurde sie von Gospelmusikern wie Sister Rosetta Tharpe und Brother Joe May. Später lebte sie in Oakland, bevor sie 1978 mit ihrer Tochter Arietta nach Portland zog. Dort arbeitete sie u. a. mit den Sängerinnen Linda Hornbuckle und Thara Memory. 1987 entstand das Album Janice Scroggins Plays Scott Joplin (Flying Heart), das für den Grammy Award nominiert wurde[1]. Im Bereich des Jazz war sie zwischen 1987 und 2008 an acht Aufnahmesessions beteiligt, u. a. mit Eddie Harris und Akbar DePriest[3]. 2013 wurde sie in die Oregon Music Hall of Fame aufgenommen; Anfang 2014 erschien ihr zweites und letztes Album Piano Love. Ihren letzten größeren Auftritt hatte sie Anfang 2014 auf dem Portland Jazz Festival[4]. Sie starb im Mai 2014 an den Folgen eines Herzinfarktes während des Unterrichts am Portland Community College.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_Scroggins 

Janet Scroggins (July 17, 1955 – May 27, 2014) was a jazz pianist in Portland, Oregon.

Early life

Scroggins was born in 1955 in Idabel, Oklahoma, to Henry and Mary Scroggins. Her mother and grandmother were church pianists and organists. She moved to the Albina community of Portland in 1978.[1]

Musical career

Scroggins performed with Portland area musicians including Linda Hornbuckle, Thara Memory, Curtis Salgado, and Mel Brown. She also played with the Norman Sylvester Blues Band and was a session musician for several other artists.[2]

Tributes

In 1992, Scroggins was inducted into the Cascade Blues Association Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

The Esquires - Unemployment Blues
 Jan Celt- Guitar, vocal, bandleader
Mary Reynolds-Lead vocal
Janice Scroggins-keyboards
- Tenor Sax (solo)
Dave Mills (Mills Davis)-Trumpet
Warren Rand-Alto sax
Jonathan Drechsler- bass
Guy Maxwell (?)-drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfKSViAQ3AA#t=48 


Janice Scroggins with Linda Hornbuckle 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DrXB7x-5PQ 








Margie Evans   *17.07.1940

 


Margie Evans (born July 17, 1940) is an American blues singer and songwriter.[2] She recorded mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, and secured two hit singles on the US Billboard R&B chart. She has variously worked with Johnny Otis and Bobby Bland.
Her main influences were Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Big Maybelle and Big Mama Thornton.[3]
In addition to her musicianship, Evans is noted as a motivational speaker and rights activist, as well as a promoter of the legacy of blues music.
Marjorie Ann Johnson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States.[1] Raised as a devout church goer, Evans early exposure to music was via gospel.[5] In 1958, she moved to Los Angeles. She initially sang as a backing vocalist with Billy Ward between 1958 and 1964, before joining the Ron Marshall Orchestra between 1964 and 1969. She then successfully auditioned to join Johnny Otis Band.[1] During her four year stay there, she performed on The Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey and Cuttin' Up albums. In addition to her recording and performing duties, Evans used her influence to help set up the Southern California Blues Society to help promote the art form through education and sponsorship.[5]
Evans commenced her solo career in 1973, and found almost immediate chart success. Her track "Good Feeling" (United Artists 246) entered the R&B chart on June 30, 1973 for four weeks, reaching number 55. However, it was another four years before "Good Thing Queen - Part 1" (ICA 002) entered the same chart listing on July 9, 1977 for eight weeks, peaking at number 47.[1] In 1975 she supplied backing vocals on Donald Byrd's album, Stepping into Tomorrow.[6]
Also sandwiched between these hits, in November 1975, Evans appeared on German television filmed at the Berlin based Jazz Tage concert with Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Bo Diddley and James Booker.[7] Using Bobby Bland as her record producer and part-time song writing partner, Evans co-wrote the song "Soon As the Weather Breaks", which reached number 76 (R&B) for Bland in 1980.[1][8]
In 1980, Evans performed at the San Francisco Blues Festival and Long Beach Blues Festival, repeating the feat at the latter a year later. Her touring saw Evans take part in the American Folk Blues Festivals in 1981, 1982 and 1985.[9] In 1983, Evans was granted the Keepin' the Blues Alive Award by the Blues Foundation.[3]
Still performing into the early 1990s, Evans toured the States, Canada and Europe as well as appearing with Jay McShann at the Toronto Jazz Festival.[3] In the same decade, Evans continued her welfare work, by helping to organise the 5-4 Optimist Club for children from the South Central Los Angeles district.[5] Her 1996 album, Drowning in the Sea of Love is her most recent recorded output.




Zoot Money  *17.07.1942



http://www.bluespower-bs.de/news.html


Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band war eine britische Soul-Band, die Mitte der 1960er Jahre vornehmlich in Großbritannien erfolgreich war.

Zoot selbst spielte Orgel und sang in einem funkigen, vom Blues herkommenden Stil. Er beherrschte mit seiner kraftvollen, unverwechselbaren Persönlichkeit jeden Song und wurde von einer hervorragenden Band begleitet. Zu dieser gehörte unter anderem Andy Summers, der später mit The Police noch viel berühmter werden sollte.

In die Charts hat es die Band einmal geschafft, mit der Single Big Time Operator, in der Zoot sich in aller Bescheidenheit selbst beschreibt.

Zoot gründete später eine experimentelle Gruppe namens Dantalion’s Chariot, bevor er Organist bei Eric Burdons Animals wurde.

