**This Billie Holiday stamp is a part of the jazz and blues singers set from the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my hub page dedicated to this long-running and important project of the United States Postal Service.
I am pleased to realize that this is my 100th post to my blog TheMusicStamps.com. Thank you so much to everyone who has been a part of this journey as I explore my collection (and learn a hell of a lot about it). I look forward to continuing this project and hope you check back often. In the meantime, on with more posts!
Awareness of the masterful singer Billie Holiday is growing with the recent release of the movie The United States vs. Billie Holiday. In 1994, the USPS created a stamp featuring Holiday as part of a set of stamps honoring jazz and blues singers.
I have not been shy about my opinions of the Legends series. It is an incredibly important in highlighting American popular music. It features a wonderfully diverse group of artists and especially highlights the contributions of women and People of Color. However, there are glaring omissions and strange groups. To top it off, much of the artwork is flat and borders on cartoony. However, I think the Billie Holiday stamp is one of the standouts.
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia in 1915 to teenage parents. Not long after she was born, her parents split up. Her mother took her to Baltimore where Holiday spent her childhood. Often, her mother took jobs serving on passenger trains and Holiday spent much of her early years in the care of others.
Her unstable home life led to problems in school, including having to appear at juvenile court at the age of 9 due to her truancy. She was sent to a Catholic reform school for nine months. Eventually, she left school all together at the age of 11. She took a job as an errand runner for a brothel, and made more money scrubbing floors for her neighbors. Holiday and her mother went to Harlem in 1929 and soon after her mother became a prostitute. Around that time, Holiday herself became a victim of child sex trafficking. Both were sent to prison.
Career
As a young teenager, Holiday heard jazz recordings by artist such as Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. She began singing along with these records, discovering her beautiful voice. While still a young teenager, she began to appear in nightclubs in Harlem. Her reputation grew quickly. Benny Goodman saw her perform when she was only 16 years old. After the producer John Hammond heard her in 1933, he arranged for her to make recordings with Goodman at the age of 18.
Holiday would gain attention for her improvisation. She sang scat syllables to mimic the kinds of phrases instrumentalists played. Her solos were even compared to those of Louis Armstrong. An early break for Holiday was the opportunity to play a role in the musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody on Negro Life by Duke Ellington. She sang the song “Saddest Tale” in the movie.
Holiday went on to perform and record with many legendary jazz musicians including Teddy Wilson, Count Basie, Paul Whiteman, and Artie Shaw. She had hits with these artists and made solo recordings that also sold well. Some of her hits included “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “I Cried for You,” and “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s musical Porgy & Bess. She also gained the nickname “Lady Day.”
Those who have seen the recent movie know the controversy around the song “Strange Fruit,” a song about a lynching. The song was released by Commodore in 1939. It became her biggest selling record up to that point and increased her popularity. It also made her a hero in the fight for civil rights.
William P. Gottlieb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
God Bless the Child
Holiday’s greatest hit was a song that supposedly was based on something she said during a fight with her mother, “God bless the child that’s got his own.” Holiday wrote lyrics based on this phrase and the pianist Arthur Herzog, Jr. wrote music for it. In 1941, the song was third on Billboard’s “songs of the year,” and sold over a million copies. Her appeal made it possible for her to cross over onto pop charts and record songs for bigger audiences with a full string section as back up.
She reached the peak of her popularity in 1947, achieving rankings as one of the most popular singers in the country in several magazine polls. However, she was also battling drug addiction by that point. She was arrested in May of 1947 for the possession of narcotics. She was convicted and set to federal prison in West Virginia.
After her release from prison in 1948, Holiday would tour Europe and the U.S., including several performances at Carnegie Hall. All the while, she battled alcoholism and drug addition. She died in July of 1959 of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 44.
The Billie Holiday Stamp
The postage stamp of Billie Holiday was the design of Howard Koslow. The set of eight stamps was released to the public on Sept. 17, 1994. The specific stamp of Holiday is based on a famous photo of her from 1947 taken by photographer William P. Gottlieb (see above). Learn more about jazz stamps here.
Here is a performance of “Strange Fruit” from 1959, not long before her death:
