Professor David Peimer
Billie Holiday: One of the True Greats!

Professor David Peimer | Billie Holiday: One of the True Greats!

- So we’re going to dive straight into, as it’s August, and as you know, we decided to make August a lighter month in terms of some of the content. So, oh gosh, sorry. Got a few frogs in my throat. So it’s Billie Holiday. I don’t know if she’s lighter. But certainly the fact that it’s jazz makes it a very different kind of experience today. And obviously, I love jazz. Well, I love classical. I love so much music. Rock and roll, folk, blues, just many, many kinds. And Billie Holiday has always been one of my absolute favorites. I’ve spoken before about Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, you know, some of the really great names and many others. But in terms of the really blues jazz greats, I think she just absolutely stands out. Short life, 44 years. And Frank Sinatra called her his greatest influence, and that she was the greatest influence on American singing over the 20 years of most of her generation and era. And that she, without a doubt, for him, for Sinatra, was the greatest. Now, it’s interesting that Sinatra would say that, and many others, but interesting that they all knew and had spoken and listened to each other. We’re talking now, of course, in the early ‘50s in, you know, obviously, segregated America and all the turbulent events going on post War plus the boom. But all the events going on from post-Second World War before the civil rights. So enormous changes happening in America at the time, and she comes around this time. And what’s interesting for me is that the way I got into Billie Holiday was not actually through the music. When I had long hair and was a kid, really young, I didn’t read anything about her. Heard of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong as I said, but a friend of mine in South Africa, growing up in South Africa, somebody I knew very well.

Nevermind the details, and gave me a copy of the book, “Lady Sings The Blues” by William Duffy, and it just blew my mind completely. And I’ve never forgotten the reaction I had. You know, there are always a couple of books in your life where you just keep going back to or you cannot believe the emotional and psychological punch, and how it just takes your mind and shifts it and changes it, and really pushes it into another whole zone, almost, or stratosphere. And her book, which was really in a way an autobiography, although it was written by Duffy, he let it be as she spoke to him. And that book had such an influence and such an impact on me. Of course, I was a young, very young age and a lot of these things do at that age, but it was her autobiography about her life, “Lady Sings The Blues.” And I know subsequently there had been a lot of scholars who say, well, some of it was exaggerated, some wasn’t true. There was this, there was that. You know, Duffy certainly, shall we say, pushed certain things and left out other things. But the bottom line is the essence of this woman’s life was full of so much pain and suffering. And I think Harari has a point when he says, for him, “What is morality? "Morality is to try and lessen suffering.” It’s an interesting insight or approach. Of course, it comes from, you know, some of his Eastern ways of thinking, but the suffering, the pain inside her voice, inside the blues jazz that she sings, and the life that she lived was so remarkably rough, raw, tough as hell. And yet, the voice just transcends. The voice takes you into another world of a kind of staggering certainty and a kind of like a swagger that jazz has.

And also, the sheer agony and pain that jazz has. It’s the swagger and the pain that jazz so often captures that constant dialogue between those two emotions in us as humans, that part of jazz captures and jazz blues captures. And I think her voice does it. You know, it endlessly resonates inside us. So this is a little, that’s how I got into it, was the book, and then only much later started listening to her music. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, a whole lot of the others all came much earlier, of course, for me, personally. This is a picture at the bottom left of her at the age of, you know, 2-½, nearly three. And then, these other pictures, of course, at a later stage in her life, you know, as she’s going through. And the well-known concert of Carnegie Hall and so on. So we’re going to dive into, what I’m going to do is combine aspects of her unique and tough-as-hell life together with playing little bits of quite a few of her songs. I also want to show her influence on some of the great, very contemporary singers: Madeleine Peyroux, Amy Winehouse, and also include a little bit of Piaf. Because the influence is so powerful and some of them acknowledge it, you know, and is much more written about that kind of thing. But just so you can see how it really went through the ages. And I think, you know, like good wine, has just matured with age, you know, since she sang these songs and actually wrote some of her own also. Okay, so we’ll combine. We’ll interweave some of her life together with some of the songs. If we can have the next slide, please.

Okay, this is the book that I’ve still got, my very well-thumbed copy. You know, when you go back to some books you read as an older teenager or in your early '20s, you know, I think I was 17, 18, “Lady Sings the Blues.” I mean, it’s extraordinarily powerful. It just takes your mind and just wrenches it. You know, it’s raw, it’s emotional, but it’s strong. There’s a toughness inside that raw suffering. Okay, if we can go into, this was the cover of the book that became one of the great, great classics. Thanks, Jess. This is one of the great pictures of her, obviously, singing and obviously showing in all her majestic splendor, in my opinion. Okay, we’ll go to the next one, please. So this was the cover of an album, which came much later in her life, “Lady In Satin,” which she was really became very well known for. And it’s that sense of that softness or that vulnerability, that satin-like, that delicate vulnerability together with that kind of swagger of jazz. It’s the vulnerable and the swagger of jazz that I think she captures with the most delicately toned and nuanced voice we can imagine, almost. And as she said, she wanted, as a lot of them said, she wanted to make her voice like an instrument or a set of instruments. And it was hugely popular in the '50s in her time, the attempt to make the human, the singing voice like that. Jazz’s history has obviously got no shortage of heartbreak, of addiction, triumph in the face of adversity. But the story of Billie Holiday is right up there with those things. Nina Simone, Sinatra, Amy Winehouse, Madeleine Peyroux, so many of them just constantly refer back to her. She was born, her name was Eleanora Fagan, F-A-G-A-N, in Philadelphia.