George Bruno Money, known as Zoot Money (born 17 July 1942, Bournemouth (at that time in Hampshire), England) is a British vocalist, keyboardist and bandleader best known for his playing of the Hammond organ and association with his Big Roll Band. Inspired by Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, he was drawn to rock and roll music and became a leading light in the vibrant music scene of Bournemouth and Soho during the 1960s. Money has been associated with Eric Burdon, Steve Marriott, Kevin Coyne, Rocket 88, Snowy White, Mick Taylor, Spencer Davis, Geno Washington, Brian Joseph Friel, the Hard Travelers, Widowmaker and Alan Price. He is also known as a bit part and character actor.
He was born George Bruno Money in Bournemouth, Hampshire, in 1942, of a family that were Italian immigrants, though of English descent on his father's side. He played the French horn and sang in the school choir as a boy. During the mid-1950s, he discovered Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, took up keyboard and, by the beginning of the 1960s, Hammond organ. He took his name from Zoot Sims after seeing him in concert.[1]
In early autumn 1961 Zoot Money formed the Big Roll Band, with himself as vocalist, Roger Collis on lead guitar, pianist Al Kirtley (later of Trendsetters Limited), bassist Mike "Monty" Montgomery and drummer Johnny Hammond. In 1962 drummer Pete Brookes replaced Hammond at the same time as bassist Johnny King and tenor sax player Kevin Drake joined the band.[2]
The Big Roll Band played soul, jazz and R&B, moving with musical trends as the now established R&B movement moved into the Swinging Sixties and became associated with the burgeoning "Soho scene". Money's antics as a flamboyant frontman were a feature of the band's act. During 1964 the Big Roll Band started playing regularly at the Flamingo Club in Soho, London until Money joined Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. During the mid-1960s the lead guitarist in the Big Roll Band was Andy Summers, who later found international fame as one of the three members of the Police. In July 1967 the Big Roll Band became Dantalian's Chariot and in spite of a lack of chart success the band found itself at the heart of a new counter culture, sharing concert line-ups with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. A single, "Madman Running Through the Fields", was released in 1967 but in April 1968 Dantalian's Chariot was disbanded.[3] During 1968, with a brief stint in the United States with Eric Burdon & the New Animals, Money moved to the States. During this period he began attracting acting roles and started a parallel career with character appearances in film and TV dramas.
In June 1970, Money contributed piano to the improvisational studio jam session led by former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green; and edited into six tracks that formed Green's experimental release, The End of the Game. Also in the 1970s, Money appeared with different acts including the poetry and rock band Grimms, Ellis, Centipede, Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne. Money toured with Coyne and appeared on Coyne's double album In Living Black And White (1976), which was recorded at live performances, and on his two studio albums Heartburn (1976) and Dynamite Daze (1978). Money signed to Paul McCartney's record label MPL Communications in 1980 and recorded Mr. Money produced by Jim Diamond. In 1981 Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane[4] formed a band with Money, bass player Jim Leverton, drummer Dave Hynes and saxophone player Mel Collins to record the album The Majic Mijits. The album features songs by Lane and Marriott but due to Lane's multiple sclerosis, they were unable to tour to promote it. It was eventually released nineteen years later.[5]
In 1994 Money appeared with Alan Price and the Electric Blues Company alongside vocalist and guitarist Bobby Tench, bassist Peter Grant and drummer Martin Wild, on A Gigster's Life for Me.[6] He continued to appear with Price at live appearances in the UK.[7] The Dantalian's Chariot album Chariot Rising was released in 1997, thirty years after it was recorded. In 1998 Money produced Ruby Turner's album Call Me by My Name,[8] and the Woodstock Taylor and the Aliens album Road Movie (2002), also contributing keyboards to both.[9] In 2002 he recorded tracks with Humble Pie for their album Back on Track released by Sanctuary Records.[10]
Money joined Pete Goodall to re-record the Thunderclap Newman UK hit single Something in the Air (2004) written by John "Speedy" Keene, which featured the last recorded performance by saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith.[11] In 2005 Money joined Goodall to record a CD of new songs by Goodall and Pete Brown. They went on to tour the UK under the name of Good Money.[12] In early 2006 Money and drummer Colin Allen joined vocalist Maggie Bell, bassist Colin Hodgkinson and guitarist Miller Anderson, in the British Blues Quintet.
He appeared with the RD Crusaders for the Teenage Cancer Trust at the "London International Music Show", on 15 June 2008.[13] In 2009 he appeared with Maggie Bell, Bobby Tench, Chris Farlowe and Alan Price, in the Maximum Rhythm and Blues Tour of thirty two British theatres.[14]
Acting career
As an actor Money appeared as a promotions man in the 1980 UK film Breaking Glass, and as a music-publishing executive in the 1981 Madness film Take It or Leave It. He also played one of Leonard Rossiter's fellow commuters dicing for first place across the River Thames, in the UK short film The Waterloo Bridge Handicap. Sometimes credited as G.B. Money or G.B, Money has appeared in a number of other small roles in British television programmes such as Bergerac, The Professionals, The Bill and Coronation Street. In 1979, Money also had a small role as the dim-witted Lotterby in the film version of Porridge. In 1992 and 1993 he appeared in the BBC sitcom Get Back as a dim but well meaning family friend 'Bungalow Bill' alongside Ray Winstone, Larry Lamb and Kate Winslet. In 2000 he starred in a film based on guitarist Syd Barrett, as a fanatical fan stalking the rock star Roger Bannerman in the underground cult film Remember a Day.


British Blues Allstars - Blues Garage - 16.10.14 









R.I.P.

 

Bill Perry   +17.07.2007

 



Bill Perry (December 25, 1957 - July 17, 2007)[1] was an American blues musician. The guitarist, songwriter and singer toured throughout the U.S. and Europe. In the 1980s, he was the main guitarist for Richie Havens; he also toured with Garth Hudson and Levon Helm around the same time.[2]
William Sanford Perry was born in Goshen, New York, United States. In 1957, he was signed for an unprecedented five-album deal with the Pointblank/Virgin label.[3] The Bill Perry Blues Band consisted of Bill Perry (lead vocals, lead guitar), John Reddan (guitar and vocals), Tim Tindall (bass guitar) and Rob Curtis (drums). The band released a total of seven albums between 1995 and 2006.[1]
He died of a heart attack in Sugar Loaf, New York on July 17, 2007, at the age of 49.[1][4] He is survived by a son Aaron and a large family.

 

 

 

Roosevelt Sykes   +17.07.1983

 



Roosevelt Sykes (* 31. Januar 1906 in Elmar, Arkansas; † 17. Juli 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana) war ein einflussreicher US-amerikanischer Blues-Pianist, auch bekannt als „the Honeydripper“.
Mit 15 Jahren begann Sykes, Piano zu spielen. Anfang der 1920er zog die Familie nach St. Louis, wo Sykes bald als hervorragender Bluesmusiker bekannt wurde. Wie viele andere Musiker zog er herum und spielte vor einem ausschließlich männlichen Publikum in Sägewerken und Bauarbeitercamps entlang des Mississippi Rivers. Hier erarbeitete er sich ein Repertoire von rohen, sexuell anzüglichen Liedern. 1929 wurde er von einem Talentescout entdeckt und er machte seine erste Plattenaufnahme für Okeh Records. Es handelte sich um den 44 Blues, eine Nummer, die zu einem Bluesstandard und zu seinem Markenzeichen wurde. Er machte viele Aufnahmen für verschiedene Labels, auch unter Pseudonymen wie „Easy Papa Johnson“, „Dobby Bragg“ und „Willie Kelly“.
In den 1940ern ging Sykes nach Chicago; dort nahm er auch einige Singles für United auf. Er war einer der wenigen Musiker, die auch während des Krieges, in Zeiten der Rationierung, Aufnahmen machen durften. Sykes war einer der ersten amerikanischen Bluesmusiker, die in Europa auftraten. Nachdem der elektrifizierte Blues in Chicago das Musikgeschehen beherrschte, ging Sykes nach New Orleans. Dort begann er in den 1960er-Jahren wieder Platten aufzunehmen, so für Delmark, Bluesville, Storyville und Folkways.
Seine letzten Jahre verbrachte Roosevelt Sykes in New Orleans, wo er 1983 starb. 1999 wurde er in die Blues Hall of Fame aufgenommen.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Sykes 

Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906 – July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "The Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player, whose rollicking thundering boogie-woogie was highly influential.[1]

Career

Born in Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes grew up near Helena but at age 15, went on the road playing piano with a barrelhouse style of blues. Like many bluesmen of his time, he travelled around playing to all-male audiences in sawmill, turpentine and levee camps along the Mississippi River, gathering a repertoire of raw, sexually explicit material. His wanderings eventually brought him to St. Louis, Missouri, where he met St. Louis Jimmy Oden.,[2] author of the blues standard "Goin' Down Slow".

In 1929 he was spotted by a talent scout and sent to New York City to record for Okeh Records.[3] His first release was "'44' Blues" which became a blues standard and his trademark.[3] He quickly began recording for multiple labels under various names including Easy Papa Johnson, Dobby Bragg and Willie Kelly. After he and Oden moved to Chicago he found his first period of fame when he signed with Decca Records in 1934.[3] In 1943, he signed with Bluebird Records and recorded with The Honeydrippers.[4] Sykes and Oden continued their musical friendship well into the 60s.

