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Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy. Holiday in court over a contract dispute, late 1949
Feb 5, 2023 · Billie Holiday's first marriage to Jimmy Monroe lasted from 1941 to 1947. Monroe is said to have been an excessive drinker and opium smoker when Holiday was dating him, via Cheat Sheet. She...
- Humble Beginnings
- Teddy Wilson, Count Basie, and Artie Shaw
- Joining Café Society
- Personal Obstacles
- All Or Nothing at All
- A Complex Woman
We know that Billie was born with the name Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, yet that the facts about her childhood are murky, made no clearer by Lady Sings the Blues, Billie’s autobiography. Billie’s birth certificate named her father as DeViese, whereas she insisted her father was Clarence Holiday – her mother Sadie’s childhood sweetheart, who lat...
It would be a year or so before Billie recorded again. Hammond coerced Brunswick into a session, and the result was Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra. These four sides, “Miss Brown To You,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “I Wished Upon the Moon,” and “A Sunbonnet Blue” should be in every jazz enthusiast’s library. Over the next 12 months, Billie re...
Billie then began appearing at Café Society in Greenwich Village. Her performances amazed everyone, especially her handling of torch songs, including “I Cover The Waterfront.” However, there was one song that became synonymous with Billie during her spell at the club. One night, Lewis Allen, a New York public school teacher spoke with Barney Joseph...
Billie wrote one of her most beloved songs along with Arthur Herzog Jr. in 1939. “God Bless The Child” was eventually recorded two years later. It was around this same time that Billie married Jimmy Monroe, best described as a hustler. A year later, Monroe was caught smuggling drugs into California. By 1944, she was using heroin. Even so, one of Bi...
In 1952 Billie recorded for the Clef label for the first time, away from JATP concerts, backed by Oscar Peterson, Barney Kessell, Flip Phillips, and Charlie Shavers. She would go on to record a number of albums for the imprint, which eventually turned into Verve Records. During this period, Billie met a new man named Louis McKay. They would eventua...
When saxophonist Lester Young, the man who named her Lady Day, died in March 1959, it was a terrible blow. Two months later, Billie was in the hospital due to her drug use. When a nurse found drugs at her beside, she was arrested once again. Just over a month after that Billie Holiday died, on July 17, 1959, still in the hospital, still under arres...
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Feb 8, 2021 · Holiday’s philandering first husband, the trombonist Jimmy Monroe, would inspire the heartbreaking ballad “Don’t Explain.” “One night he came in with lipstick on his collar,” she ...
Apr 3, 2014 · Holiday married James Monroe in 1941. Already known to drink, Holiday picked up her new husband's habit of smoking opium. The marriage didn't last — they later divorced — but Holiday's ...
Apr 10, 2021 · Billy Holiday is likely the most celebrated female jazz singer in American history, yet substance abuse and addiction would plague her until her death at only 44 years old. Born to teenage parents and named Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, Holiday grew up poor and suffered a rape at just 10 years old by a neighbor, according to Legacy.
Written with Arthur Herzog Jr. it is said that Billie’s lyric was inspired on real-life heartache, when her husband, Jimmy Monroe, came home one night with lipstick traces on his collar. Released in 1945, it would become one of her best known tunes.
