Billie Holiday

Eleanora Fagan , professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singersongwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Holiday was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. While there were other jazz singers with equal talent, Billie Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience.

Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, the daughter of Sarah Julia Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, an unmarried teenaged couple. Her father did not live with her mother. Not long after Holidays birth, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after being evicted from her parents home in the SandtownWinchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, Holidays mother arranged for the young Holiday to stay with her older married halfsister, Eva Miller, who lived in Baltimore. Holiday, who was of AfricanAmerican ancestry, was also said to have had Irish ancestors through her mothers mixed heritage.

Source: Wikipedia