In Chicago, Sykes began to display an increasing urbanity in his lyric-writing, using an eight-bar blues pop gospel structure instead of the traditional twelve-bar blues. However, despite the growing urbanity of his outlook, he gradually became less competitive in the post-World War II music scene. After his RCA Victor contract expired, he continued to record for smaller labels, such as United, until his opportunities ran out in the mid-1950s.[3]

Roosevelt left Chicago in 1954 for New Orleans as electric blues was taking over the Chicago blues clubs. When he returned to recording in the 1960s it was for labels such as Delmark, Bluesville, Storyville and Folkways that were documenting the quickly passing blues history.[5] He lived out his final years in New Orleans, where he died from a heart attack[6] on July 17, 1983.[1]

Legacy

Sykes had a long career spanning the pre-war and postwar eras. His pounding piano boogies and risqué lyrics characterize his contributions to the blues. He was responsible for influential blues songs such as "44 Blues", "Driving Wheel", and "Night Time Is the Right Time".[1]

He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999[7] and the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in 2011.


Roosevelt Sykes Sings The Blues (1962) 
01. Slave For Your Love (2:06)
02. Gone With The Wind (2:59)
03. Wild Side (2:22)
04. Out On A Limb (3:19)
05. Honey Child (2:27)
06. Never Loved Like This Before (2:32)
07. Last Chance (2:45)
08. Casual Friend (2:32)
09. Your Will Is Mine (2:46)
10. Hupe Dupe Do (1:53)


 





Sam Myers   +17.07.2006

 



Samuel Joseph Myers (* 19. Februar 1936 in Laurel, Mississippi; † 17. Juli 2006 in Dallas, Texas) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Musiker (Gesang, Mundharmonika, Schlagzeug) und Songschreiber.
Während seiner Schulzeit in Jackson, Mississippi, lernte Myers Trompete und Schlagzeug zu spielen. Mit einem Stipendium besuchte er 1949 die "American Conservatory School of Music" in Chicago. Nachts spielte er in den Clubs der South Side, wo er mit so bekannten Bluesmusikern wie Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, Junior Lockwood und Elmore James auftrat.
Bei Elmore James spielte Myers von 1952 bis zu dessen Tod 1963 Schlagzeug. 1956 schrieb er den Bluesklassiker Sleeping In The Ground, der später u.a. von Eric Clapton und Robert Cray neu eingespielt wurde.
Zwischen den frühen 1960ern und 1986 arbeitete Myers in der Gegend um Jackson und im Chitlin' Circuit. Mit Sylvia Embry und der Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band war er weltweit auf Tour.
Ab 1986 bis zu seinem Tod war Myers Sänger und Mundharmonikaspieler bei Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets. Sam Myers starb am 17. Juli 2006 an Kehlkopfkrebs.
Die Rockets gewannen insgesamt neun Handy Awards, darunter drei als "Band of the Year" und 2004 in der Kategorie "Best Traditional Album of the Year".
Für sein Solo-Album Coming From The Old School war Sam Myers 2005 in der Kategorie "Best Traditional Album of the Year" nominiert.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Myers 

Sam Myers (February 19, 1936 – July 17, 2006)[1] was an American blues musician and songwriter. He appeared as an accompanist on dozens of recordings for blues artists over five decades. He began his career as a drummer for Elmore James, but was most famous as a blues vocalist and blues harp player. For nearly two decades he was the featured vocalist for Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets.

Biography

Samuel Joseph Myers[1] was born in Laurel, Mississippi. He acquired juvenile cataracts at age 7 and was left legally blind for the rest of his life despite corrective surgery. He could make out shapes and shadows, but could not read print at all; he was taught Braille.[2] Myers acquired an interest in music while a schoolboy in Jackson, Mississippi and became skilled enough at playing the trumpet and drums that he received a non-degree scholarship from the American Conservatory of Music (formerly named the American Conservatory School of Music) in Chicago. Myers attended school by day and at night frequented the nightclubs of the South Side, Chicago. There he met and was sitting in with Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and Elmore James. Myers played drums with Elmore James on a fairly steady basis from 1952 until James's death in 1963, and is credited on many of James's historic recordings for Chess Records. In 1956, Myers wrote and recorded what was to be his most famous single, "Sleeping In The Ground", a song that has been covered by Blind Faith, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and many other blues artists, as well as being featured on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour show on 'Sleep'.

From the early 1960s until 1986, Myers worked the clubs in and around Jackson, as well as across the South in the (formerly) racially segregated string of venues dubbed the Chitlin' Circuit. He also toured the world with Sylvia Embry and the Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band.

In 1986, Myers met Anson Funderburgh, from Plano, Texas, and joined his band, The Rockets. Myers toured all over the U.S. and the world with The Rockets, enjoying a partnership that endured until the time of his death, from complications from throat cancer surgery on July 17, 2006, in Dallas, Texas.[1]

Just before Myers died, he toured as a solo artist, in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with the Swedish band, Bloosblasters.[3]

That same year, the University Press of Mississippi published Myers' autobiography titled Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story. Writer Jeff Horton, whose work has appeared in Blues Revue and Southwest Blues, chronicled Myers' history and delved into his memories of life on the road.

Awards

Myers and The Rockets collectively won nine W. C. Handy Awards, including three "Band of the Year" awards and the 2004 award for Best Traditional Album of the Year. In 2005, Myers' record, Coming From The Old School was nominated for Traditional Blues Album of the Year for his .[4]

In January 2000, Myers was inducted into the Farish Street Walk of Fame in Jackson, Mississippi, an honor he shares with Dorothy Moore and Sonny Boy Williamson II. In 2006, just months before Myers died, the Governor of Mississippi presented Myers with the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and was named state Blues Ambassador by the Mississippi Arts Commission.


"Coming From The Old School" - Sam Myers 





Billie Holiday   +17.07.1959

 



Billie Holiday (* 7. April 1915 in Philadelphia[1]; † 17. Juli 1959 in New York; geboren als Elinore Harris[2]) zählt mit Ella Fitzgerald und Sarah Vaughan zu den bedeutendsten Jazzsängerinnen.

Kindheit (1915–1929)

Billie Holiday wurde vor der Annahme ihres Künstlernamens meist Eleanora Fagan genannt, auch wenn ihre Geburtsurkunde den Namen Elionora Harris aufweist. Später erhielt sie von ihrem Freund Lester Young den Spitznamen Lady Day.

Ein Großteil der Informationen über ihre Kindheit beruhen auf ihrer Autobiografie Lady Sings the Blues, die sie ab 1956 dem Journalisten William Dufty diktierte, deren Wahrheitsgehalt allerdings umstritten ist. Bereits der erste Satz deutet ihre ganz persönliche Sicht auf die Lebensumstände ihrer Kindheit an: „Mam und Dad waren noch Kinder, als sie heirateten. Er war achtzehn, sie war sechzehn, und ich war drei.“ Tatsächlich war ihre Mutter bei der Geburt der Tochter neunzehn Jahre alt, und sie war mit Billies vermutlichem[3] leiblichen Vater nie verheiratet und lebte mit ihm nie unter einem Dach.

