His first single was under his new contract with Decca (1956) is “ Love Me” that he co-wrote with Sue Parish from Lubbock, Texas. Particularity for an outspoken Black woman.īuddy is best remembered for his original songs, and he wrote or co-wrote most of them himself. Anyone singing protest songs and in this case about racism or lynching, in the late 1930’s and 1940’s attracted unwanted attention from authorities. Her insistence on recording it and continuing to sing it despite the warnings was likely the reason she came to the attention of law enforcement in the first place. From her first live performance in 1939 the evocative song about lynching and racism in the South would always stun the audience and serve as an education to many. The song that brought her great success but also got her labeled a subversive or worse was “Strange Fruit”. This would lead to her incarceration on a drug charge. At a pivotal point in her career she came to the attention of the FBI. No doubt a combination of past trauma and getting caught up in the fast life of an entertainer she would struggle with addiction the rest of her life. She would rise to the highest height of success and not unlike many in the business she had her issues with alcohol and drug abuse. From there she would work with the leading names in Jazz and Blues including Count Basie and Artie Shaw. ![]() She began singing in nightclubs as a young teen and her first recordings, with the help of John Hammond were in 1933 at age 18. She re-joined her mother who had left for Harlem by 1929. ![]() By the time she was 12 she had been sexually assaulted and was running errands for money at a brothel or scrubbing floors. She was abandoned by her father (believed to be Clarence Halliday) and then passed around by her mother to live among relatives throughout her early life. She was born Eleanora Fagan on Apin Philadelphia, and to say she overcame horrendous circumstances is and understatement. Most of my readers will know about Holiday but since this is the first in a short series I will give you this link to her bio from .įrom Wikipedia I gathered a few things everyone should know about her. There have been other names but you can connect the dots of important women in Blues and Jazz music with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Read More »Īs promised I am posting a series on Billie Holiday. As much as he was a gifted lyricist, singer and musician, he also had an ear for songs from other composers/artists. ![]() When he found his ‘voice’ with the above song in 1956, he sounded like no one else. Today I will talk more about the person, his music, the portrayals, and tie up any loose ends from my prior posts.īuddy started his professional career as a teenager, he and his bandmates were still in Jr. He was there at the beginning, though he was inspired by him, he was a contemporary of Elvis Presley as well as Chuck Berry, but for the two years from his breakout song, we will never know what he could have achieved. Myself and many others will be reading on February 3 about that day in 1959, as well as the before and the aftermath, all I will say is that at age 22 he had left a legacy that is a crucial part of Rock and Roll history. As we draw close to the 63 year anniversary of that fateful plane crash, I am releasing the third and final instalment on Buddy Holly.
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