Horrific, to put it mildly, turbulent childhood. Father was a jazz musician. She took the surname from him, Clarence Holiday, who disappeared when she was pretty young. And she was in the juvenile court at the age of nine for all sorts of things we don’t need to go into now. She did odd jobs at a slightly later age, around about 12, 13 years old, working in a brothel, scrubbing kitchen floors, bathroom floors, and so on. And she also helped work with her mother who brought her up or tried to. There were a lot of carers as well or people who cared for, looked after. Abandonment is such a theme inside the suffering, inside the swagger and the suffer of her songs, abandonment. And not only the jazz musician father but also her mother having to work in what were called transportation jobs at the time, which are basically traveling with the trains, cleaning, or dishing out food or whatever. But what happens in her early teens is she goes to live with her mother in New York and in Harlem. And that puts her at the core of so much of great jazz history being invented, being discovered at the time in this period. And then, she goes on to perform, you know, in her late teens in Harlem. The producer, John Hammond, who discovered Bob Dylan, Janet Cohen first recorded them and many others. The great producer, 1933, he puts her together with Benny Goodman.

So we have a white band leader and Billie Holiday, young, Black, teenage lady. And Hammond puts them together and starts to work. So this is in 1933 that John Hammond first puts them together, her with Benny Goodman. John Hammond said, I’m quoting him, “She was an improvising jazz genius.” I don’t want to band you that word genius around too much, but I think there is something of it because it’s the way she works with her voice and melody, the rawness of the pain together with the steel inside of so much jazz blues. But the way that voice is so nuanced and so it’s like a thin thread that just seems to, you know, almost invisibly move through air sometimes the way she sings. And with such minimalism, you know, how you vary the tone and the timber of the voice. I can go on and on and get a grip, sorry. Anyway, the first big break, the first song that made her really was, I’m sure many people know, “What A Little Moonlight Can Do.” And you know, we all love the title, “What A Little Moonlight Can Do.” Probably become pretty cliched now or we might be cynical now, but we’ve got to remember the times this is all being made. And this was recorded for the burgeoning jukebox business that John Hammond and many others were very, very aware of. It’s played at a swift tempo, and she improvises a variation in the melody in the way that she would be widely imitated. Obviously, Ella Fitzgerald is the other main one, a competitor or fellow Black female singer in America. She worked with the Teddy Wilson Group often, and their solos by Benny Goodman. And you know, the Teddy Wilson Group were really important in her development. So let’s go on to the next, please, and let’s play a little bit of the song, “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” Billie Holiday.

♪ Ooh, what a little moonlight can do ♪ ♪ Ooh, what a little moonlight can do to you ♪ ♪ You’re in love ♪ ♪ Your heart’s a flutter and all day long ♪ ♪ You only stutter 'cause your poor tongue ♪ ♪ Just won’t utter the words, I love you ♪ ♪ Ooh, what a little moonlight can do ♪ ♪ Wait a while ♪ ♪ Till a little moon beam comes peepin’ through ♪ ♪ You’ll get bold ♪ ♪ You can’t resist him ♪ ♪ And all you’ll say ♪ ♪ When you have kissed him is ♪ ♪ Ooh, what a little moonlight can do ♪

• Okay, thanks. You know, I’m going to be playing little bits of quite a few, so we get an idea of her life and that voice of hers. And this is the first one, as I said, that sort of really made it big for her and made her claim to fame, really, the first one. Once you’ve heard it once, it’s so raw, it seems so but simple actually. But what she’s really doing subtly with that voice and nuanced is quite extraordinary. And the little oohs and all the little sounds and everything she’s doing, you know, and she starts to make the music almost recede a bit. And we’re waiting to hear the next, you know, the voice, the next part of her voice. I always think of her voice as a surfboard, surfing the wave of the music. But sometimes, the wave takes over. But mostly, she surfs it, you know, and plays with the melody, plays with the sound of the music in the great improvisatory way of jazz. Okay, she also worked with Count Basie. There’s so many others and Lester Young, the great saxophonist, the tenor saxophonist, one of the really, truly great sax players of jazz. And he called her Lady Day, and that name stuck with her. She became known as Lady Day for the evocative phrasing, the grief, the yearning, the strength, all of it that I’ve been speaking about. Lester Young actually stayed with her and her mother when he was very young in Harlem. And they became great friends at a very young age, and then ended up, you know, him playing sax and her often singing. Obviously, often working together.

For those, obviously, and I’m sure many of you know your jazz better than I do, but the importance of Lester Young can’t be underestimated in jazz history and in hers. Okay, she also sang, “I’ll Be Seeing You” in 1944. Bing Crosby, Sinatra, take it, 1949, “Crazy He Calls Me.” That delicate vibrato, the way she uses lyrics to just rework the tune. It’s the way she uses the voice and lyrics. It actually reworks the tune, almost. It’s almost like she can manipulate, if it is like a surfing a wave, you know, she can almost manipulate the music in a way. That the music also, the musicians are trying to fit her in a bizarre way. I’m romanticizing a little bit, but I think there is something in it in what’s not to call the genius of her voice. There’s the pinch of sadness and the proud swagger and the storyteller of the great jazz singer. Those qualities, which are contradictory, which are so human, make her, I think, one of the greats. Right, the next song, if we can play it, please, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”

♪ The way you wear your hat ♪ ♪ The way you sip your tea ♪ ♪ The memory of all that ♪ ♪ No, no, they can’t take that away from me ♪ ♪ The way your smile just beams ♪ ♪ The way you sing off-key ♪ ♪ The way you haunt my dreams ♪ ♪ No, no, they can’t take that away from me ♪ ♪ We may never, never meet again ♪ ♪ On the bumpy road to love ♪ ♪ Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of ♪ ♪ The way you hold your knife ♪ ♪ The way we dance till three ♪ ♪ The way you’ve changed my life ♪ ♪ No, no they can’t take that away from me ♪ ♪ No, they can’t take that oh ♪

• Great, I wanted to play this because these old phrases and bits of song that we all know so well, but it’s coming from her. You know, whoever wrote it, I mean, aside from whoever wrote it and whoever created these great jazz classics, it’s her voice that really takes, to me, you know, right up there like a meteor. So “they can’t take that away from me, "the way you sip your tea.” I mean, these are such simple little lines in a way, but they become, they become like such a strong little bit of moments of tiny moments of memory and tiny moments of beauty, you know, in an amidst maybe cruel, hard memory. Tiny little moments of life. Tiny moments of mood and life that, for me, so much of memory comes in with her. That she captures it in the voice and in the singing and the kind of jazz greats the songs that she’s singing in terms of the lyrics. But it’s the way the lyrics and the musical instruments are constantly working almost together or surfing each other at times. And you know, you listen to the music, but then it’s her, but then it’s both, then it’s her. And you know, to me, it constantly keeps us fascinated. And this is over 70 years ago, let’s not forget. In fact, her recording of “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which I’ll play towards the end of today, in 2019, NASA, we all know the rover that they sent to Mars and going around Mars.

And when the rover finally petered out, couldn’t function anymore at the end of the Mars mission 2019, as NASA showed the Mars Rover sort of hobbling to death, really, on the Mars’ surface, it played her recording of, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” I mean, let’s look at the links it’s making as a cultural, historical influence, sociocultural influence. You know, it just soars globally. Her sultry style, I think, it really does stir us, the raw emotion, that childhood. She also had sexual assault when she was a 12, 13-year-old from a neighbor in 1929 in New York, living with her mother in Harlem. As I said, scrubbing kitchen floors, bathroom floors in a brothel to earn a few pennies in New York. She leaves school when she’s 11, and then goes to stay with her mother, finally, when she was 12 in Harlem. The emotional depths that she reaches is extraordinary from this life of just raw abandonment, raw searching, raw loss. And there’s more than just misery in her voice, though. There is that beauty, that strength, that proud swagger that goes with a pinch of sadness of jazz. She worked with some of the great white bandies, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and many others. This is groundbreaking. This is the 1930s in America, especially in the South. I mean, it’s huge. The risks that all of them are taking in doing this. Sinatra, to quote, said, “Billie Holiday was "the greatest single musical influence on me.”

That’s Sinatra. It’s quite a phrase. And one wouldn’t associate him necessarily immediately with her. Lying in a hospital bed when she’s dying, she was arrested. And on the hospital critical list, she was denied access to proper medical treatment. She was in the hospital before that, denied medical treatment, also was sent to prison, West Virginia. It goes on and on the story of drug addiction, of loss, of terrible relationships, of this kind of childhood. I’m telling you, I’m just, we’re describing. But look at that voice. It’s still the jazz of triumph and adversity, the ancient theme of human nature. Okay, if we can do the next one, please, which is from the great Gershwin classic, “Summertime.”

♪ Summertime ♪ ♪ And the livin’ is easy ♪ ♪ Fish are jumpin’ ♪ ♪ And the cotton is high ♪ ♪ Oh, your daddy’s rich ♪ ♪ And your ma is good-lookin’ ♪ ♪ So hush, little baby ♪ ♪ Don’t you cry ♪ ♪ One of these mornin’s ♪ ♪ You’re going to rise up singin’ ♪ ♪ Then, you’ll spread your wings ♪ ♪ And you’ll take the sky ♪ ♪ But ‘til that mornin’ ♪ ♪ There’s a-nothing can harm you ♪ ♪ With daddy and mammy standing by ♪

• Okay, if you can hold it there, please, Jess. Thanks, so wanted to just give us a taste of her interpretation of the great Gershwin classic. And it comes across a lot stronger. You know, others have done it much more delicately. And I love that kind of strength of, you know, it’s again, I think she captures moments. And I think her life, with so much pain and abandonment and suffering, to be frank, that there’s a constant search for moments of romance, moments of happiness, moments of a smile, just moments that we remember as we obviously go, as we move through life. Just moments where the sun shines in our lives and something good maybe happened or something sweet or nice or whatever. It’s the little moments that I find so alluring in what she’s doing with her voice. Carry on with her life, as I said, I’m going to interweave her life with playing clips of the songs. She won four Grammy Awards, all posthumously given. She was ranked fourth on the Rolling Stone List of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. Fourth, not bad for a kid who grew up, couldn’t read music, could barely read anything, sing whatever, left school at the age of 11, in court, all the stuff I spoke about.

Her mother moved to Philadelphia at 19. Her mother was 19, she got pregnant. And then, in Baltimore. And she was kicked out of the family by her parents because she got pregnant at 19. I described the kind of job she had. And she frequently skipped school, that’s why she was in juvenile court. And then, a very traumatic incident, which she relates strongly in the book. At the age of 11, she was sent to a Catholic reform school for girls by the court. And the nuns were so cross with her misbehaving, let’s say, to use whatever word we want today. So what they did was, at the age of 11, they locked her, the Catholic nuns, they locked her in a room overnight with a dead girl at the age of 11, lying on the bed next to her as punishment. The whole night. If we can imagine the trauma evoked from that. Nevermind even from her life with her mother, her father growing up, everything all that’s going on. But one night at that age, imagine, 11 years old and you’ve got to spend the whole night locked in a dark room with a dead girl who’s your age lying on the bed and the Catholic nuns have sent you. It’s a bit of trauma that I think that triggers, and she refers to that quite a bit later in life. Anyway, there’s so many incidents, you know, that are too many to go on with. So she drops out of school aged 11, and that’s when she went to live with her mother, finally, in Harlem at the age of 12. And that’s where she hears this. She hears the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, and she acknowledges that those two, the hearing of those records saved her life, gave her purpose, gave her calling at the age of 12, 13 in life. Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith just playing and what could be done with music, sound, and how it could help save. You know, Bob Dylan described the role of art as to inoculate one against despair. Anyway, whatever phrase we use, it obviously enabled her to transcend, to rise above or at least help cope with trauma. Okay, can we show the next one, please? And we’re going to do a little bit of “Lady Sings The Blues.”

♪ Lady sings the blues ♪ ♪ She’s got them bad ♪ ♪ She feels so sad ♪ ♪ And wants the world to know ♪ ♪ Just what her blues is all about ♪ ♪ Lady sings the blues ♪ ♪ She tells her side ♪ ♪ Nothing to hide ♪ ♪ Now, the world will know ♪ ♪ Just what her blues is all about ♪ ♪ The blues ain’t nothin’ but a pain in your heart ♪ ♪ When you get a bad start ♪ ♪ When you and your man have to part ♪ ♪ I ain’t going to just sit around and cry ♪ ♪ I know I won’t die ♪ ♪ ‘Cause I love him ♪ ♪ Lady sings the blues ♪ ♪ I’m tellin’ you ♪ ♪ She’s got ‘em bad ♪ ♪ But now the world will know ♪ ♪ She’s never going to sing them no more ♪

• Okay, hold it there, please, Jess. So “Lady Sings The Blues,” the way she stretches out even just one word, lady, two syllables. But you know, that vocal technique, that rawness, that stretching out of this word, that word, the phrasing, and the tempo, and the rhythm. I mean, the music, for me, in “Lady Sings The Blues” recedes way back. You know, like this wave, if the voice is surfing and the voice just soars. And it’s that soaring voice that gives it the sense of utter adversity, but a little moment of triumph, perhaps, and what blues really is about, as we all know. You know, and how deep blues really can go and really can get. And I think Sinatra understood it as did so many of the others who imitated, or not imitated, but were influenced by her much later, how you can reach those raw emotional depths. 1933, John Hammond, as I said, recorded her and she was 18. And with Benny Goodman, white band leader, young, Black teenager woman. You know, this is in 1933, we’ve got to remember. They sold 5,000 copies. And in those days, 5,000 copies sales was regarded as pretty big hit. And it was, you know, “What A Little Moonlight Can Do.”

But it starts the career that we can see. You know, if we think of today and you’ve got to get a, you know, a couple of million hits at least or 10 million, 20 million hits on the internet compared to 5,000 copies being sold mostly in New York and around or New Orleans and other places. Philip Hammond said, and I’m quoting him, John Hammond, sorry, and he’s really important in the development of so much great music, “Her singing almost changed my musical life. "She sang like an improvising jazz genius.” “Her singing almost changed my life.” It’s a hell of a statement for one of the truly great producers of music, not only jazz. And he goes and finds her in Harlem. And you know, we’re talking all those, you know, 90 years ago or more. She played a lot with Teddy Wilson, as I mentioned. And a lot of it was to feed the jukebox trade, which was obviously becoming huge. And that’s part of the economic and social context of the time. And most of the records that would make money would sell between 3 to 4,000 records or copies. 5,000, that’s a pretty big hit. Basie, she played with. Lester Young, as I mentioned. And Count Basie, as we’ve all heard of him, she worked with his band, traveled, you know, one night stands and clubs and bars. You can imagine the whole world that they’re going, you know, in these old vans and buses they’re traveling to. Count Basie said, “She knew,” and I’m quoting Count Basie, “She knew how she wanted to sound. "You could never tell her what to do.” So there’s that stubborn streak that Basie recognizes, stubbornness, determinedness. “I’m going to make it sound like I want it to sound, "even though you may be the great, famous Count Basie "and you’re a huge orchestra.”

Okay, and we get it from “They Can’t That Away From Me.” She was hired by Artie Shaw and amongst the first Black woman to work with a white orchestra, you know? And especially touring the segregated South with a white band leader. 1938, this experience, which did happen and described in the book, she’s told she has to use the servants and the workers or the service elevator in the Lincoln Hotel in New York City because white patrons at the hotel complained that a young, Black woman was using the so-called normal lift. And because of that, she left the band. She left the white band of Artie Shaw. And I’m quoting her, she said, “I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room. "I had to leave and enter "through the kitchen every time I wanted to eat "or drink anything.” We just got to be reminded back to imagining that whole world of this era that she’s living in and singing and still just to add to the personal adversity of her own family life. Okay, we can play the next one, please, “Easy Living.”