Ihre Mutter Sarah „Sadie“ Fagan (geborene Harris) (1896–1945) behauptete, Clarence Halliday (1898–1937) alias: Clarence Holiday sei Billies leiblicher Vater, ein Jazz-Gitarrist, der später unter anderem im Fletcher Henderson Orchestra spielte. Nach Billies Geburt arbeitete sie eine Zeit lang als Serviererin in Zügen, weshalb Billie im Laufe ihrer ersten zehn Lebensjahre größtenteils bei der Schwiegermutter ihrer Halbschwester, Martha Miller, in Baltimore aufwuchs.[4] Als Billie elf Jahre alt war, eröffnete ihre Mutter das Restaurant The East Side Grill, in dem das Mädchen oft viele Stunden arbeiten musste. Kurze Zeit später brach sie die Schule ab.[5]

Am 24. Dezember 1926, Billie war elf Jahre alt, entdeckte ihre Mutter, als sie von der Arbeit zurückkam, wie ihr Nachbar, Wilbur Rich, gerade das Kind vergewaltigte.[6] Rich wurde verhaftet, und Billie kam „zu ihrem Schutz“ in das katholische Erziehungsheim The House of the Good Shepherd. Mit zwölf wurde Billie aus dem Erziehungsheim entlassen. Kurz darauf begann ihre Mutter, in einem Bordell zu arbeiten. Billie arbeitete dort ebenfalls als Botenmädchen. Hier lernte sie auf dem Grammophon des Etablissements die Musik von Louis Armstrong und Bessie Smith kennen. Nach ein paar Monaten wurden Mutter und Tochter während einer Razzia verhaftet. Danach zog die Mutter nach Harlem und ließ ihre Tochter abermals bei Martha Miller zurück.[7] Billie arbeitete damals vermutlich noch einige Zeit in einem Bordell in Baltimore als Prostituierte. In dieser Zeit begann sie mit dem Singen. Anfang 1929 folgte sie dann ihrer Mutter nach New York. Die dortige Vermieterin, Florence Williams, betrieb ein Bordell, in dem Mutter und die dreizehnjährige Tochter „für 5 $ pro Freier“ als Prostituierte arbeiteten.[8] Am 2. Mai 1929 kam es erneut zu einer Razzia, und wieder wurde Billie verhaftet und kam ins Gefängnis. Erst im Oktober desselben Jahres wurde sie wieder entlassen.

Die frühe Gesangskarriere (1929–1935)

1929 begann Elinore Harris in Clubs unter dem Namen aufzutreten, unter dem sie bekannt wurde: Billie Holiday. Er setzt sich zusammen aus dem Vornamen der Schauspielerin Billie Dove und dem Nachnamen ihres Vaters Clarence Holiday,[9] wobei sie ihren Nachnamen anfänglich noch Halliday schrieb.

1929–1931 trat sie zusammen mit ihrem Nachbarn, dem Tenorsaxofonisten Kenneth Hollan, in Clubs wie dem Grey Dawn, dem Pod’s and Jerry’s und dem Brooklyn Elks’ Club auf.[10]

Anfang 1933 wurde sie von den Plattenproduzenten John Hammond und Bernie Hanighen entdeckt, die von ihrem Improvisationstalent beeindruckt waren. Man organisierte im November 1933 Aufnahmen mit Benny Goodman für die Achtzehnjährige. Sie nahmen die Songs Your Mother’s Son-In-Law und Riffin’ the Scotch auf; Letzterer wurde mit einer Auflage von 5.000 Stück Billie Holidays erster Hit.

1935 sang sie Saddest Tale in Duke Ellingtons Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life.

Teddy Wilson (1935–1938)

Im gleichen Jahr nahm Hammond die aufstrebende Künstlerin für Brunswick Records unter Vertrag. Hier nahm sie bekannte Stücke im neu aufkommenden Swing-Stil für die immer populärer werdenden Jukeboxes auf. Holiday konnte bei diesen Aufnahmen frei improvisieren und erfand dabei jenen einzigartigen, höchst eigenwilligen Stil, mit den Melodien frei zu spielen, der zu ihrem Markenzeichen werden sollte. Zu ihren Aufnahmen aus der ersten Session gehörten What a Little Moonlight Can Do und Miss Brown to You, zwei Titel, die der Plattenfirma anfangs nicht besonders zusagten. Doch als die Platten erfolgreich verkauft wurden, begann man auch Platten unter ihrem eigenen Namen zu produzieren.[11] Wilson und Holiday nahmen viele populäre Songs der damaligen Zeit auf und machten sie damit zu Jazzklassikern. Stephan Richter schreibt hierzu: (…) in Wahrheit lebten in Holidays Liedern nicht die Komponisten auf, sondern ihre Stimme, ihre Persönlichkeit, die jedes Wort zu ihrem eigenen macht, jede Textzeile in ihrem Sinn neu schreibt.[12]

An vielen dieser Aufnahmen wirkte auch Lester Young mit, mit dem sie fortan eine lebenslange Freundschaft verbinden sollte. Er gab ihr den Spitznamen Lady Day, sie nannte ihn Prez. Außerdem meinte Young, ihre Mutter sollte den Spitznamen The Duchess („Die Herzogin“) erhalten, wenn ihre Tochter Lady heißt.

Da die Lieder nicht aufwendig arrangiert, sondern über weite Teile improvisiert wurden, waren diese Aufnahmen für Brunswick nicht teuer. Holiday bekam dafür eine Einmalzahlung und erhielt keinerlei Geld aus den Plattenverkäufen und Radioaufführungen, obwohl sich Aufnahmen wie I Cried for You 15.000 Mal und mehr verkauften, was ungefähr das Fünffache sonstiger Brunswick-Platten ausmachte.[13]

Count Basie und Artie Shaw (1937–1938)

Als Nächstes sang sie bei Count Basie. Er gewöhnte sich schnell daran, dass Billie starken Einfluss auf die Melodiefindung nahm, denn sie wusste schon damals genau, wie ihr Gesang klingen sollte.[14] Auch wenn sie nie mit Basie ins Studio ging – es gibt nur die Liveaufnahme I Can’t Get Started, They Can’t Take That Away from Me und Swing It Brother Swing aus der Zeit – so nahm sie doch viele seiner Musiker mit ins Studio zu Aufnahmen mit Teddy Wilson.[15] Im Februar 1938 kam es zum Bruch; laut Billie Holiday wegen eines Streits über zu niedrige Bezahlung und Änderungswünsche an ihrem Gesangsstil, laut Basie aufgrund ihrer Unzuverlässigkeit.[16]

Danach sang sie bei Artie Shaw, der bereits im März 1936 ihre erste Radioübertragung beim Sender WABC organisiert hatte. Aufgrund des großen Erfolgs der Sendung ließ ABC im April eine Sondersendung folgen. Da Shaw weniger Gesangsstücke im Programm hatte als Basie, konnte Holiday bei ihm weniger singen. Außerdem übte das Management Druck auf den Bandleader aus, lieber die weiße Sängerin Nita Bradley zu beschäftigen, mit der sie sich nicht sehr gut verstand. Als sie im November 1938 im Lincoln Hotel aufgrund von Beschwerden des Hotelmanagements gezwungen wurde, den Lastenaufzug und den Hinterausgang zu benutzen, war das Maß voll, und sie entschloss sich, die Band zu verlassen. Die einzige erhaltene Aufnahme aus dieser Zeit ist Any Old Time.

Sie trat als eine der ersten Jazzsängerinnen mit weißen Musikern auf und überwand damit rassistische Grenzen. Trotz dieser Vorreiterrolle wurde sie weiterhin gezwungen, Hintereingänge zu benutzen. Sie berichtete später, dass sie in dunklen, abgelegenen Räumen auf ihre Auftritte warten musste. Auf der Bühne verwandelte sie sich in Lady Day mit der weißen Gardenie im Haar. Die tiefe emotionale Wirkung ihres Gesangs erklärte sie mit der Bemerkung: „Ich habe diese Songs gelebt“.

Billie Holiday litt unter ihrer Diskriminierung als Schwarze. Vor allem bei den Tourneen mit gemischten Bands wie der von Artie Shaw 1938 machten sie und die anderen schwarzen Musiker täglich entwürdigende Erfahrungen. Als besonders demütigend empfand sie Auftritte, für die ihr Gesicht mit Make-up geschwärzt wurde, da dem weißen Publikum angeblich Billie Holidays Teint zuweilen als zu hell erschien.

