A beginner's guide to the music of Billie Holiday

As a girl, Billie Holiday fell in love with music while scrubbing the floors of a brothel

Record players were rarities in the 1920s, but Holiday had access to one at Alice Dean's, the brothel in Baltimore where she scrubbed floors. It was there that she listened to her heroes, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.

Watch Billie Holiday perform in 'The Sound of Jazz'

The 1957 CBS special, part of its series "The Seven Lively Arts," was a landmark broadcast that brought some of jazz's biggest names—including Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and Count Basie—to a national audience. Watch Holiday offer a stirring rendition of "Fine and Mellow" below.

Watch Billie Holiday's only feature film appearance in 'New Orleans'

The 1947 film wasn't known for its sophisticated plot, which mainly centers on a white opera singer who learns about the beauty of blues and jazz. It's more notable for featuring some of those genre's biggest stars, including Holiday, who played a singing maid and the love interest of Louis Armstrong. You can see her first scene around the 11-minute mark.

Billie Holiday ensured performances of 'Strange Fruit' had the right context

In the song's earliest performances at Cafe Society in New York, one of a few truly integrated nightclubs in the society, the song was always performed last, after bar service had stopped, with a single spotlight on Holiday so audiences would pay close attention to the lyrics. Later, Holiday included her ability to perform the song in her concert contracts, allowing her to sing it even if venue owners were nervous about its protest message.

The story of Billie Holiday's final performance

In her final days, Holiday was still performing—often at clubs outside of New York—though she was struggling with cirrhosis, an effect of her alcoholism. This excerpt from Paul Anderson's "Bitter Crop: the Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Final Year" details her final show in Lowell, Massachusetts, offering a tragic portrait of the singer running out of steam.

Why Frank Sinatra called Billie Holiday his 'greatest single influence'

In a 1958 essay for Ebony magazine, Sinatra wrote about the impact that Black music had on him, writing that "it is Billie Holiday, whom I first heard in 52nd Street clubs in the early 1930s, who was and still remains the greatest single musical influence on me. It has been a warm and wonderful influence, and I am very proud to acknowledge it."

The best jazz albums of all time

Diving into the history of jazz can be intimidating, but this list is a helpful guide, highlighting the best of the best, with titanic recordings from Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Alice Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, and more.

Analyzing Billie Holiday's impact on American poetry

Although Holiday is sometimes associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the Black cultural movement of the 1920s and '30s, scholar Whit Frazier Peterson argues that her real impact in poetry was on the Black Arts Movement, the more radical Black literary movement of the '60s and '70s that featured writers like Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni.

There's no proof that the government pursued Holiday because of 'Strange Fruit'

Music writer Lewis Porter disputes the events of "The United States vs. Billie Holiday," a 2022 film that dramatized the Federal Bureau of Narcotics' pursuit of the jazz legend. Porter notes that the FBN did indeed target Holiday, but believes it's important to note that it wasn't necessarily for the release of the protest song.

A beginner's guide to Toni Morrison

The legendary American writer died in 2019, but her fiction is still as relevant as ever. This primer walks aspiring Morrison fans through her body of work, outlining the ideal starting point for several different kinds of readers. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Watch Diana Ross posthumously induct Billie Holiday into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Holiday was posthumously inducted into the Hall in 2000 for her influence on the generations that followed her. Fittingly, Diana Ross, who played Holiday in a 1972 biopic, did the honors. She took the opportunity to sing an acapella verse of "Strange Fruit" and then offer some honorific poetry: "In this, a lesson: Artist, handle with care. Don't lose yourself in the music, beware stardom's glare."

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

View a guide to Prince's discography

Staring down Prince's catalog, which includes over 40 studio albums alone, can be intimidating for listeners looking to explore the Purple One's work. (It can also be intimidating for fans looking to dive into its depths!) This guide from the AV Club provides a framework for your Prince studies, with entry points for newcomers, casual fans, and more serious listeners alike.

Browse over a century of Billboard issues

For a music nerd, there's nothing more fascinating than poring over the Billboard charts from past decades to see how music—and the way it's categorized—has evolved. This digital archive allows you to click through almost every issue of the magazine and, in the process, watch the gradual emergence of nearly every American musical trend of the past century.

Ella Fitzgerald's life in photos

Iconic jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald is known as the "First Lady of Song" for her timeless performances and major contributions to jazz. Decades later, her songs have more than 100 million plays on Spotify. She collaborated with celebrated photographer Yale Joel, who left behind iconic picture galleries and films of the singer.

A world-famous barista's primer on coffee appreciation

If you think you can tell good coffee from bad but don’t know how to put the distinction into words, world-famous barista Nicole Battefeld-Montgomery is here to help. Her instructions for breaking down a cup of coffee rivals any sommelier’s wine-tasting guide.

A guide to the poetry of Walt Whitman

The resource allows you to explore over 100 of Whitman’s essential works, from the iconic “Leaves of Grass” through poems you’ll recognize from pop culture, like “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” and “O Captain! My Captain!”

A comprehensive list of the best Bob Dylan covers

Bob Dylan’s songwriting quickly became part of the great American songbook, thanks in large part to many major artists of the '60s popularizing their own versions of his songs. As this list proves, though, that tradition continued all the way to today. Learn about essential covers of Dylan songs by Adele, Guns N’ Roses, The White Stripes, and others.

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

Billie Eilish and TikTok helped inspire a bossa nova resurgence

Eilish's 2021 song "Billie Bossa Nova" along with a handful of other younger artists, like Laufey and Beabadoobee, have inspired Gen Z's interest in the genre, with the music soundtracking tens of thousands of videos on TikTok.

'Christmas Past' examines the forgotten stories behind holiday traditions

“Christmas Past” is a long-running podcast that explores the origins of Christmas traditions through short and engaging episodes, blending historical deep dives with warm-hearted narration.

A step-by-step guide to the Martha Graham Technique

This BBC explainer walks you through Martha Graham's famous approach to dance, offering you six moves you can work into your exercise regiment—or Graham-inspired routine.

The self-titled country album hinted at what would come later

While Taylor Swift eventually crossed over to pop, a Pitchfork review of her first release hints at the ingredients that would fuel Taylor’s rapid ascent and help her connect with fans, including songs with catchy melodies, relatable themes, and deeply personal lyrics that reflect her experiences as a young woman.

An introduction to becoming a K-pop superfan

K-pop is not a genre but rather an ever-evolving industry. This resource breaks down the different eras of K-pop. Learn how the first generation, with bands like H.O.T., evolved into today’s fourth generation, where idols can train and debut outside South Korea. Find new groups to listen to, and appreciate the diversity of the different groups’ sounds.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Read the lyrics for ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ annotated by historians

The national anthem features a number of specific references (and outdated sentiments) that might be lost on modern listeners. This resource allows you to decode some of Key’s more complicated lines by reading accompanying notes from three specialists.

The psychedelic playlist inspired by a Johns Hopkins experiment

Dating back to 1967, the playlist is over seven hours long and organized in such a manner as to echo users’ experiences as their trips rise, crest, and fall. According to the initial creator of the playlist, the music is a “nonverbal support system” that keeps users from prematurely returning to normal consciousness.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Doctors differentiate between a phobia and fear by asking patients whether their fear interferes with their day-to-day activities.