Lady Day: 10 Billie Holiday Songs You Must Know
One of the world's most recognizable voices still resonates.
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The Legacy of Lady Day - Jazz legend Billie Holiday would have celebrated her 100th birthday this week. Though Lady Day died in 1959, her legacy lives on through her music. Here are ten of Holiday's greatest and most influential songs. (Photo: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
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"God Bless the Child" - Holiday once said that this 1941 hit, which was recognized with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and included in the Songs of the Century by the National Endowment for the Arts, was inspired by a fight she had with her mother. Everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Annie Lennox have covered this classic. (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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"I'll Look Around" - This romantic melody is one of Holiday's most whimsical songs, and has been sampled by Aloe Blacc on his track "Blind Love." The song was also covered by Nina Simone in 1961. (Photo: Charles Hewitt/Getty Images)
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"My Man" - Holiday wasn't the only singer to cover this French hit — Fanny Brice and Edith Piaf also have versions — but Lady Day's version was sampled by J. Cole in his track "Cost Me A Lot." (Photo: Gilles Petard/Redferns)
Photo By Photo: Gilles Petard/Redferns
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"Strange Fruit" - Originally written as a poem to protest the lynching of Black people in the South, Holiday's musical interpretation of the work became its most famous version and was given a Grammy Hall of Fame award. Pete Rock sampled the song for his own track "Strange Fruit," and Kanye West used Nina Simone's version in his Yeezus track "Blood on the Leaves."
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"I Loves You, Porgy" - This song from the hit Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess was most famously covered by Holiday, whose version was sampled by RZA on "A Day to God is 1,000 Years." (Photo: Bill Spilka/Getty Images)
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"You're My Thrill" - Sampled by Mobb Deep on their track "Avirex," Holiday's version of this extremely popular tune — which was covered by dozens of artists over the years — is the most memorable. (Photo: Paul Hoeffler/Redferns)
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"Crazy He Calls Me" - Holiday's 1949 recording of this jazz standard, one of her biggest hits on the Decca Records label she was on for the majority of her career, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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"Stormy Weather" - This melancholy song is one of the most popular jazz hits of all time and has been covered by dozens of artists. The versions recorded by Lena Horne and Billie Holiday are the ones that have become part of the music zeitgeist. (Photo: Charles Hewitt/Getty Images)
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"Fine & Mellow" - Holiday wrote this jazz standard, about a woman suffering at the hands of her man, in 1939 and famously performed it on television nearly twenty years later on CBS's The Sound of Jazz. Audiences were treated to an example of how jazz was supposed to be experienced: live. (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)