Nicknamed " Lady Day " by her friend and music partner, Lester Young , Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem where she was heard by producer John Hammond , who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in Throughout the s and s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She was a successful concert performer throughout the s, with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall.
Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction, but were mild commercial successes.
Her final album, Lady in Satin , was released in Holiday died of heart failure on July 17, , at age Billie Holiday Her mother moved to Philadelphia at age 19, [ 7 ] after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore , Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Holiday to stay with her in Baltimore.
Not long after Holiday was born, her father abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. Harris married Philip Gough in , [ 10 ] but the marriage only lasted a few years. Holiday grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads.
