Billie Holiday Literally Finding Her Voice
Downbeat magazine has posted Dave Dexter Jr.’s “classic” interview with Billie Holiday from 1939. Among (perhaps apocryphal) anecdotes about Artie Shaw‘s relentlessly serious self-image and some honesty concerning her first recording, Holiday speaks frankly about troubles on the road, looking forward to an “unglamorous and unprofitable” future and her hatred of “straight singing.” Probably worth rereading even if you’ve been there and done that article, and definitely worth getting the electronic word out.
As for that first record she cut, this writer has always enjoyed the singer as well as the sidemen:
yet his favorite Holiday record, based on further subjective, uncritical criterion, remains “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm“:
It turns out Holiday had an enviable future, she just wasn’t around to see it.
The Pop of Yestercentury 