Trotz aller Schwierigkeiten wurde 1938 ein sehr erfolgreiches Jahr für die Sängerin; im September erreichte ihre Aufnahme I’m Gonna Lock My Heart Platz 6 in den Charts.

Mainstream-Erfolg (1939–1947)

1939 sang sie erstmals den Song Strange Fruit, der auf dem gleichnamigen Gedicht des jüdischen Lehrers Abel Meeropol (alias Lewis Allan) basiert und eindringlich die Lynchjustiz an Schwarzen thematisiert. Während die Produzenten von Columbia das Thema „zu heiß“ fanden, erklärte Commodore Records sich bereit, es aufzunehmen, und die Platte wurde einer ihrer größten Erfolge. Seither verband das Publikum Billie Holiday mit diesem Stück und wollte es immer wieder von ihr hören. Die Aufführungen im Café Society waren minutiös inszeniert; Bevor sie das Stück sang, ließ sie das Publikum vorher von den Kellnern um Ruhe bitten. Das Licht wurde während des langen Intros heruntergedimmt und ein einziger Scheinwerfer erhellte Billie Holidays Gesicht. Mit dem Verklingen des letzten Tons erlosch das Licht, worauf sie dann im Dunkeln verschwand.[17]

Billie Holiday war ein Star geworden. Ihre Mutter Sadie Fagan nannte ihr Restaurant jetzt Mom Holiday. Gleichzeitig verspielte sie das Geld ihrer Tochter beim Würfeln. Als Billie Holiday eines Abends Geld von ihr haben wollte, zeigte ihre Mutter ihr die kalte Schulter. Angeblich verließ Billie Holiday daraufhin fluchend das Restaurant und rief: God bless the child that’s got its own!, woraus später die Titelzeile des Liedes God Bless the Child werden sollte. Der Song erreichte Platz 3 in den Billboards des Jahres und verkaufte sich über eine Million Mal.[18]

1943 schrieb das Life Magazine über Billie Holiday, sie besitze den individuellsten Stil aller populären Sängerinnen und werde damit von vielen kopiert.[19]

Bevor sie 1944 Lover Man für Decca aufnahm, flehte sie ihren Produzenten Milt Gabler an, wie Ella Fitzgerald und Frank Sinatra Streicher für die Aufnahme zu bekommen. Als sie dann am 4. Oktober ins Studio kam, war sie zu Tränen gerührt, weil dort tatsächlich ein Streicherensemble sie erwartete. Von da an wurde ihre Stimme häufiger von Streichern untermalt.[20]

Einen weiteren Erfolg erlebte Holiday, als sie 1944 in der Metropolitan Opera in New York als erste Jazz-Sängerin gefeiert wurde.

Der Auftritt im Film New Orleans (1946) neben ihrem Vorbild Louis Armstrong war für sie und ihre Fans hingegen enttäuschend. Sie durfte nur eine solche Rolle spielen, wie sie Hollywood damals für Schwarze meistens vorgesehen hatte, nämlich das „Dienstmädchen“. Billie, die glaubte, sich selbst spielen zu dürfen, war maßlos enttäuscht. Während der Dreharbeiten ließ sich außerdem ein Problem nicht mehr verbergen, das sie schon seit den frühen 1940er Jahren begleitete: ihre Heroinsucht. Joe Guy, ihr Ehemann und Dealer, erhielt deshalb Set-Verbot.[21]

Carnegie Hall, Prozess wegen Drogenbesitzes (1947–1949)

Am 16. Mai 1947 wurde Billie Holiday wegen Drogenbesitzes verhaftet. Im darauffolgenden Prozess bekannte sie sich schuldig und bat darum, in ein Krankenhaus eingewiesen zu werden, nachdem ihr Anwalt ihr hatte ausrichten lassen, er habe keine Lust, sie in dem Verfahren zu vertreten.[22] Sie erhielt eine Gefängnisstrafe, kam ins Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia und wurde am 16. März 1948 wegen guter Führung vorzeitig entlassen. Ihr Manager Ed Fishman wollte daraufhin ein Konzert in der Carnegie Hall veranstalten, doch Holiday zögerte, da sie nicht wusste, ob das Publikum nach ihrer Verhaftung noch zu ihr stehen würde. Schließlich gab sie nach. Das ausverkaufte Konzert vom 27. März 1948 wurde zu einem beispiellosen Erfolg.

Aufgrund ihrer Vorstrafe hatte Holiday ihre Cabaret-Lizenz verloren und durfte nicht an Orten mit Alkoholausschanklizenz auftreten, was ihr Einkommen erheblich minderte, zumal sie immer noch nicht angemessen an den Lizenzen beteiligt wurde (1958 erhielt sie einen Scheck über 11 Dollar für Lizenzgebühren).[23]

Am 22. Januar 1949 wurde sie erneut wegen Drogenbesitzes festgenommen.
Die letzten Jahre (1950–1959)

Mit den 1950er Jahren begann ihr gesundheitlicher Abstieg. Weiterhin hatte sie Beziehungen mit gewalttätigen Männern, Entzugsversuche blieben erfolglos. Der Drogenkonsum wirkte sich auch auf ihre Stimme aus: In ihren späteren Aufnahmen bei Verve Records weicht ihr jugendlicher Elan zusehends einer merklichen Schwermut.

1956 erschien ihre Autobiografie Lady Sings the Blues. Die gleichnamige LP enthielt bis auf den Titelsong keine neuen Aufnahmen, wurde jedoch vom Billboard Magazine als „würdige musikalische Ergänzung ihrer Autobiografie“ gelobt.[24]

Im November dieses Jahres hatte sie ihre letzten beiden ausverkauften Konzerte in der Carnegie Hall, was für jeden Künstler eine große Auszeichnung ist, besonders jedoch für eine schwarze Sängerin in den späten 1950er Jahren. 13 Aufnahmen aus dem zweiten Konzert erschienen 1961 postum auf dem Album The Essential Billie Holiday – Carnegie Hall Concert. Gilbert Milstein von der New York Times schrieb dazu in seinem Covertext:

    „Die Probe war zusammenhangslos, ihre Stimme klang dünn und schleppend, ihr Körper müde gebeugt. Aber ich werde niemals die Metamorphose an diesem Abend vergessen. Das Licht erlosch, die Musiker begannen zu spielen und die Erzählung begann. Miss Holiday trat zwischen den Vorhängen hervor in das sie erwartende Scheinwerferlicht, in eine weiße Robe gehüllt und mit einer weißen Gardenie im schwarzen Haar. Aufrecht und schön, souverän und lächelnd. Und als sie den ersten Teil ihrer Erzählung beendet hatte, begann sie zu singen – mit unverminderter Kraft – mit all ihrer Kunst. Ich war sehr bewegt. Mein Gesicht und meine Augen brannten in der Dunkelheit. Und ich erinnere mich an eine Sache. Ich lächelte.“

Tod

Anfang 1959 fand ihr Arzt heraus, dass sie unter Leberzirrhose litt, und verbot ihr das Trinken. Nach kurzer Abstinenz trank sie allerdings weiter. Im Mai hatte sie zehn Kilogramm Gewicht verloren. Am 31. Mai 1959 wurde sie ins Metropolitan Hospital eingeliefert, wo sie unter entwürdigenden Umständen starb; Polizisten standen um das Krankenbett herum, um sie wegen Drogenbesitzes zu verhaften.

Als sie starb, hatte sie 0,70 US-Dollar auf dem Konto.[25]

Holiday wurde auf dem Saint Raymonds Cemetery in der Bronx bestattet.