♪ Living for you is easy living ♪ ♪ It’s easy to live when you’re in love ♪ ♪ And I’m so in love ♪ ♪ There’s nothing in life but you ♪ ♪ I never regret the years I’m giving ♪ ♪ They’re easy to give when you’re in love ♪ ♪ I’m happy to do whatever I do for you ♪

• If you can hold it there, please. It’s a bit of a scratchy recording 'cause, obviously, this is recorded in the '50s, actually way before. So you know, “Easy Living,” it’s the kind of music, the kind of sound which has got that hint of the Gershwin influence of “Summertime” and some of the other things. And yet, there’s something, you know, how she can make, you know, it’s “Easy Living” with a moment of love. Always searching for a bit of love, always searching for moments of love, moments of respite, moments of romance, moments of a bit of sunshine in her life, I guess. I want to play the next one because that song speaks about regrets and loss. You know, and “Easy Living” and, you know, I don’t regret. And I just want to show the link between this and one of the great, great voices of all time that we know. Just play a little bit of Piaf towards the end of her life singing the great classic, “No Regrets.” If we can show it, please. If you can hold it there, Jess. Okay, thanks. I wanted to just show because we all know the life of Piaf, don’t want to go into it. But the incredible amount of suffering, her childhood growing up, the poverty, the life of her family, et cetera, is so similar in a way to Billie Holiday. And what she’s doing with her voice with the great classic song and what Billie Holiday is doing, you know, they’re obviously not the same, but there are overlaps. And there’s overlap in the attitude of extreme vulnerability and suffering and defiance. And I get that with Billie Holiday as well. Even in the most sensitive and more vulnerable of the songs, “Lady Sings The Blues,” and others understanding the blues but able to just find the moments, rise above. Okay, I want to play something, which might surprise quite a few. There’s a fantastic contemporary young singer, Madeleine Peyroux, and this is her version of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To The End Of Love.” And listen to the influence of Billie Holiday on this very contemporary young singer. If we can play it, please, thanks.

♪ Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin ♪ ♪ Dance me through the panic 'til I’m gathered safely in ♪ ♪ Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove ♪ ♪ Dance me to the end of love ♪ ♪ Dance me to the end of love ♪ ♪ Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone ♪ ♪ Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon ♪ ♪ Show me slowly what I only know the limits of ♪ ♪ Dance me to the end of love ♪ ♪ Dance me to the end of love ♪ ♪ Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on ♪ ♪ Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long ♪ ♪ We’re both of us beneath our love, ♪ ♪ we’re both of us above ♪ ♪ Dance me to the end of love ♪ ♪ Dance me to ♪

• Okay, if we can hold it there, please, yes. I mean, an extraordinary influence of Billie Holiday, a Leonard Cohen great classic and Madeleine Peyroux. I mean, just to show you one of the contemporary singers and how she turns the whole thing into that beautiful jazz blues and the influence of that Billie Holiday voice is right deep inside her. I want to skip the next one, please, which is another song by Madeleine Peyroux and go straight onto the one afterwards, which is just a brief little bit. I want to show the influence, for me, of one of the great voices of modern times in England, Amy Winehouse, the young Jewish singer who grew up in London. I’m sure many have heard of her. Her father was a Jewish cab driver in London with the most extraordinary blues jazz voice so similar to Billie Holiday. Tragically, died in her late '20s of an overdose. The pain, the suffer, all of it inside the voice you’ll hear of the great Amy Winehouse. Just play a little bit of the song, “Love Is A Losing Game.”

♪ For you, I was a flame ♪ ♪ Love is a losing game ♪ ♪ Five story fire as you came ♪ ♪ Love is a losing game ♪ ♪ One I wished I never played ♪ ♪ Oh, what a mess we made ♪ ♪ And now, the final frame ♪ ♪ Love is a losing game ♪ ♪ Played out by the band ♪ ♪ Love is a losing hand ♪ ♪ And it was more than I could stand ♪ ♪ Love is a losing hand ♪

• If you can hold it there, please, Jess. ♪ Self-professed ♪

• So I just want to give a tiny taste of, for me, one of the great, great voices of modern times, and the great Amy Winehouse. The jazz, the blues, you know, just in that voice, and you can hear the music, obviously, you know, there in the background, the jazz, jazz blues. Again, this influence of Billie Holiday on some of these very contemporary singers. Okay, I want to skip the next one, which is “Blue Moon” and go into the one after that, please, “The Very Thought Of You.”

♪ The very thought of you ♪ ♪ And I forget to do ♪ ♪ Those little ordinary things ♪ ♪ That everyone ought to do ♪ ♪ I’m livin’ in a kind of daydream ♪ ♪ I’m happy as a queen ♪ ♪ And foolish, though, it may seem ♪ ♪ To me that’s everything ♪ ♪ The mere idea of you ♪ ♪ The longing here for you ♪ ♪ You’ll never know ♪ ♪ How slow the moments go ♪ ♪ Till I’m near to you ♪ ♪ I see your face in every flower ♪ ♪ Your eyes in stars above ♪ ♪ It’s just the thought of you ♪ ♪ The very thought of you, my love ♪ ♪ I see your face in every flower ♪ ♪ Your eyes in stars above ♪ ♪ It’s just the thought of you ♪ ♪ The very thought of you, my love ♪

