Billie Holiday
19 articles
List of articles in the library
Billie Holiday: "They won't let me work in New York, so I'm settling in London"
Interview by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 28 February 1959
Billie Holiday was in London this week for a TV date. She returned to the States on Wednesday ...
Billie Holiday: She was original, honest — unique says Max Jones
Obituary by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 8 August 1959
WHAT A sad, bad year it has been for jazz. The deaths of Baby Dodds, Lester Young and Sidney Bechet have been followed with tragic ...
From Pop Singers To Rock Bands
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 1965
Update, March 2019: I KNOW exactly when I wrote the piece below, where I was, and why I withdrew it from publication. It was January ...
Billie Holiday: Billie Holiday (World Record Club TS30)
Review by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 31 December 1966
THERE ARE FEW singers in and around jazz who continue to excite our wonder long after their death. Bessie Smith is one, and Mildred Bailey ...
Lady Day — the True Sound of Soul
Memoir by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 2 August 1969
MAX JONES writes on the tenth anniversary of Billie Holiday's death ...
Lady Sings The Blues (Motown/Paramount Pictures)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, December 1972
I had to be darkened down so the show could go on in dynamic-assed Detroit. It's like they say, there's no damn business like show business. ...
Diana Ross: The Lady Is A Winner
Report and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 27 April 1973
NO ONE is more aware than the lady herself of the totally negative attitude prevalent amongst quite a large number of people when it was ...
John Hammond: From Billie to Bruce
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 6 December 1975
John Hammond recalls his 40 years atthe forefront of popular music recording ...
John Hammond: Discovering Musical Talent — White and Black
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore Sun, 25 September 1981
JOHN HAMMOND is a rare figure in the American recording industry. In an industry that worships last year's trends, Mr. Hammond discovered such original artists ...
Overview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 12 January 1985
From the raw to the pure, from the sublime to the meticulous — BARNEY HOSKYNS sings the praises of 24 of music's most glorious voices. ...
Obituary by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 27 August 1987
LEGENDARY RECORD producer and talent scout John Hammond — who played a key role in the careers of Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Aretha ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, November 1997
TIME WAS when Billie Holiday records were hard to come by. But Motown's filmed version of her life, based on a dubious autobiography to which ...
Billie 4 Miles: A Kind Of Blue Love
Essay by James Maycock, The Guardian, February 1999
MILES DAVIS CONFESSED twice in his candid autobiography he fancied Billie Holiday. "She had such a sensuous mouth," he remarked, "I thought she was not ...
Billie Holiday And Lester Young: The Intimate Friendship Between Lady Day & Prez
Retrospective by James Maycock, The Independent, July 1999
IN PARIS, A COUPLE of weeks before his death on 15th March, 1959, Lester Young spoke about his friend, Billie Holiday. "She’s still my ...
Julia Blackburn: With Billie (Cape)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 March 2005
BILLIE HOLIDAY famously led a chaotic, dissolute life that has attracted biographers like rubberneckers to a car crash. ...
Billie Holiday: Rare Live Recordings (1934-1959)
Review by Bill Wasserzieher, Blues Revue, April 2008
THAT WEARY, woeful voice and that life-is-hard delivery – these are the things that make Billie Holiday compelling and contemporary, despite the fact that next ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2009
SEVENTY YEARS AGO this month Billie Holiday released 'Strange Fruit'; man's inhumanity to man made manifest in precisely three minutes, 12 scalding lines, inspired by ...
Blood on the Leaves: Eric Garner and 'Strange Fruit'
Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, Ebony, 5 December 2014
"I CAN'T BREATHE," Eric Garner moaned moments before dying on a Staten Island street on July 17 of this summer. As one of millions who ...
Billie Holiday: Lady Sings the Blues
Book Review by Nick Hornby, The Sunday Times, 9 December 2018
Unsparing in its portrayal of addiction, divorce and racism, Billie Holiday's memoir is now a Penguin Modern Classic. ...
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