Billie Holiday
 

Billie Holiday shame she was dead too young, she was a product of swamp music, just fab! with her smoky voice.

Legendary singer, incredible voice.
Sad life too.

Beautiful voice. Gloomy Sunday is probably one of my favorite songs ever.

As the song goes "Only the good die young" by another Billy, Billy Joel also Iron Maiden.

billie holiday isn't another billy. her name is billie, not billy.

i like the line in 'a fine romance' that goes ''we should be like two hot tomatoes but you're as cold as yesterday's mash potatoes''

I just heard All of Me and her voice is incredible. What album should I get?

There's loads of compilation albums out there...take yer pick.

Edit: This one just about covers most things...
Lady Day: the Best of Billie Holiday.
the best of Billie Holiday is to be found in the 30s/40s on this double CD. Amazon
I think these are the Columbia recordings, which are supposed to be the best period.

I got "Lady Sings the Blues" Lady Day was 10 discs long =x

:laughing:


...well I did say it just about covers most things.

Yeah including the rest of my discspace >.<

did you know that song is responsible for over a 1,000 deaths a year

its the most depressing song ever and people commit suicide

You don't have to download all of it you numpty! :bonkhead:

Someday hell come along
The man I love
And hell be big and strong
The man I love
And when he comes my way
Ill do my best to make him stay
Hell look at me and smile
(c) The Man I Love Lyrics by Billie Holiday

Because I think its appropriate.
 

THE DAY THE LADY DIED

By FRANK O'HARA

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959, and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.

Written in 1964 and reprinted from "Lunch Poems," with the permission of City Lights Books.

Thanks God,I don't like listening depressing songs.

By the way, I come to know this fact from u. I have never heard about this.

I'm bringing this old thread up to the front because a) I am obsessed with Billie Holiday! I wake up singing "the difficult...I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while!" and dance to "Them There Eyes" all day, fall asleep with "Gloomy Sunday" and dream of Billie Holiday. I'm a hopeless case, and I need support in my obsession!
b) Billie Holiday deserves a better thread than this.

Does anyone know who wrote these songs? because the lyrics combined with her outstanding vocal expression are absolute genius!

And are there other artists like her?

I know a little bit about "Gloomy Sunday" ... lol

there you are you little recluse you!

what do you know?? im about to jump out of my seat here!

Hahaha, I'm not reclusive! (Oh and I mentioned you in my Saturday 6-pack! :P)

This should teach you about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WBZwLkvpFI

Enter at your own risk :)

The fact that the song supposedly has such power just solidifies my point... Billie Holiday can sing...the power of emotions just stab at you from the sound of her voice....its crazy!

I've only Lady in Satin, and much of what has already been said about her, I agree with. Though I enjoy her music, it can become a bit bleak. I, mistakenly came across this album after a breakup and it was devastatingly healing, but I could not listen to it without breaking down.

im not sure what you mean by bleak, but oh my goodness i know know what you mean about the break up thing. Same with being in a relationship actually, the music just kinda pulls at what needs to be touched ya know? (that sounds dirty but its not. for shame!)

Perhaps I used the wrong word, but it can become really dark. The odd thing is ... It's not the instrumentation, but her voice. With it, comes this heavy air of black feelings. Those low notes crush me.

There's definitely a very dark and haunting melancholic tone in a lot of what Billy sings.The songStrange Fruit being a prime example.

Beautiful track. Thanks for that. :) Though I enjoy her, I can't listen to too much.

oh that is why i love her so! only a few people can do that (or could in her case). If i had that talent i just know i would abuse it! if something can make me cry, laugh aloud, or put shivers down my spine then i love it. It takes serious talent to do that! Strange fruit is one of the first songs i heard and it definitely got me hooked fast.

That's what Billie said about heroin and alcohol.
Seriously, I believe her addictions influenced her sound and style (both of which I love) - of course she had great natural abilities as well. A truly captivating artist and rare talent who was the best of her time.

A great singer and a great video (Strange fruit). I love her.

I'd never really looked into her biography and had no idea she had any addictions (though i should have assumed.. looking at the time period etc) hmm. Im gonna go google it now.

What a strong piece of Music! 'Strange Fruit' is one of the best protest songs of all time horrificly deep in meaning. What an amazing artist!

Her Gone with the wind is awesome.