Tony Bennett, who says he briefly knew Holiday, sums up the way a lot of people feel about Holiday: She told her own story, just by being herself. She knew her place. For news, music (including some previously unreleased live recordings), complete discography, videos and much more visitKims websiteand many more performances can be found on herYouTube channel. Sharon Oliver is a freelance writer and cozy mystery novelist. }; By all accounts, he was abusive and a heavy drug user. ", For Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, Kuehl's interview with Jones is "extraordinary. With Billie, viewers will hear the voice of the late biographer telling one of her interviewees, Id like to write something that is real, that is really Lady Day, and people who dont see her in any sentimental way, you know? His new documentary, Billie (out Dec. 4 on VOD and in select theaters),is about both Holiday as told through the voices of people who knew her and Kuehl's obsession with crafting her biography. ("elementType"in e))return!1;var n=null;if(n=e.following?e.following.parentElement:e.inside?e.inside:e.replacing?e.replacing.parentElement:"script"==e.elementType?document.head:document.body,null==n)return!1;var l=document.createElement(e.elementType);delete e.elementType,l=jQuery.extend(l,e),e.replacing?n.replaceChild(l,e.replacing):n.appendChild(l)}; One of Holidays most poignant recordings, Lady in Satin, is a lush string album and her last album is made multidimensional by the testimonies of the musicians who played with her and friends she was close with. if ('' == 'left') That voice. Be the first to contribute! Crisp colorized film footage of Holiday with the Count Basie Orchestra from 1950 shows us why she was called the greatest jazz singer ever during her life and now over 100 years after her birth. She looked like a panther. The film highlights a review that scathingly derides Billie for being heavy reminding us that draconian female standards of beauty have been around for a long time. id: "captainform_js_global_vars", Linda Lipnack Kuehl spent eight years trying to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. In 1940, she was 0 years old and lived in New York, New York, with her father and mother. Culture Mix Survey var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b474e67'); Lipstick and brow pencil are the hallmark features. Both died young Holiday at age 44, of liver cirrhosis. The jazz drummer who toured with Holiday when they were a part of Basies band, pointed out, Miss Billie Holiday didnt have the privilege of using a toilet. PublishedDecember 3, 2020 at 4:06 AM CST. She began working on the Holiday biography in 1971 and interviewed an impressive number of people. (These categories frequently overlapped.) (document.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.removeEventListener("load",d)):(document.detachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.detachEvent("onload",d))},d=function(){t||!document.addEventListener&&"load"!==event.type&&"complete"!==document.readyState||(t=!0,n(),e())};if("complete"===document.readyState)e();else if(document.addEventListener)document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.addEventListener("load",d);else{document.attachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.attachEvent("onload",d);var o=!1;try{o=null==window.frameElement&&document.documentElement}catch(a){}o&&o.doScroll&&!function c(){if(!t){try{o.doScroll("left")}catch(d){return setTimeout(c,50)}t=!0,n(),e()}}()}}; (Holiday sang the haunting indictment of lynching to white and Black audiences as early as 1939.) WebLinda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 February 6, 1978) was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. As Holidays fame grew, so too did her notoriety for being a drug addict. A native northerner currently living somewhere in the south, she loves British detective shows and will cover and defend (especially funk) music-related news to the bitter end because this is One Nation Under A Groove. She lost her cabaret license to perform in New York City nightclubs, thereby limiting her income options. Kuehl's parents were Sol and Ida Lipnack and she had a sister, Myra Luftman.[1]. Even at the end she was arrested in her hospital bed for possession of narcotics. (The documentary has lots of images of cassette recorders and reel-to-reel tap machines in operation, to give a visual representation of these interviews.) In 1928, Holiday and her mother moved to New York Citys Harlem neighborhood. To give the documentary a cohesive structure and to make sense out of the 200 hours of interview material Erskine says, We had a discipline that people speaking in the film should only be speaking about an event that they actually witnessed because otherwise the material was just sort of overwhelming.. Her death was ruled as a suicide. Keuhl is also remarkable for not trying to angle the information in a Procrustean manner to fit her argument. The problems became too much for her, and she quit working with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. "Miss Billie Holiday didn't have the privilege of using a toilet. WebTalk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Recently some articles based on faulty interviews emphasize her persecution in Hoovers war on drugs without realizing this was a fact of life for all African American jazz musicians. It is a raw, unsanitised character study, in which Holiday is both combative and vulnerable, coy and revolutionary: a fiery, foul-mouthed thrill-seeker who never sacrificed her integrity. You do start to wonder, he says, if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billies life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her., 2023 WNET. jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 + wrapper.width() + wrapper.css('padding').replace('px', '') * 2); One of most provocative moments in the documentary is Kuehl speaking with Jones, a jazz drummer who toured the country with Holiday when they were both in Basie's band. Plus: Man in Room 301 concludes. Holiday co-wrote her 1956 memoir Lady Sings the Blues with William Dufty, and the book became the basis of the 1972 feature film of the same name, starring Diana Ross, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Holiday. She recorded from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. "She looked like a panther. Particularly jarring is a small girl made up to look as if she was Billie as a child. var append_element = append_element || function(e){if(void 0==e)return!1;if(! In the documentary interview, Hammond says, There was a real problem between Billie and Basie. "She excited me with just three notes," drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. Never. You certainly get the sense that the more interviews Linda did, the closer she did get to this sort of underground, seedy world, he says. Earl Zaiding, who was Holidays lawyer, calls McKay a pathological liar.. Never!. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. Holiday, who died of heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver at age 44 in 1959, was an iconic jazz singer who was also one of the first African American entertainers to record music speaking out against racial injustice. Erskine at least benefits from the basic volume of his source material. Billie Holiday got up and sang Strange Fruit in 1939, then pretty much every night of her life for 20 years. Several people in the documentary say that New York City doormen (especially on 52nd Street) would regularly supply her with drugs. The journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl worked for years on a Billie Holiday biography before Kuehls sudden death in 1978. } Its implied that her addiction issues were inherited, because Sandy Williams, a bandmate of Holidays father Clarence, describes Clarence as a happy-go-lucky guy who loved his booze and was often drunk. ("elementType"in e))return!1;var n=null;if(n=e.following?e.following.parentElement:e.inside?e.inside:e.replacing?e.replacing.parentElement:"script"==e.elementType?document.head:document.body,null==n)return!1;var l=document.createElement(e.elementType);delete e.elementType,l=jQuery.extend(l,e),e.replacing?n.replaceChild(l,e.replacing):n.appendChild(l)}; This documentary offers viewers the rare opportunity to see Billie Holiday through the eyes of those who knew her best. His new documentary, Billie (out Dec. 4 on VOD and in select theaters), is about both Holiday as told through the voices of people who knew her and Kuehls obsession with crafting her biography. Her family, however, believed otherwise. Her death was ruled a suicide. But the first biographer to fully immerse herself in the world of Lady Day was a New York journalist and avid Holiday fan named Linda Lipnack Kuehl. elementType: "script", This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : WikiProject Biography. Were not changing her flaws. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. Not just junk alluding to Holidays arrest, in 1947, for narcotics possession, another event in Holidays life that Kuehl probed. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible'); captainform_create_form_popup(popupParams); Fletcher concedes, "Well, not just for an agent. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup642e65b474235'); She created Freedoms Song: Music of the Civil Rights Movement and was musical director and curator for the Martin Luther King Institutes Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Culture Mix Survey More recently, documentary director Erskine bought the rights to Kuehls tapes. Like all documentaries there is never enough music and with a woman such as Billie who lived an expansive life in 44 years it would be impossible for one feature length film to cover everything. Webkalepa ridge trail deaths; 123 sports live apk firestick; fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood arcs; what attracted you to mom's organic market The movie stars singer Andra Day as Billie Holiday, Trevante Rhodes as Agent Fletcher, and Natasha Lyonne as actress Tallulah Bankhead, who was also rumored to be one of Holidays lovers. This is all the more refreshing considering that Holidays estate, acquired in 2012 by music company Concord, came on board as producers. This was one of the principal reasons why she left the band. Hammond estimates that Holidays salary with Basie was $125 a week, at the most. She would go off with a chick, or something like that; shed probably make them perform a three-ring circus. She was a perfectionist, according to her sister, which is why it took so long for Kuehl to work on the uncompleted book. resize772606642e65b474c78(wrapper); Before her mysterious death in 1978, Lipnack Kuehl had taped over 200 hours of interviews. var captainformDomReady = captainformDomReady || function(e){var t=!1,n=function(){document.addEventListener? }, 50); I would expect that at least they could have found a child with the same coloring as Holiday. Afterwards she ran errands at a whorehouse where she heard Bessie Smith records which Holiday claimed to be a seminal influence along with Louis Armstrong. On 6 February 1978, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl fell from the balcony of a Washington DC hotel. Linda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 February 6, 1978)[1] was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. But the first biographer to fully immerse herself in the world of Lady Day was a New York journalist and avid Holiday fan named Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Contact Us Never., Memry Midgett: In one of the recordings, the pianist is heard saying, She (Holiday) would call me up, maybe 3, 3:30, 4 oclock in the morning. Kuehl had even grown close to some of her interview subjects, including Holidays former bandleader Count Basie. I sometimes see the hardships of being a Black man highlighted but I do not see the same courtesy given to Miss Holiday. Several people in the documentary literally say in one way or another, She loved to get high. And they talk about how she had an unusually high physical tolerance for drugs that was stronger than men who were physically a lot bigger than she was. }, 10); She looked like a panther. She changed her last name to Holiday to capitalize on her fathers connection as a guitarist with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the most respected Black Big Bands of its day. John Levy became her manager and lover, even though he was married at the time. The images of her are legion. "She looked like a panther. Many important details of her life and her musical genius have been overshadowed by a lurid interest in her love life and drug use. Theres also a clip of her role as Endie in the 1947 film New Orleans., Because Billie is told in chronological order of her life, the documentary has a very easy narrative to follow. We finished the film last year and I didnt see it again until September, says Erskine. She wasnt allowed to enter venues via the front doors, lest she offend the white clientele who were there to see her; she spent months touring the south with Artie Shaws white band, in which she had to hunt down hotels to sleep in, barred from the ones the rest of the band stayed in. Eleanoras parents got married when she was 3 years old, and she was raised primarily in Baltimore. [6] In 1971, she began plans for a biography of Holiday, who had died aged 44 in 1959. , 50 ) ; she looked like a panther was raised primarily in Baltimore problems became too much for,. 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