Würdigungen

Billie Holiday wurde in die Blues Hall of Fame und auf dem Hollywood Walk of Fame aufgenommen.
Bekannte Beziehungen

    Orson Welles (Schauspieler/Regisseur)[26] [27]
    Tallulah Bankhead (Schauspielerin)[28] [29] [30]
    John Levy
    Jimmy Monroe, Ehemann, Hochzeit am 25. August 1941, geschieden 1947
    Joe Guy, Ehemann nach common law, getrennt 1957 (Trompeter und Drogendealer)
    Louis McKay, Ehemann nach common law, Hochzeit am 28. März 1957, bis zu ihrem
    Tod.[31]

Einfluss

Holiday hatte in allen Phasen ihrer Karriere einen großen Einfluss auf andere Künstler. Nach ihrem Tod beeinflusste sie Sängerinnen wie Janis Joplin und Nina Simone.

Ihre späten Aufnahmen für das Schallplattenlabel Verve, darunter Solitude 1952 und Music for Torching 1955, haben genauso überlebt wie jene früheren Aufnahmen, die von 1933 an für Columbia Records, Commodore (The Complete Commodore Recordings) und Decca Records entstanden. Viele ihrer Stücke, unter anderem God Bless the Child, George Gershwins I Loves You Porgy und ihr reuevoller Blues Fine and Mellow sind Jazzklassiker geworden.

Billie Holiday besaß eine unverwechselbare Stimme. Obwohl sie keine musikalische Ausbildung hatte und nur über einen begrenzten Stimmumfang verfügte, war sie eine außergewöhnliche Sängerin; zugleich herb und zerbrechlich, sowohl unterkühlt als auch leidenschaftlich.

    „Bei Holiday gerät man in einen existentiellen Strudel, ein wirkliches Einlassen auf diese Musik schaltet das Gehirn aus wie eine Droge. Nur mit größten Schwierigkeiten wird man sich zu einem analytischen Hören dieser Lieder zwingen können, Holidays Stimme allein greift direkt an die Nervenbahnen.“

– Stephan Richter[32]

Einige der bekanntesten Standards, die sie mit ihrer Interpretation geprägt hat, sind A Fine Romance, All of Me, As Time Goes By, Autumn in New York, But Beautiful, Do You Know What It Means, Embraceable You, Fine and Mellow (Billie Holiday 1939), Gloomy Sunday, God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday 1939), Good Morning Heartache, I Cover the Waterfront, I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues, I Loves You Porgy, It’s Easy to Remember (And So Hard to Forget), Yesterdays, Lover Come Back to Me, Love for Sale, Lover Man, The Man I Love, Mean to Me, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Night and Day, Solitude, Stormy Weather, Summertime, There Is No Greater Love, These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You), The Way You Look Tonight und Willow Weep for Me.

Filme

Das Leben von Billie Holiday wurde 1972 unter dem Titel Lady Sings the Blues verfilmt. Die Hauptrolle spielte die amerikanische Soul-Sängerin Diana Ross, die für ihre Rolle für den Oscar als beste Schauspielerin nominiert wurde.

    Billie Holiday forever. Dokumentarfilm, Frankreich, 2012, 52:40 Min., Buch und Regie: Frank Cassenti, Produktion: arte France, Oléo Films, Erstsendung: 12. Dezember 2012 bei arte, Inhaltsangabe von arte.

    Ansonsten existieren von ihr nur noch einige wenige Dokumentarfilmaufnahmen, unter anderem aus der TV-Sendung The Sound of Jazz.

Kompositionen

Holiday hat mehrere Songs allein geschrieben, einige auch in Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Autoren.[33]

    1936: Billie’s Blues alias: I Love My Man
    1939: Our Love Is Different
    1939: Long Gone Blues
    1939: Fine and Mellow
    1939: Everything Happens for the Best (mit Tab Smith)
    1940: Tell Me More and More and Then Some
    1941: God Bless the Child (mit Arthur Herzog, Jr.)
    1944: Don’t Explain (mit Arthur Herzog, Jr.)
    1949: Somebody’s on My Mind
    1949: Now or Never (mit Curtis R. Lewis)
    1950: You Gotta Show Me
    1954: Stormy Blues
    1956: Lady Sings the Blues (mit Alberta Nichols)
    1956: My Man
 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday 


Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan;[2][3] April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959)[4] was an American jazz singer and songwriter.

Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.

Biography
Early life

Holiday was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Her father, a musician, did not marry or live with her mother. Not long after Holiday's birth, Clarence left her and her mother to pursue a career as a jazz guitarist.[5] Sarah had moved to Philadelphia aged 19,[6] after being ejected from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, Holiday's mother arranged for the young Holiday to stay with her older married half-sister, Eva Miller, who lived in Baltimore. Holiday, who was of African American ancestry, was also said to have had Irish ancestors through her mother's mixed heritage.

Holiday had a difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was left to be raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being left in others' care for much of the first ten years of her life.[7] Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, was sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists the father as a man named Frank DeViese. Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker.[8] DeViese lived in Philadelphia and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work.

Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage was over in two years. Holiday was left with Martha Miller again while her mother took more transportation jobs.[9] Holiday frequently skipped school and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school. She was baptized there on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother, who had opened a restaurant called the East Side Grill, where she and Holiday worked long hours. By the age of 11, Holiday had dropped out of school.[10]

Attempted rape and prostitution

Holiday's mother returned to their home on December 24, 1926, to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Billie, but failing. She fought back. Rich was arrested. Officials placed Billie in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case.[11] Holiday was released in February 1927, nearly twelve. She found a job running errands in a brothel.[12] During this time, Holiday first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother decided to try her luck in Harlem, New York, and left Holiday again with Martha Miller.[13]

By early 1929, Holiday joined her mother in Harlem. Their landlady was a sharply dressed woman named Florence Williams, who ran a brothel at 151 West 140th Street. Holiday's mother became a prostitute and, within a matter of days of arriving in New York, Holiday, who had not yet turned fourteen, also became a prostitute at $5 a client.[14] On May 2, 1929, the house was raided, and Holiday and her mother were sent to prison. After spending some time in a workhouse, her mother was released in July, followed by Holiday in October, at the age of 14.

Early singing career

In Harlem she started singing in various night clubs. Holiday took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father.[3] At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", the birth surname of her father, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan. From 1929 to 1931, they were a team, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club.[15][16] Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at The Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, Holiday played at many clubs, including Mexico's and The Alhambra Bar and Grill where Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb, first met her. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing with Fletcher Henderson's band.[17]

By the end of 1932 at the age of 17, Billie Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at a club called Covan's on West 132nd Street. The producer John Hammond, who loved Monette Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday in early 1933.[18] Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933 with Benny Goodman, singing two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch," the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, but "Riffin' the Scotch," released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was quite impressed by Holiday's singing style. He said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.[19]

In 1935, Billie Holiday had a small role as a woman being abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's short Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. In her scene, she sang the song "Saddest Tale."[20]

Recordings with Teddy Wilson (1935–1938)

Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new "swing" style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of the melody line to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," and "Miss Brown to You (1935)." The record label did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right.[21] She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen.[22]

With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (#6 Pop) or "Yankee Doodle Went To Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her early to late 20s.

Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said: "Well, I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that."[23] Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she, in turn, dubbed him "Prez".

Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Teddy Wilson-Billie Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Because Wilson, Holiday, Lester Young, and other musicians came into the studio without any arrangements, which cost money, and improvised the material as they went along, the records they produced were very cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the record label money. Some of the records produced were largely successful, such as the single "I Cried for You" which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." [24]

Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw (1937–1938)

In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big band vocalist with Count Basie.[25] The traveling conditions of the band were often poor and included one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her then developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in the opera Porgy and Bess a few years earlier. Count Basie had gotten used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do."[26]

Holiday found herself in direct competition with popular singer Ella Fitzgerald, with whom Holiday would later become friends.[27] Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, who were in competition with Count Basie. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Count Basie and Chick Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Chick Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine. Down Beat magazine declared Holiday and Basie the winners. A straw poll of the audience saw Fitzgerald win by a three-to-one margin.

Some of the tunes Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me," and "Swing It Brother Swing," are all commercially available.[28] Although Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Count Basie, she did include many of his musicians in her recording dates with Teddy Wilson.

By February of that year, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. The reason given for her firing varies from person to person. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was officially fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". Holiday complained of low pay and working conditions and may have refused to sing the tunes requested of her or change her style.[29]

Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement for the times. Also, this was the first time a full-time employee black female singer toured the segregated Southern US with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. Holiday describes one incident in her autobiography where she could not sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." [30] When touring the American South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and needed to be escorted off the stage.[31]

By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reported an improvement in Holiday's performance ability while reviewing the broadcasts. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Artie Shaw's shows as she could Basie's. The songs were more instrumental with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and an "remarkable sense of time", her time in the band was nearing an end.[32]

In November 1938 Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel, instead of the passenger elevator, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen."

There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Artie Shaw's band. Because she was under a separate recording label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was only able to record one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Artie Shaw played clarinet in four songs recorded in New York the 10th of July 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues."

By the late 1930s, Billie Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were being imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards.[33] In 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked 6th as the most-played song for September of that year. Her record label Vocalion listed the single as its fourth best seller for the same month. "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" peaked at number 2 on the pop charts according to Joel Whitburn's "Pop Memories: 1890–1954" book.[34]

Commodore recordings and mainstream success (1939)

Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings.[35] It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.[36]

When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records. That was done on April 20, 1939, and "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She later recorded it again for Verve. While the Commodore release did not get any airplay, the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit.[37] "The version I recorded for Commodore," Holiday said of "Strange Fruit," "became my biggest-selling record.[38] "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top twenty hit in the 1930s.

For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out and when they came back on, Holiday was gone.[39]

Holiday said her father Clarence Holiday was denied treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of prejudice and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South," she said in her autobiography.[40]

Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine.[41] "I open Café Society as an unknown," Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." Holiday demanded her manager Joe Glaser give her a raise shortly after.[42]

Holiday soon returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s like "I Cover The Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I To Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a Bing Crosby number one hit. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which would later be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

Successes (1940–1947)

Holiday's mother, Sadie Fagan, nicknamed "The Duchess," opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me," Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some," she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued and Holiday shouted angrily: "God bless the child that's got his own," and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the line "God Bless the Child" and added music.[43]

"God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard's songs of the year, selling over a million records.[44][45] In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.[46] Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said Holiday came up with the line "God Bless the Child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.[47]

On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract with Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day."[48] The song reached 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade.[49]

In September 1943, Life wrote: "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."[50]

Milt Gabler became an A&R man for Decca Records as well as owning Commodore Records, and he signed Holiday to the label on August 7, 1944, when she was 29.[51] Her first recording for Decca was "Lover Man" (#16 Pop, No. 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 40s. Gabler said: "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs."[52] Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, "Lover Man"'s songwriters, had tried to interest Holiday in the song in .[53] In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street.[54] Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's other side was "No More", one of her favorites.[51]

Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. They were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him," Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me."[55] On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man" and saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata said she was overwhelmed with joy.[55] She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings with Decca often involved strings.[55]

A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.[56]

Holiday did not return to the studio until August 1945. She recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" as her favorite Holiday recording.[57] "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola.
Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, c. June 1946

In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, it remained in her live shows, with three known live recordings.[58]

In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film New Orleans. She starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail.[59]

Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes," Holiday said, "[and] none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture."[60] She recorded the track "The Blues Are Brewin'", for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville".

Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than a thousand dollars a week from club ventures but spent most on heroin. Her lover Joe Guy traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. When discovered by Joe Glaser, Holiday's manager, Guy was banned from the set.[61]

By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache," saying "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well."[39] The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.[62]

Legal troubles, Carnegie Hall Concert (1947–1952)

By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made 250,000 dollars in the three previous years.[63] Holiday came 2nd in the Down Beat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in the poll.[64] She came 5th on July 6, 1947 in Billboard's annual college poll of "girl singers". Jo Stafford came first.[65] In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome Magazine popularity poll.[66]

On May 16, 1947, she was arrested for possessing narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27, 1947, she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt," she recalled.[67] During the trial, Holiday heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." At the end of the trial, Holiday was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia, popularly known as "Camp Cupcake".

Holiday was released early (March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackled her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy," she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service," she said.[68]

Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear.

On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. There were 2,700 tickets sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record.[69] Her last hit was "Lover Man" in 1945, her last on the record charts. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 30s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent Holiday a box of gardenias. "My old trademark," Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday, unknowingly, stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears," she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.[70]

On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit," she said. But it closed after three weeks.[71]

Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at San Francisco's Hotel Mark Twain.
Billie Holiday in court in late 1949. She was brought to court over a contract dispute.

Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, who was her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.

In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.[72]

Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked because of her 1947 conviction, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol for the remaining 12 years of her life.

The Cabaret system started in 1940 and was to prevent people of "bad character" from working on licensed premises. A performer had to renew the license every two years. This lasted until 1967.[73] Clubs that sold alcohol in New York were among the highest paying in the country. Club owners knew blacklisted performers had limited work and could offer a smaller salary. This reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. For instance, in 1958 she received a royalty of only 11 dollars.[74][75] Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, did not register with BMI on all but two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue.[76]

In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which, because she lost her cabaret card, was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared," Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."[77]

Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948.

In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal-International short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".[78]

Lady Sings the Blues (1952–1959)

By the 1950s, Holiday's drug abuse, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.

Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney, and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love - Billie Holiday.[79]

Holiday's late recordings on Verve constitute about a third of her commercial recorded legacy and are as popular as her earlier work for the Columbia, Commodore and Decca labels. In later years, her voice became more fragile, but it never lost the edge that had always made it so distinctive.

Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He drew on the work of earlier interviewers as well and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way.[80]

In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argues that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, and that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. "In particular, Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the nineteen-thirties, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late nineteen-forties—and of one relationship that’s sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane," according to reviewer Richard Brody.[81]

To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released an LP in June 1956 entitled Lady Sings the Blues. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues" (title track), "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", as well as eight new recordings of Holiday's biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child".[82] On December 22, 1956, Billboard magazine reviewed Lady Sings the Blues, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," said the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track in the LP, was also noted positively.[83]

On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall, a major accomplishment for any artist, especially a black artist of the segregated period of American history. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The thirteen tracks included on this album featured her own songs, "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols).[84]

The liner notes on this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator in the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
“     The narration began with the ironic account of her birth in Baltimore – 'Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three' – and ended, very nearly shyly, with her hope for love and a long life with 'my man' at her side. It was evident, even then, that Miss Holiday was ill. I had known her casually over the years and I was shocked at her physical weakness. Her rehearsal had been desultory; her voice sounded tinny and trailed off; her body sagged tiredly. But I will not forget the metamorphosis that night. The lights went down, the musicians began to play and the narration began. Miss Holiday stepped from between the curtains, into the white spotlight awaiting her, wearing a white evening gown and white gardenias in her black hair. She was erect and beautiful; poised and smiling. And when the first section of narration was ended, she sang – with strength undiminished – with all of the art that was hers. I was very much moved. In the darkness, my face burned and my eyes. I recall only one thing. I smiled."[85]     ”

The critic Nat Hentoff of Down Beat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
“     Throughout the night, Billie was in superior form to what had sometimes been the case in the last years of her life. Not only was there assurance of phrasing and intonation; but there was also an outgoing warmth, a palpable eagerness to reach and touch the audience. And there was mocking wit. A smile was often lightly evident on her lips and her eyes as if, for once, she could accept the fact that there were people who did dig her. The beat flowed in her uniquely sinuous, supple way of moving the story along; the words became her own experiences; and coursing through it all was Lady's sound – a texture simultaneously steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the centre. The audience was hers from before she sang, greeting her and saying good-bye with heavy, loving applause. And at one time, the musicians too applauded. It was a night when Billie was on top, undeniably the best and most honest jazz singer alive.     ”

Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death.

