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NameDateIntellectual Devotional Modern Culture Reading: Billie Holiday. Please use this reading on legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday to answer the reading comprehension questions on the worksheet that accompanies it.Billie Holiday (originally Eleanora Fagan, 1905-1959) was born in Philadelphia to a single teenage mother and soon moved to a poor neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, where she endured an extremely traumatic childhood, Holiday was raped at the age of eleven, was sent to a Catholic reform school later that year, and worked as a prostitute in a Harlem brothel while she was still only a teenager. According to her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday was eventually arrested for prostitution and needed to find other work.One day, the legend goes, Holiday went to a Harlem speakeasy looking for work as a dancer. She was told there were no openings—but that the club needed a singer. Desperate for work, she tried out for the position—and her audition reduced the audience to tears. She got the job, and eventually became a singer in various New York City clubs. In 1933 she was discovered by CBS producer and talent scout John Hammond (1910-1987), who signed her to a recording contract.Holiday began her recording career with some of the greatest big bands of the era, including the groups led by Benny Goodman (1909-1986), Count Basie (1909-1984), and Artie Shaw (1910-2004). Holiday’s recordings are remarkable for her sad, searing vocal performances, in which she displays a haunting vocal style that is entirely her own. One of her greatest songs, a condemnation of lynching called “Strange Fruit,” came early in her career. It was an extremely daring song at the time, appearing years before the civil rights movement gained momentum.Unfortunately, Holiday would not live long enough to see that movement bear sweeter fruit. After battling heroin addiction and alcoholism for most of her life, Holiday died of cirrhosis in 1959.Additional FactsIn the movie version of Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday is played by Diana Ross (1944-), lead singer of the Supremes.By joining the band led by Artie Shaw (1910-2004) in the late 1930s, Holiday became one of the first black women to perform in an all-white orchestra.In 1988, the Irish rock band U2 released a song in tribute to Holiday called “Angel of Harlem.”Adapted from: Kidder, David S, and Noah Oppenheim. The Intellectual Devotional Modern Culture: Converse Confidently about Society and the Arts. Emmaus PA: Modern Times, 2008. ................
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