• If we can hold it there, please. Thanks, Jess. Okay, we can hold that. And in a moment, if we can skip the next one and go straight onto the second last one, “Strange Fruit,” in a moment. “The Very Thought Of You,” you know, it just shows you also the brilliance of some of these saxophonists, which, I mean, I don’t have time to get into, but if one doesn’t love the sax, I don’t think one is human. It’s just the sax just goes straight into the heart, you know, and keeps it alive. “Strange Fruit” was the one that I’m going to play next. And this became her biggest selling hit of all time, 1939. And as I’m sure many people know, it was a song, it is originally a poem written by a guy called Abel Meeropol. And it was based, it was his poem about a lynching that happened, a lynching of a couple of young Black boys that happened in the South. And Abel Meeropol or Meeropol was a Jewish school teacher and he used the pseudonym Lewis Allan for the poem because he didn’t want to be known as Jewish. What happened, he was a member of the Communist Party, Meeropol, and he was a friend of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who as we all know were executed for espionage. So what Abel Meeropol, who wrote “Strange Fruit,” what he and his wife, Anne, did was they adopted the Rosenbergs’ two sons, Michael and Robert, because they were obviously orphaned after their parents’ execution. Abel was born in 1903 to Russian Jewish immigrants in the Bronx.

Tough upbringing, managed to get himself up through college, et cetera, et cetera. Finally got an MA from Harvard and taught English. And one of the students of his, when he was teaching English at a school, was the great James Baldwin, interestingly. How life moves, we just cannot predict the mysteries, the strangeness of who meets who, where, what, how, all these things. The remarkable stories that everybody on lockdown, the community, everybody in the world has to tell, we have to get it out. And it became her biggest selling record, “Strange Fruit.” Obviously, it’s the fruit of the victims, the young boys who were lynched, you know? The one other story that I want to tell you is 1946 in New Orleans was the name of a movie made with Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday in. And the scriptwriter was Herbert Biberman. And this is 1946 and it’s about jazz, the origins of jazz, et cetera. And he was pressurized to make Louis Armstrong’s and Billie Holiday’s roles very minimal in order, to quote the FBI, “avoid the idea "that Blacks created jazz.” This is 1946, ‘47. In 1947, Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood 10 and sent to jail. The FBI expected Biberman also, quote, “of being a Nazi.” Of course, he was Jewish. Okay, let’s play a little bit of “Strange Fruit,” please, the next one. Sorry, it’s the next one. It’s in, yeah.

• And now, a tune written especially for me, “Strange Fruit.” ♪ Southern trees bear a strange fruit ♪ ♪ Blood on the leaves ♪ ♪ And blood at the root ♪ ♪ Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze ♪ ♪ Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees ♪ ♪ Pastoral scene of the gallant South ♪ ♪ The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth ♪ ♪ Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh ♪ ♪ Then the sudden smell of burning flesh ♪ ♪ Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck ♪ ♪ For the rain to gather ♪ ♪ For the wind to suck ♪ ♪ For the sun to rot ♪ ♪ For the tree to drop ♪ ♪ Here is a strange and bitter crop ♪

• If you can hold it there, please. Okay, if we can, yeah, freeze it there, Jess. Just in the last minute or two, I’m going to hold on the last song, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” This song for me is, besides it being her biggest hit, the way she sings at the voice and to capture this, you know, you can feel it. You can feel such vulnerability, such suffering, and such defiance. When I think of massacres, of pogroms, when I think of so much that is going on in the world today in our times, you know, in the Jewish world, and in some other worlds, you know, it’s this poem written all those decades ago. It’s her version of this poem that, you know, put to this music and singing it, you know, this fruit. And we just imagine the fruit of these little young kids, whatever age, you know? And these people just massacred, slaughtered for no reason at all, except because they’re Jewish or because of the color of the skin or whatever. You know, in terms of her song, I think this has become a real classic to have meaning beyond the original meaning that he wrote it for. But you can feel it inside it, that Jewishness, that survivor, that pain, that suffering, that horror of millennia. And at the same time, you can feel, you know, the lynching, the slavery, et cetera. There’s an understanding artistically.

I’m not talking politically or philosophically even, but artistically and aesthetically. And I don’t want to make a naive connection between the two. But the metaphor, the imagery that the poet found and the way she is able to interpret and sing it, I think just it speaks for itself in how it just echoes in our times in particular. Gilbert Millstein, who was a New York Times critic at the time, and he wrote, “I’ll never forget "that night when she sang this song. "The lights went down, music began to play. "She stepped out from behind the curtain "into a white spotlight. "She was beautiful, poised, smiling. "She sang with strength undiminished. "And in the darkness, my face burned my eyes. "And yet, I smiled.” Beautiful writing by Gilbert Millstein. Nat Hentoff at Carnegie Hall wrote of her, “The assurance of the phrasing, the intonation, the warmth, "the smile slightly evident on the pain of her face. "Perhaps, people could accept her by now. "Her unique, sinuous, subtle way of telling the story. "The words became experience. "The words themselves became the experience. "There was a steel, and yet a softness. "A voice that was unbearably wise in disillusion "and yet still vaguely childlike.” So this is what Nat had, people could really write in those days, some of these newspaper guys. I leave with all of us, you know, a slight taste of a few moments of her life, of the reality of her life, the trauma, the suffering. Her singing, for me, the way of coping, at least if not overcoming certain amounts of adversity in her life. The influence on a whole lot of other people. And to come back to the great Sinatra at the end who said that, “Billie Holiday was "the greatest single musical influence on me. "She is the most important influence on American singers "in the last 20 years.” And that’s Mr. Sinatra. She died with 70 American cents in the bank. All her money had been stolen by her last husband, who was a mob guy, which is another whole long story. Okay, I’m going to hold it there on Billie Holiday, and we can go into the questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Barbara, oh, hi. You’re in the world. Oh, that’s great. Please, if you want to make email contact through lockdown, please email with pleasure.

