This a repost of my guest writing piece on Dave’s site.
Randy from Mostly Music Covers website writes about a now legendary R&B/blues concert with Count Basie and others in NY
February 11 – Turntable Talk 11 : Randy’s Weekend Way-back Machine — A Sound Day
“Lady Sings the Blues“
This is the song that many will first associate with Billie Holiday. Written with Jazz pianist and band leader Herbie Nichols it was recorded in sessions from August of 1955 but released in 1956 on the five track album of the same name. This is also the title of a biopic that came out in 1972 with the legend Diana Ross playing Holiday. The movie did not receive the greatest of reviews and is loosely based on Holiday’s autobiography which has the same title as well if you’re sensing a theme here – but as often the case with these films, it’s not very factually accurate. However it is quite enjoyable from my standpoint and well worth watching just to see Ross perform the songs.
Billie herself would record over 200 cover songs and many memorable versions from The American Songbook/American Standards. Of her 40 original songs, “Lady Sing the Blues” has not been covered as often and coincidentally there are currently 40 versions. The first one appeared in a medley by Susan Carter in 1970. This next clip is from one of the many tribute albums to Billie Holiday, interestingly it so happens to have been assembled by the versatile actor Peter Stormare. As I understand the story, Peter, who has his own record label named Stormvox was grieving the death of Jimi Hendrix back in 1970 and his mother gave him a Billie Holiday album which helped him to the point of him promising his mother he would do a tribute album.
This is the instrumental track from the co-writer Herbie Nichols and it was released at about the same time as the vocal track in 1956.
“Don’t Explain”
Written by Billie Holiday and as she did on most of her songs collaborated with Arthur Herzog. The lyrics are deeply personal, coming from her knowledge that her husband Jimmy Monroe was sleeping with other women. Always delivered with that haunting intensity this song has inspired 260 versions to date. It was recorded in 1945 and released in June of 1946. It would be the last song she wrote.
There are so many remarkable covers of this song that it was impossible for me to choose just one to post. However, Nina Simone is where I often land, I don’t think I have to “explain” that…
This song has dozens of instrumentals, once again there are so many versions from artists on my favorites list.
You may recognize the name Don Shirley if you watched The Green Book, here he plays a medley of her songs including “Don’t Explain” and is accompanied by bassist Ken Fricker and cellist Juri Taht.
I will provide a couple of links at the end to other covers but as I said it was so hard to chose; here are the sublime Chet Baker from his tribute album, Bakers Holiday (1965) and Saxophone great Dexter Gordon from 1964.
More links: Herbie Hancock feat. Lisa Hannigan and Damien Rice, Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa, Grover Washington Jr. and the always amazing Molly Johnson.
“God Bless The Child”
When I write about cover songs, I like to look and talk about numbers. As we all know there are many ways to look at statistics. My major source is Secondhandsongs.com. For example there are categories such as the most covered songs by title, there is the most covered singer songwriters and the most covered authors (lyricists and composers). There is also a category for the most covered performers, which does not take into account who wrote the song, just who sang it. As many of these lists are, it is dominated by male performers, The Beatles being at the top. The first female is Judy Garland at #11 and the next is Billie Holiday at #23.
As an author of songs Billie may not rank as high on the lists but for writing her own songs Holliday is best known for “God Bless the Child” (co-written with her oft collaborator Arthur Herzog Jr.) from 1939, first recorded in 1941. There are over 500 versions of this remarkable song. In her autobiography Billie said the inspiration for the song came from an argument with her mother over money. Billie had said to her “God Bless the Child that got his own”. The lyrics start with a reference to the Book of Matthew from the New Testament. She took the draft lyrics to Arthur Herzog and they fleshed out the rest of the song.
Cover by Dee Dee Bridgewater (2010).
“I’ll Be Seeing You”
Billie Holiday is most certainly not alone in having challenging life experiences, but from an early age she was forced to look after herself and learn how to survive. Singers and songwriters will often say that pain, suffering and broken hearts can make for the best songs. Billie was able to channel her feelings and emotions into her singing, again not a unique quality but few did it as well and it’s one of the reasons she is set apart from others. From the serious topics to the more lighthearted where she delivered some of the most vivacious performances you will ever see, such as her interpretations of classic Blues and American Standards not mention the songs she wrote/co-wrote.
No matter how hard I try I will never understand how difficult her life was, not only as a child but especially as a Black woman trying to make a living as a singer. From what I have read, being a person of the times and culture in 1930’s and beyond, even as her career developed into Superstardom, she was often forced to do as she was told. As much as she railed against it, many times she just had no choice. While it varied from place to place she would encounter things such as entering through the delivery or service door, as Blacks were not allowed to use the front door. At some places Blacks could not even be a guest in the audience, even if they were performing at the venue. Perhaps it was not being able to find a hotel that accepted Blacks, or being refused service in restaurants. But when she was in front of the microphone she channelled her energy and gave her heart and soul. Her life cut short by illnesses brought on by her addictions and she died at age 44. Billie was not a Rock and Roll singer but on July 17, 1959 it was another “day the music died”.
