I forgot to post yesterday but it would have been the 100th birthday of the greatest and most influential jazz singers. Unfortunately her life was plagued by heroin addiction and all the misfortunes of being a black woman in a time of racial segregation in the U.S. Her music will be remembered forever.



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A Holiday holiday.

In December it will be my mothers 100th Birthday too .......love you mom

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NICOS
In December it will be my mothers 100th Birthday too .......love you mom

An earlier Happy Birthday to your Mom! Think I'll go listen to "100 Years Ago"/

Here's some more of Miss Holiday. Y'all can check out her singing Strange Fruit on your own.

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(Dylan owes a lot to this version on his latest album)

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Though there's many wonderful female singers out there that can do Holiday type stuff, I'd have to say the late Nina Simone is the only one who came close to capturing what Holiday did in her prime. Check out Simone's "Nina Simone Sings the Blues" album for some real down home blues/jazz. The rest of Simone's music is also worth discovering, along with Holiday. They both had their hits and misses, but their misses are probably better than many singers best.

There was a great Broadway play, Lady Day at Emersons Bar and Grill" about Billie Holiday about 3 months before her passing. It was really erie. The actress that portrayed her looked some much like her and her mannerisms it was scary. It was like seeing a ghost. Her name is Audra McDonald and won a Tony for her performance. Nothing like the real thing though but this is close. There are some great You Tubes for Billie Holiday. She was revered by many including Frank Sinatra, also our Keith Richards is very fond of Billie. Anyway here is the clip.

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