That’s just on the other side of the river. Not far at all. That’s great.

Alice, I saw the wonderful Billie Holiday singing in the Town Tavern in Toronto, the price of a beer, which was magic. That’s great, anywhere were able to talk to.

Q: Remains in song dialogue between swagger and pain. Was it not rage and pain?

A: Yep, I mean, that’s a great way of putting it, Jermaine. It could be rage and pain. It could be swagger and pain. I think swagger gives it a sense of pride; rage, something else. But you know, we all choose. What we love about it is that this music and this voice is such a treasure of so many possible interpretations. Remains swagger in style, emotion, rage and pain, yep.

Barbara, quite an incredible sound, “What A Little Moonlight.” Definitely, the ‘30s sound. But you expected a soft romantic swing, yeah, exactly. And yet, it’s changed from, as you say, Barbara, from that softer, the expectation changes, “What A Little Moonlight Can Do.”

Anna, her voice was a musical instrument. Absolutely. And that’s absolutely what she aimed to make her voice into quite a few musical instruments. So it could play in different ways, in different, nevermind all the detail.

Ron, hope you’re well and good to hear from you. Not only is Benny Goodman on “What A Little Moonlight,” so all the stars, Teddy Wilson on piano, Ben Webster, tenor sax, exactly. You know, later with the . All of them, it’s as you say, absolutely. I mean, the jazz greats on, as you say, just that one song, not only Goodman, but all of it combining together with her voice, “What A Little Moonlight.”

Rita, she was beautiful. Absolutely. And there’s a beauty because I think there’s such a raw emotional honesty. We can’t ignore the huge drug addiction and everything else that eventually killed her, and the drinking. You know, cirrhosis of the liver. She died of, you know, of heart disease, heart problems and cirrhosis. You know, all these things as we know it. But her beauty and poignancy. Thanks very much.

Q: Why do you think “Strange Fruit” is so successful in the mid '40s?

A: Well, I think that, you know, there were enough people who recognized what the poem meant for the American culture and the way the culture had to change after the Second World War. Let’s not forget that Black soldiers, Jewish soldiers, whoever fought in that great, that huge war of the Second World War and what they were fighting against. And then, the soldiers coming back in 1945, '46, most of the soldiers coming back, Black, White, Jewish, Christian, whatever, a whole different era that could be receptive to a poem and a song like “Strange Fruit” to give it a historical context, I think. And of course, her interpretation. Interestingly, she was very scared to sing the song. She was terrified. She thought that she might be lynched because everybody knew the meaning of the metaphor. And you know, she was very unsure whether to sing it or not, terrified for her own life. But ironically, like with so much of great art, it became the biggest hit of her life.

Q: What did Gershwin, ah, this is from Nancy. What did Gershwin say about her talent?

A: Great question. I don’t know, Nancy. We both going to have to Google it and find out. Ask the God of Google about Gershwin’s thought of her talent. That’s great, lovely question. Thank you.

Q: Steven, am I correct in thinking she had a very limited, maybe just one octave?

A: Well, she was never taught, so she’s coming from a, I mean, she was never taught anything really, leaving school at the age of 11. But I think that there’s a, you know, it’s just a gift of, you know, as John Hammond said, of a kind of a musical genius of vocal range and improvisation and melody and sound and voice and music and song and, you know, all of that together. To me, I would say it’s not just one octave. I think it goes into jazz blues because not only was that usually becoming very popular at the time that she was a growing teenager, she mentions Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith as saving her life almost, or hearing them. So jazz was really burgeoning, feeding the jukebox trade as a business, but it was really moving at the time and she was riding that wave. I think also how this became so popular was that she was part of a whole different generation where jazz was beginning to be not only appreciated but ingrained almost in American culture and history and globally. The timing of it really, I guess, is what I’m saying.

Barbara, amazing how these wonderful, talented singers have a self-destruct button, I know. I mean, drugs addiction, alcohol, I mean, it goes on and on. So many of them. Amy Winehouse, the same. You know, Billie Holiday, so many of them. Piaf, you know, many, many, many. I don’t want to get into speculative Freudian reasons, maybe why the link between pain and suffering and great art or maybe not. Shakespeare could also express it, but do we know anything about what he might or might not have suffered? We don’t know. But certainly periods in history, I think, in cultural periods of great suffering certainly throw out certain great artists. Rita, thanks. Billie Holiday, phenomenal. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Madeleine Peyroux, I think she’s fantastic. Her interpretation of Leonard Cohen is just, you can listen to it again and again and again. She turns it into jazz and blues and what she does with it. It’s, for me, beautiful. Influenced not only by Leonard Cohen, but obviously Billie Holiday. Madeleine, thank you. It’s very kind. I did one on Edith Piaf before, but maybe we can do one again 'cause she’s certainly one of my great heroines of artistry, not only music. Barbara, had a diva exhibition early in the year of the VNA. A marvelous Billie Holiday display, songs, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heard about it, didn’t go, but I heard. Very poignant, that’s great. And an Amy Winehouse exhibit. Amy Winehouse, I think, was extraordinary. You know, dying at the age of her late 20s, in her late 20s. Such a voice, such a talent. Also, really pretty untutored, untaught, you know, pretty learnt on the hoof as it were. And the most extraordinary voice just coming out of this young Jewish girl from London in the '90s. Okay, so just jumped here a whole lot. Just go back.

Amy Winehouse, Ronald, thank you. Many of you are very kind. Michael, Michael Cazo. Ah, Amy Winehouse, great young singer. First heard on the Jools Holland show. Uh-huh, great. Yeah, he brings lots, used to a lot of firsts. You can hear the Billie Holiday influence. Exactly. The good die young.

Hendrix also. My apology presenting it now. Okay, thank you. That’s great, I appreciate.

Ron, Madeleine Peyroux is 50 now. Not that young. Well, maybe compared to some of us, you know? I first heard her sing in a small club in San Francisco. An amazing voice, love it. So similar to Billie Holiday. Exactly. She sang in French, yeah, that’s great. Diane, thank you. You’re all very kind. Rita, “Strange Fruit” is a euphemism for the lynched bodies of the African-American boys hanging from the tree. Absolutely.

Ron, “Suppertime” by Irving Berlin is poignant on the same subject. Great connection, Ron. Thanks so much for that. I also didn’t know it as Rita says. Great, thank you, Ron.

Alice, Lady Day and her trademark white . Exactly, I know there’s lots written about that, but too much for today.

Q: Ron, what do you think of the Diana Ross biopic?

A: I was in two minds whether to include some clips of the Diana Ross movie and there’s also the other one, Billie Holiday versus the American Government, the USA. I just think that I just wanted to focus on her today, the original. And Diana Ross, I think, is fantastic. And I think some of her interpretations are wonderful, but there’s nothing quite like the original. And because through the magic of YouTube and the internet, we are able to get some of the originals even if they’re scratchy vinyl records. I think it just takes me a little bit closer to that rawness in a way. Rita, thank you. Very kind, Joan.

Q: How old was she on the cover?

A: Oh, I’d have to check that actually. I’m not sure which cover. The “Lady In Satin” is towards the end of her life, 44 when she dies. I’m not sure which cover you mean. We’d have to check, okay, but thanks. If you want to email, with pleasure. AD, thank you, very kind. I wanted to share moments of pleasure within terrible adversity of the times we’re living in.

Eileen, Barry from Glasgow, thanks. It’s really great. Leonard, thank you, you are very kind.

Q: Have you heard Steve Tyrell sing “What A Little Moonlight?”

A: I haven’t heard that, no. “What A Little Moonlight,” and I’m going to listen to it. That’s great. Thanks, Leonard. Thanks for teaching me that.

Maggie, you haven’t said who wrote “Strange Fruit.” Now, I did say. “Strange Fruit” was written by the Jewish guy. I did mention Abel Meeropol. It was a poem that he wrote, and he then adapted it into the song under the pseudonym Lewis Allan 'cause he was scared to use his Jewish name at the time. I mentioned he was the Jewish school teacher, also taught James Baldwin, and that he and his wife adopted the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s sons because they were orphaned because their parents were executed and et cetera, et cetera. I did mention that whole story. He wrote “Strange Fruit” as a poem, which was then adapted by him into the song for her.

Diane, oh, well. Oh, thanks, it’s very kind. I really appreciate your comment. Very kind. All of you are very kind. Thank you.

Q: Abigail, did Billie Holiday get her singing from the gospel?

A: Now, that’s really interesting. Abigail, thank you. I try to research how much gospel. I think gospel would’ve had an influence in almost every African-American singer and musician. I think there’s no question that gospel is so much of the origins of so much of the blues, obviously, and jazz later. Did she get her singing from the gospel? I didn’t get as much when I researched and was rereading some of the autobiography again. I didn’t get as much from gospel as from Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and other jazz singers. Because let’s remember, she’s in 12, 13, 14 when she hears those singers and musicians for the first time. So it’s coming more from that. But of course, the whole history of jazz and blues gets its ultimate, so much of the origin from gospel.

Sheila, Amy Winehouse went to the British School as did Adele. Oh, not untutored. Okay, well, thank you. Thanks so much, Sheila, for correcting me and I really appreciate. Why did I think she didn’t. Anyway, anyway, thanks for correcting me.

I appreciate it very much Rhonda, thanks. And the sax. The sax we can give another whole to talk about. Thank you, Rhonda.

Q: Judy, what about Helen Shapiro?

A: Yeah, also an unusual voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful singer as well.

Q: And then, Jay dress, Judy, I think, how does she compare with the great Ella?

A: Well, there’s a lot written about the two of them, whether it was competitive or whether they were working, who knows? But I think the two of them are right up there. I think the two of them are two of the greats. For Sinatra, it was her, but for others it was Ella. You know, it’s hard to compare or even choose. I think they have a different talent in a way. I think with Ella Fitzgerald, she has more of a range and there’s much pain and there’s as much of all of it in both of them, but in different ways, which I guess we can talk about for ages.

But time is getting on. So thank you so much, everybody. Really appreciate and hope that you have a great rest of the weekend from a still sunny Liverpool, which is amazing. Jess, thank you so much. Take care, everyone.