For me one of her many enduring songs is “I’ll Be Seeing You” that she recorded in 1944. Written by the great composer Sammy Fain (“Love is a Many Splendored Thing”) and the fine lyricist Irving Kahal. The song, including many instrumentals has been recorded over 500 times. It was first performed by Tamara (Drasin) a Ukrainian born singer who was one of the leading actors on Broadway until her tragic death in a plane crash while on her way to entertain troops during WWII. Bing Crosby hit #1 also in 1944 and the song had charted for Frank Sinatra in 1940. From an article in Ebony Magazine in 1958 Sinatra cites Billie Holiday or Lady Day as she was often referred, as his “greatest single musical influence” and that she was “unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years”.
Thi song did not chart for Billie and her version is perhaps overlooked. However, evn as there are truly many lovely renditions of this beautiful song, as she was so often able to do, when you hear her sing you forget that anyone else had done it before or since.
The first recording was by Dick Todd with Orchestra in 1940
From his 2019 album, Joe Pesci…still singing
Thanks for reading.
As promised I am posting a series on Billie Holiday.
There have been other names but you can connect the dots of important women in Blues and Jazz music with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Most of my readers will know about Holiday but since this is the first in a short series I will give you this link to her bio from BillieHoliday.com.
From Wikipedia I gathered a few things everyone should know about her. She was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, and to say she overcame horrendous circumstances is and understatement. She was abandoned by her father (believed to be Clarence Halliday) and then passed around by her mother to live among relatives throughout her early life. By the time she was 12 she had been sexually assaulted and was running errands for money at a brothel or scrubbing floors. She re-joined her mother who had left for Harlem by 1929. She began singing in nightclubs as a young teen and her first recordings, with the help of John Hammond were in 1933 at age 18. From there she would work with the leading names in Jazz and Blues including Count Basie and Artie Shaw.
She would rise to the highest height of success and not unlike many in the business she had her issues with alcohol and drug abuse. No doubt a combination of past trauma and getting caught up in the fast life of an entertainer she would struggle with addiction the rest of her life. At a pivotal point in her career she came to the attention of the FBI. This would lead to her incarceration on a drug charge. The song that brought her great success but also got her labeled a subversive or worse was “Strange Fruit”. From her first live performance in 1939 the evocative song about lynching and racism in the South would always stun the audience and serve as an education to many. Her insistence on recording it and continuing to sing it despite the warnings was likely the reason she came to the attention of law enforcement in the first place. Anyone singing protest songs and in this case about racism or lynching, in the late 1930’s and 1940’s attracted unwanted attention from authorities. Particularity for an outspoken Black woman.
“Strange Fruit” is a courageous recording by the legendary Billie Holiday from 1939. This song makes an appearance on my “25 of the Greatest Cover Songs #51-75” post. It is from a poem by another brave soul, Lewis Allan (Abel Meeropol) as a protest against racism and lynchings in the American South. He put the poem to a tune and his wife and others sang it at protest rallies. The lyrics are dark and disturbing. Eventually the song made its way to Holiday who first added it to close her Nightclub act. It was only recorded after her efforts to find a label willing to do it. Her delivery is haunting and deeply emotional. Covered over 100 times. Here is Nina Simone with an equally amazing version from 1965.
You can find my post on Nina Simone from 2019 here.
Greatest Blues Songs
As with any list of songs as I’ve mentioned before there is always a lot of subjectivity. However I do take some time and do some research so most of my choices are influenced by others with much more expertise than myself. I have also taken liberties with my categories as well, but hey it’s my blog 😉. I already got a start on this list in a previous post with these first two songs;
Greatest Traditional Blues vocal performance “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday.Read More »
Rock artists sing the Blues
I have talked about this frequently throughout my posts but more particularly in the series on the Delta Blues and the History of R&R parts 1-4. Truth be told, most of the greatests ‘Rock’ artists owe much of their inspiration to the Blues. Rock bands and solo artists have cut many sides early and throughout their careers of blues songs. Thanks to artists like Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley who were obviously very well known and successful, their covers of some of the great blues songs served as a conduit and exposed them to artists and listeners alike. Here are some ‘Blues’ that inspired Rock artists, a few of these songs are more well known than others.Read More »
“Central Park Blues” (1958) written by Nina Simone. From her debut album ‘Little Girl Blue’. While best remembered for her vocal talents, Nina shows off her considerable chops at the piano.