When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on Columbia's Lady in Satin album the previous year—see below. The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later re-titled and re-released as Last Recordings.

On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive,[86] but he did try to get her off drugs. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, à la Arthur Murray dance schools.

Although childless, Billie Holiday had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather, daughter of Leonard Feather, and Bevan Dufty, son of William Dufty.[80]

Death

By early 1959 Holiday had cirrhosis of the liver. She stopped drinking on doctor's orders, but soon relapsed.[87] By May she had lost 20 pounds (9 kg). Friends, jazz critic Leonard Feather, her manager Joe Glaser, and photojournalist and editor Allan Morrison unsuccessfully tried to get her to a hospital.[88]

On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York with liver and heart disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under the order of Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939.[89] She was arrested and handcuffed for drug possession as she lay dying, and her hospital room was raided.[89] Police guarded her room. Holiday continued staying under police guard. On July 15, she received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church,[90] before dying two days later from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959, at 3:10 am.[91][92] In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person. Her funeral mass was at Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City on July 21, 1959. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery.

Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who had been the narrator at Billie Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and had partly written the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these same 1961-dated sleeve notes:
“     Billie Holiday died in Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful. She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her. The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below.[93]     ”

Voice

Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Her voice lacked range and was thin, and years of drug use altered its texture and gave it a fragile, raspy sound. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and singer Bessie Smith.[94][full citation needed] Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
“     I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You." There were tears in her eyes ... After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.[95]     ”

Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony in 1958 about her impact:
“     With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.[96]     ”

Hit records

In 1986, Joel Whitburn's Record Research, Inc. company compiled information on the popularity of record releases from the pre-rock and roll era and created pop charts dating all the way back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.[97]

Billie Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release "Riffin' the Scotch" selling 5,000 copies. The song was released under the band name "Benny Goodman & his Orchestra."[97]

Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the band name "Teddy Wilson & his Orchestra." During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Teddy Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists from the swing era,[98] accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday have 95 recordings together.[99]

In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra."[100] Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime," sold well and was listed on the available pop charts at the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted under any artist. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.[101]

Holiday had 16 best selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire whose rendering was a best seller for weeks.[102] Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.[44]

In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.[103]

In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.

"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard's year-end top songs of 1941.[45]

On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5.

"Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboard's year-end chart.


Billy Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues 















Ernie Lancaster +17.07.2014







I started playing guitar at age 10, gigging at 11, made my first record at about age 20 with Danny Dollar and have been at it ever since.
Most of the gigs around Florida in the mid-to-late sixties were teen dances or frat parties. My band, The Enemies, was still a little too young for the clubs but we were able to stay busy thanks to some local T.V. appearances.
At 17, I went to Nashville to attend college at David Lipscomb, but dropped out after about a year to play music full-time and at 19, I got married.
After returning to Florida, I met Bob Greenlee and Foster McKenzie III (AKA: "Root Boy Slim"). Bob and I started a band called The Lake Joanna Band with Tommy Ruger, Winston Kelly and Walt Andrews.
We played in Daytona Beach quite a bit and "Slim" would sit in with us when he was in town. Out of this was born Root Boy Slim and The Sex Change Band with The Rootettes. We cut a 16 track demo in Silver Spring, MD, that got a great deal of play on WHFS in Bethesda, MD which served the DC metro area.
Well, the demo was voted, by listeners, the #3 Album of the Year. One of the DJs, Josh Brooks, took a copy to his college pals Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and they dug it and took it to Steely Dan producer Gary Katz. It took him "two listens" to dig it, but he was helpless to resist, so he got us a deal with Warner Bros. Records and produced our first album.
We went from there to I.R.S./Illegal Records (Distributed by A&M), had a "PICK HIT OF THE WEEK" in the U.K., with the tune "DARE TO BE FAT", a 40 date tour of England, Scotland and Wales with lan Dury & The Blockheads, & Saturday Night Live Movie "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video", and two of our six "Root Boy" albums were "RECORDINGS OF SPECIAL MERIT" in STEREO REVIEW magazine. Even as all this stuff was going on we wanted to get back to our roots.
Fortunately, Bob Greenlee was able to build a studio in Sanford, FL (Kingsnake) where we could cut all kinds of stuff with some of the great blues and jazz artists whose names you'll find in my discography.
I also cut my first "solo" album, Ernestly, (featuring Lucky Peterson). It's an instrumental blues and jazz album that continues to receive airplay world-wide.
I served as Lucky 's bandleader for about a year and toured all over the U.S. and Europe again, but now I'm back in Florida with my own brand-new band, "The Atomic Blues Quartet".




Ernie Lancaster (November 30, 1953 – July 17, 2014)[2] was an American electric blues and blues rock guitarist and songwriter. He released two solo albums. Lancaster had the ability to vary his style between strict blues, and rock, jazz, soul and pop.[1]
He cited his influences as Roy Buchanan, Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Lee Hooker.[3]

Life and career

Ernest Ray Lancaster was born in Georgia, United States. He later grew up in South Carolina before relocating with his family to Mount Dora, Florida. He formed his own band while at school, which eventually played at Stetson University and on television in Orlando. After dropping out of college, and getting married at age 19,[4] he was a founding member of the Sex Change Band in the mid-1970s.[3] As the backing outfit for Root Boy Slim,[1] the band was a fixture in the mid-Atlantic blues and rock scene, and favored a mix of Memphis-style boogie rock/blues.[5] They recorded an album for Warner Bros. Records in 1978, their first of six records.[4] In 1989, Lancaster played on the Pee Wee, Fred and Maceo album recorded by the JB Horns.[6]
Lancaster's guitar work appeared on numerous albums in the 1980s and 1990s, before he released his debut solo album. That was Ernestly, an all instrumental affair, which was released on Ichiban Records in 1991.[1] Other musicians Lancaster supplied guitar playing for included Rufus Thomas,[7] Reverend Billy C. Wirtz, Kenny Neal, Noble Watts and Lucky Peterson. The latter musician was heavily involved in playing the Hammond organ on Lancaster's first album, with a co-starring credit noted on the album's sleeve.[1] The Allmusic journalist, Alex Henderson, noted that "Although not stunning, Ernestly provides some gritty and unpretentious fun."[7]
In 1993, Lancaster played guitar in James Brown's backing band, during their European tour.[2]
Lancaster's second album, Lightnin' Alley, which comprised self composed tracks (in a similar vein to his first album) was issued in May 2008.[1] He also appeared at the Boundary Waters Blues Festival.
Lancaster died from pancreatic cancer, at his home in Mount Dora, Florida in July 2014, aged 60.


Host Ernie Lancaster and jammers perform December 9th, 2012 MUSIC LOVER'S Jam 


 
Eingestellt von um
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen

Abonnieren Kommentare zum Post (Atom)