Clip of the Day

Billie Holiday The future "Lady Day" first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a victrola at Alice Dean's, the Baltimore "house of ill repute" where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs (borrowing her professional name from screen star Billie Dove), then toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw before going solo. Benny Goodman dragged the frightened singer to her first studio session. Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded over 200 "sides," but she never received royalties for any of them. Her own compositions included "God Bless the Child," espousing the virtues of financial independence and "Don't Explain," lament on infidelity. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark.