Latest Read: Lady Sings the Blues

Holiday, Billie.  Lady Sings the Blues.  New York: Avon Books, 1956.

Did I ever declaim about my love for Billie Holiday?  I've just finished reading her autobiography (written with help from William Dufty) and I think I'm in love with her even more (if that's possible).

My relationship with Lady Day goes back to my first hearing her in high school via my girlfriend.  Problem is, of course, I've been known to be rather contrarian my whole life, so of course if my girlfriend liked it, I was skeptical.  Really, I was skeptical about jazz to begin with.  I was getting turned on to punk rock and jazz sounded, well, too nice.

But there was definitely something about Ms. Holiday's voice, so I guess in a way she saved jazz for me.  And then I started listening more and fell harder.  And then I managed to get my hands on a DVD of some of her performances and I was a goner.

Her autobiography is interesting.  It's not particularly well written, but there are flashes of brilliance.  Overall, the effect is pretty gritty, which makes sense as she had a really rough life.  She was born in Baltimore, which pretty much is enough to give anybody a rough life, but things went steadily down hill from there.  Her parents split soon after her birth, her teenage mother left her in the care of family and went north for work.  Billie was raped by a neighbor at 10 years old, was beaten by her cousin, scrubbed floors in her teen years to help put food on the table, struggled with a major heroin habit, spent time in a women's prison in West Virginia, and even as a successful singer, never had much money - she recorded her first songs for practically free without royalties.

In the end though, the autobiography ends up being redemptive in its own way - she is off heroin, though it is a struggle.  There is a sense of triumph (although tragedy later ensues and she dies of an overdose) over the drugs, the misery of life, and the Feds who want to lock her back up for drugs.  She talks tenderly and at length about her mother, who became her best friend and her biggest fan.

Finally, what struck me was the relatively liberal use of the word "bitches" and a few references to "motherhuggers".  On the one hand, my bourgeois sensibilities were shocked by the cursing, but the punk at me could just not swallow the euphemism.  I guess the 50s allowed a certain level of realness, but drew the line at "motherfucker."