Billie Holiday.

Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia on April 7, 1915, Billie Holiday’s father Clarence Holiday was a banjo and guitar player who abandoned the family when she was an infant. Her mother Sarah Fagan worked for the railroad. At age 11, Holiday was raped by a neighbor and spent three months as a state witness in a rape case.

She grew up in Baltimore, where she attended movies regularly and became enamored of silent screen star Billie Dove, from whom she took her stage name. To survive, she scrubbed floors in a brothel and attempted to become a dancer before an audition pianist asked if she could sing.

In 1933, at age 18, Holiday was discovered by John Hammond and made her recording debut on Your Mother’s Son-In-Law with Benny Goodman. Two years later, she recorded four sides that became hits, including What a Little Moonlight Can Do and Miss Brown to You, securing her own recording contract. Over the next seven years, she produced a series of master tracks that became foundational to early American jazz.

In 1939, she introduced Strange Fruit, a haunting protest song about lynching written by Abel Meeropol under the pseudonym Lewis Allen. The song became her signature despite being banned by many radio stations. During the 1940s, she struggled with heroin addiction and served a prison sentence in 1947, but upon release she performed to a sold-out Carnegie Hall.

From 1952 to 1959, Holiday recorded about 100 new tracks for Verve, with a voice that grew more rugged and vulnerable. She toured Europe and made her final studio recordings for MGM in March 1959. Her last television appearance was on the British show Chelsea at Nine in 1959, preserved on early videotape.

Holiday married Jimmy Monroe in August 1941; they separated in 1947. She then married bassist John Levy in 1950 and lived in Addisleigh Park, Queens. Her common-law marriage to trumpeter Joe Guy lasted from 1951 to 1957, during which she lived in Flushing, Queens. She married Louis McKay in 1957, but they were separated at the time of her death.

Despite her public persona, Holiday was a private person who enjoyed reading comic books like Captain Marvel throughout her adult life. She counted fellow jazz artists Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, and Kenny Burrell among her close friends. Her favorite singer was Jo Stafford.

Her lifelong fear of poverty was evidenced when she died with only 70 cents in the bank and $750 strapped to her leg. She had been arrested on her deathbed in 1959 for narcotics possession, a crime at the time rather than an illness.

Billie Holiday’s influence extends far beyond her life. She was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for four recordings: God Bless the Child in 1976, Strange Fruit in 1978, Lover Man in 1989, and Lady in Satin in 2000. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence in 2000.

Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled on April 7, 1986. She was ranked #6 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll and has been honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame. Her song Strange Fruit remains a powerful anthem against racism, and her vocal style continues to inspire generations of singers.

Holiday’s emotive voice, innovative phrasing, and ability to transform any material into personal expression ensure her legacy as one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time.