Eleanora Fagan (Billie Holiday)

Billie Holiday (1915–1959), affectionately dubbed Lady Day by her soulmate saxophonist Lester Young, grew up in crushing poverty and trauma in Baltimore and Harlem. Discovered singing in a Harlem speakeasy by producer John Hammond, Holiday possessed an exquisite vocal instrument: not booming, but imbued with devastating emotional intimacy, unique behind-the-beat phrasing, and instrumental blues nuance.

In 1939 at Café Society in New York, Holiday defied record executives to sing Strange Fruit, a haunting poem by Abel Meeropol describing the lynching of Black Americans in the South ('Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root'). The performance silenced rooms and was named by Time as the 'Song of the Century', cementing Holiday as an immortal pioneer of civil rights and artistic courage.