她是1930-1940年代，忧伤又神秘的爵士女王。她的声线沙哑美丽，她的微笑温暖深沉。她被无数人殷殷追捧，也被无数人不屑唾弃。她在舞台上光芒万丈，一生却被笼罩在种族、毒品、监狱和男人的深深阴影下。比莉·荷莉戴, Lady Day小姐，扬名万里的歌唱家，黑暗社会的受害者。
以下为某次音乐作业的第一部分
Exploring the life about Billie Holiday, people might say that she was one of the greatest jazz women singers in 20th century, she had a beautiful voice that was filled with melancholy and she was very successful in building her music career. But what I see, is that her life was a very big tragedy.
Billie Holiday’s misfortune started early in her childhood. She was born in 1915 in a very poor black neighborhood in America. At that time, her mother, Sarah Julia Fagan, was still a teenager herself. Holiday’s parents got married 3 years after she was born, but soon her father left them.
Unfortunately, Holiday’s mother didn’t provide good care to her as well, she often left Holiday with relatives or neighbors for long times. Because of the lack of care, Holiday was sexually assaulted twice, once when she was 10 and once when she was 14. Then, when Holiday was 15, she turned to prostitution because of poverty, and she was arrested. She spent the rest of her childhood in jail.
After she was released, she started to sing in a Harlem nightclub for money. People liked her voice very much and she soon held a little fame around Harlem because of her distinctive vocal style. In 1933, John Hammond, a music producer heard her, which led to her first record. This led to further her career as a musician.
Holiday’s career helped her transcend poverty, but it didn’t mean her tragic life improved. There were lots of problems to face in her music career as well. In 1930s, she toured around Europe and America constantly to sing. This made money and fame for her, but this also means she had to face racism through segregation, and this was very serious at that time.
For instance, in one of her performances, the manager told her she had to make her skin darker so that the audience wouldn’t think she was white and get angry since she was working together with a black band. There were many times she and her band couldn’t even find a place to eat because many restaurants refuse to let black people stay, there were many times that the white audience laughed at her.
Things got a bit better in 1938, when Artie Shaw, a white artist, invited her to work with his orchestra. Holiday became the first female African American singer to work with a white band. This shows that Holiday was started being included in white people, which was impressive.
But then, the promoters of the band still thought that Holiday’s race and unique style didn’t fit for a white band, and they were afraid of racists’ objection, they sent Holiday away. This made Holiday very dejected and realized how serious segregation was again.
Billie Holiday’s miserable lifetime story wasn’t just about racism. In her older time, she started to mess up men, drugs and jails. She had many songs about sad and desperate love, for example, “My Man”, “Gloomy Sunday”, etc. These songs reflected her stormy relationships with men, and these relationships were almost all abusive and exploitative. Her addiction of drugs came from them, and jails came from drugs. In 1941, she married Jimmy Monroe. Jimmy had a habit of smoking opium and soon Holiday started doing it too, along with her own drinking habit. They divorced after about 3 years, then she met Joe Guy. He let her start smoking heroin. These men all left her eventually, but her drug habit stayed.
In 1945, Holiday’s mother passed away, and her substance abuse problem became more severe. In 1947, she was arrested because of illegal drug possession. Her voice started to be rougher and unstable, indicating her career was going to get down. Then she met John Levy by the end of 1940s, next was Louis McKay in 1956, which was arrested for narcotics with her. None of them really loved Holiday, they were just using her fortune and name to dress, to advance themselves like all the other men in her life did. They made her heart break again and again, her mood sadder and sadder, her drug problem more and more severe, and finally her career ended and she got into hospital.
网友评论