As her reputation grew, Billie Holiday performed with mainstream acts like Count Basie and his renowned orchestra in 1937, and Artie Shaw and his big band orchestra in 1938. In 1935, Hammond brought her into the studio regularly to record her singing with bands containing some of the finest jazz musicians of that day. Holiday first appeared in the Apollo Theatre in 1934. Hammond immediately arranged three recording sessions with Bennie Goodman for the talented young woman and began booking engagements for her in clubs all over New York. At this point, Billie Holiday began singing in small jazz clubs in New York, quickly earning herself a reputation as a talented American jazz singer.īillie Holiday's career truly took off in 1933, when writer and producer John Hammond discovered her singing at a New York club called Monette's. As a teenager, Holiday moved to New York City in either 1928 or 1929 to reunite with her mother who had moved there several years prior in order to get a better job. She was sent to a reformatory at the age of 10 for delinquent behavior and thus never received much education. Holiday grew up in Baltimore-causing some to believe, inaccurately, that she was born there-and endured a difficult childhood. She picked up the nickname "Billie" as a child due to her admiration for her favorite movie star, Billie Dove, and the name stayed with her until her death. She later switched the spelling of her name back to Holiday and was given her famous nickname "Lady Day" by tenor sax virtuoso Lester Young.
Holiday's father abandoned the family when she was young, so at the outset of her career, she altered the spelling of her surname to Halliday to distance herself from her negligent father. The name that appears on her birth certificate is Elinore Harris, but she went by the name Eleanora Fagan until she began her music career and changed her name to Billie Halliday. The facts of her life are somewhat vague dates, places, and other details of her life are subject to some scrutiny. Billie Holiday was born to Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1915.
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