On the same album her cover of “I Loves You Porgy” from the opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin). This would be her highest ranking hit on Billboard at #18 on the Pop chart and #5 on the R&B. The video clip shows how brilliant she was and how effortless her piano playing appears, she was quite remarkable.
Born in North Carolina, Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) she was a student at the Juilliard School of Music. She changed her name when she was performing in nightclubs in Atlantic City, which is when she started to add vocals to her piano playing. She was really only interested in classical music and studies, so performing using pop music and later recording (income) was used to pursue just that.
Simone was deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s and beyond and she produced some powerful protest songs. “Mississippi Goddam“,
“Four Women” and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black“(Weldon Irvine, Nina Simone). Aretha Franklin recorded this last song and it was the inspiration for her Album ‘Young, Gifted and Black’ released in 1972. “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” was also covered by a young Reg Dwight (Elton John) released in 1970.
Nina Simone produced 40 albums but did not gain significant popularity until a few years just before her death giving her more well deserved (financial) security. Simone died in her sleep after suffering with Breast Cancer for several years. She did more amazing covers of songs such as “Baltimore” originally by Randy Newman, “To Love Somebody” from the Bee Gees and in 1961″The House of the Rising Sun” made famous by ‘The Animals’ in 1964. This song is classified as a ‘traditional’ American folk song and has a long and interesting history, the first persevered recording is from 1933 “Rising Sun Blues” by Ashley and Foster.
More info about Nina Simone via a biopic and also Nina. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where she was inducted in 2018. Her autobiography is titled “I Put a Spell on You”
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John Smith Hurt know as Mississippi John Hurt (March 8, 1892 or 1893, Teoc, Mississippi – November 2, 1966, Grenada, Mississippi). Known for his syncopated fingerpicking style and among the first Delta musicians to be recorded. His first sessions in 1928-9 were not commercially successful and he went back to the life of a sharecropper. Perhaps never to be heard from again but thanks to a musicologist named Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins a noted blues enthusiast he was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964 and later Vanguard Records 1964-66.
Robert Johnson (May 8, 1911, Hazlehurst, Mississippi – August 16, 1938). Singer-songwriter, guitarist and the quintessential ‘itinerant musician’ he travelled mainly in the Memphis, Tennessee and Helena, Arkansas areas. Often identified incorrectly as the first “Bluesman” however there is little doubt as to his mastery of the guitar and his influence is as legendary as his own brief life story. Referenced a couple times and likely again as his recordings have become something of a pivotal point in music. You may know of the story of the man who sold his soul to the devil for mastery over the guitar, that myth is about Robert Johnson. He died at the age of 27 in extreme pain, some say poisoned by strychnine laced whisky provided by a jealous husband.
Charley Patton (born perhaps between April of 1887 and 1891 – April 28, 1934). Guitarist and a forerunner of the slide guitar style he was a great singer and a songwriter. He’s considered by many to be the “Father of the Delta Blues”. So before there was Robert Johnson, there were bluesmen like Patton who traveled the Delta region and inspired and taught many others in the style. Of mixed heritage including some say Asian, White, Black, Mexican and Cherokee he learned his trade from perhaps the original bluesman Henry Sloan. Best know for “Pony Blues” from 1929, his recordings were quite rare until 1996 (thanks to John Fahey) and that’s perhaps the reason he was less influential on the early rock and blues stars of the 1960’s.
Son House was Eddie James House, Jr. (March 21, 1902, Lyon, Mississippi – October 19, 1988). Another early bluesman and forerunner to Robert Johnson. A former preacher and church Pastor he was good enough to be invited by Charlie Patton to play with him and Willie Brown, another key early blues singer.
David Honeyboy Edwards (June 28, 1915, Shaw, Mississippi – August 29, 2011). Along with Pinetop Perkins, Henry Townsend and Robert Lockwood he won a Grammy Award for the Album ‘Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas’; at the time of his death he was most likely the last living original Delta blues player of the twentieth century. Not particularly well known for original compositions but he was a purveyor of the Delta Blues and an accomplished singer and guitar player. One of the musicians to come from the famed Dockery Plantation in Mississippi where several of the great Delta bluesmen worked.
Joseph Lee “Big Joe” Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982). Know for his own unique creation the ‘nine string guitar’ (you can see he added the tuning pegs to the head of the guitar) and his homemade set up of coiled wires around his guitar then attached to his beat-up old amplifier, he had a sound like no other. He became a favorite on the Folk and Blues Concert circuits where he influenced Bob Dylan among others. He discovered a 14-year-old David Edwards (above) and the two of them would travel together and play with Robert Johnson and other Blues greats.
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Mostly Music Covers 