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+--- Thread: Book review about Billie Holiday (/thread-13339.html)
- wondersofwine - 03-13-2006
Joe Rosenberg is a acquaintance of mine from Baltimore who used to be in the beverage industry. This is his review of a book about the life of Billie Holiday.
With Billie
Julia Blackburn
Pantheon 2005
When she was born she was Eleanor Fagan and was also called Madge. In her lifetime of 44 years, she suffered through just about every humiliation a proud woman could endure. She had a history of physical and mental abuse. Her managers, husbands and boy friends brought the world of heroin to her and it devastated her body. The only thing she had was her singing. She took the name of Billie Holiday because she thought that a man named Clarence Holiday might have been her father. Her friend Lester Young called her Lady Day.
This biography is the work of two women entranced by Lady Day’s singing. In the early 70’s Linda Kuehl decided to write a book about Holiday and began a series of interviews with just about anyone having something to do with Fagan/Holiday and her family. She also collected memorabilia and tried to shape the book into something readable but her publisher gave it up in 1977. Two years later Kuehl was in Washington DC to interview Count Basie after a concert. She abruptly left the concert, went to her hotel room and jumped to her death from a third floor window. Twenty years later writer Julia Blackburn decided to finish Kuehl’s project, wading through all the notes, documents, reportage to create 330 pages of conflicting versions of the events in Holiday’s life. Particularly notable were interviews with some of the jazz musicians she set up “some light housekeeping†with. These interviews shows that she was a strong-minded lady but vulnerable to hustlers. The movie “The Lady Sings the Blues†covers the arc of her life but is influenced by her last husband who may have worked with the police to wear her down, because a dead Lady Day would generate more royalty money then a live one. Like Charlie Parker & Lester Young before her, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the New York City Police decided that Lady Day was an example of a drug abuser that needed to be watched and punished to convince the public their organizations were protecting its citizens. Even Joe Glaser her manager could not stop the harassment. Glaser also managed pot smoker Louis Armstrong who was never really bothered. Surely Glaser’s mob affiliations could have given the lady some peace and dignity. Her last incarceration took place when she was hospitalized and someone planted some heroin under her pillow. She was moved to more public hospital and was under 24-hour surveillance. She never left.
The most direct influence musically was from Louis Armstrong. While her vocal range was limited and her voice deeper and deeper as the abuse she administered to herself continued, her enunciation was probably the strongest aspect of her singing. She influenced the best female singers, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn and many others who emulated them but most importantly she was Frank Sinatra’s guide to singing and expressing feelings in a song. In 1939 she recorded “Strange Fruit†which was a departure from her usual material. “Strange Fruit†was about lynching and was one of the first harbingers of a change in the treatment of people of color. No one, not Woody Guthrie, Paul Robison or Leadbelly could depict the savagery of racism any better. After the record was introduced she was honored by surveillance by the FBI but no one can deny the words she spit out “pastoral scene of the gallant South………†was in stark contrast to the reverence of the good old days, down in Dixie. For that one song alone Billie Holiday deserved better.
Joseph B. Rosenberg
- brappy - 03-13-2006
Joe is certainly a character. I've had a run-in with him on another site. Interesting guy. Haven't heard or read much from him lately; Thank you.
mark
- Georgie - 03-13-2006
Thanks for sharing that well-written review. I'm looking for a web site that will give such synopses and reader opinions on current or recent best sellers. Are any of you involved in such a forum? Frankly, I wouldn't mind us having a "Read Any Good Books Lately?" thread going here. The people on this board know how to express their opinion intelligently and don't abuse the privilege. We are rather familiar with the personalities of the regular posters here, and I would find it entertaining and interesting to hear their takes on books they've read. I know it wouldn't really have to do with *wine* but perhaps we could stretch the Rants and Raves forum to include such a thread. Whaddya think?
- wondersofwine - 03-13-2006
I'm all for it Georgie. To some extent my book club group alternates between fiction and nonfiction and serious or light reading. Last time was serious--"The Immense Journey" by Loren Eiseley (where we discussed how we reconcile our religious faith with a belief in evolution) and this time it is "We're Just Like You Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle" by Celia Rivenbark (humorous essays about Southern life). We debated between that one and another humorous title we may read later--"Being Dead Is No Excuse--the Southern Woman's Guide to the Perfect Funeral." I'm always scouting for good book discussion titles. I'd like to do a biography of Ben Franklin but the two main candidates are both quite lengthy and I haven't been able to persuade the others in the group.
- wondersofwine - 03-13-2006
Brappy/Mark
Joe doesn't drink wine much now so he probably doesn't post as often.
- brappy - 03-13-2006
As far as I know, he doesn't drink at all any more. But, he writes for a couple of papers every now and then. I've never tasted with him, but people ITB have bragged about his palate to me. The last time I had contact with him, he told me his health was failing. I hope he's well!
Edit: He seems to be posting often over on another board, but mainly in social hall.
[This message has been edited by brappy (edited 03-13-2006).]