Original subtitles

Sirens

I'd like to write something that is real, you know,

that is really Lady, and people who don't see her

in any sentimental way, you know, really as she is.

I'd like to hear what Bobby Tucker said. What did he say?

I can't say. You can give me an idea. I can't.

I never talk and nobody ever hears the tapes.

Are you interviewing me or am I interviewing you?

When I tell you something you print it!

Billie's dead. You're talking to me now.

Well, my friend today is a gal who has been singing jazz

for a good many years now, long enough to win for herself

the title of the world's greatest jazz vocalist, Miss Billie Holiday.

APPLAUSE

# Hey, there, baby, make up your mind

# Cos I've been waiting such a long, long time

# Now, baby, or never

# I've been so sad and blue

# Now, baby, or never

# I've been so lonesome, too

# Now, baby, or never

# If I mean anything to you

# Now, baby, or never

# Cos I've wasted so much time

# Now, baby, or never

# And it ain't no fault of mine

# It's got to be yes or no

# It's either you stay or go

# You can't leave me on the shelf

# You gotta commit yourself

# It's either you will, baby, or won't fall in love with me... #

Interview with Sylvia Syms January 20th, 1973.

To the people in our industry, she was the great lady of all time.

She was the queen bee.

# I've been so sad and blue... #

Without even trying,

she was the most sensual of all of the lady singers.

# I've been so lonesome, too... #

I saw the whole world in that face.

All of the beauty and all of the misery.

Billie Holiday sang only truth. She knew nothing else.

# Now, baby, or never

# I've been so sad and blue

# Now, baby, or never... #

Met her in Philadelphia once.

It was a funny situation because I was very unknown.

I was just a fan and she just kind of lifted up her skirt

and went right into her stocking and took out a bill and said,

"Get me some gin, son."

THEY LAUGH

# I'm gonna call you once more on the telephone

# I'll give it till 12 then I'll be gone... #

In what way do you think of her as being innovative?

Well, the fact that she just told her own story just by being herself.

# Now, baby, or never... #

It must be a pretty interesting story that you're writing.

She had a wild life.

# You gotta commit yourself

# It's either you will, baby,

# Or won't fall in love with me. #

I want to know why all girl singers crack up.

They all crack up.

When they hit the top, something tragic happens.

I want to know what causes that.

..rather, it is a real-world journey,

an attempt to uncover the true Billie Holiday...

..beyond the romantic myth of tortured artist and helpless junkie.

A myth Billie herself helped create...

..forced, as she was, to play the white man's game in a time

where a woman's voice was second place

and an African-American's barely heard at all.

To unravel these myths, I set out to discover anyone I could find

who had a personal association with Billie Holiday.

I taped their voices and I started to uncover a person - and artist -

..apprehended orally - on the road, as it were.

APPLAUSE, PIANO PLAYS

# Them that's got shall have

# Them that's not shall lose

# So the Bible said and it still is news

# Mama may have, Papa may have

# But God bless the child that's got his own

# That's got his own... #

The things that I sing have to have something to do with me

and my life and my friends' lives.

They have a meaning.

# Empty pockets don't ever make the grade... #

God Bless The Child - I wrote that for my mother.

How it came about, I asked Mother for some money.

And she flatly refused me.

Now, I said, "That's all right. God bless the child that's got his own."

I walked out...

..and it sort of stuck in my mind.

I said, "You know, that's a good title for a song."

# Money, you've got lots of friends... #

All I had was my mom. I never had brothers or sisters.

I did have a cousin.

We used to stay together as small kids.

How old were you? Eight or nine years old.

Her and her mother were very close.

They were very close.

The area she came up in as a kid, everybody knew each other, you know.

It was just a nice community to live in, even though we were poor.

It was a different type of poor to what they call today, you know?

We made it and we were happy with what we had.

# Crowdin' round no more... #

# Rich relations give... #

In the bloom of her youth, she was pretty...

LAUGHTER

# You can help yourself, but don't take... #

People played on her. Did they play on her when she was a kid?

Of course. Who? The men folks.

# Papa may have

# But God bless the child that's got his own... #

You hung out with Billie? That's right.

You called her Eleanora.

That's her name - Eleanora Fagan. That's the name that we knew her by.

You never knew the father? No, I never knew her father, no.

Did she curse a lot when she was a kid?

Yep. What did she say? What were her favourite words?

Motherfucker! THEY LAUGH

Every other word was motherfucker. What else? Cocksuckers.

That was her word - motherfucker, cocksucker.

She would say, "You suck my ass, motherfucker!"

LAUGHTER

A lot of people didn't like being called a motherfucker.

They would beat you up, lot of men... Right there, on the street?

Yeah.

You think she liked it? She must've liked it.

But the fellas that liked her, she didn't dig them.

Well, let me ask you something, John. Go ahead. Did Billie...

Did she turn tricks?

Sure, of course.

During them times, you had to survive,

and she had to survive.

Was she younger than most girls?

No. Girls start young, some of them, you know?

She wasn't like a slut, you know?

No, no, no. She just lived fast.

# Saddest tale on land or sea

# Was when my man walked out on me... #

Why did she love the fast life?

She liked to be with the boys.

What were you doing then?

I was pimping. Pimping? HE LAUGHS

Uh-huh? Yeah.

Billie liked you cats, right? Yeah, yeah.

Well, we all had a lot of money.

How rough did you ever have to get with them -

I mean, to keep them in line?

Knock 'em down and kick 'em in the ass! Yeah?

HE LAUGHS

How did they feel about that? They loved it!

They'd be so proud of a black eye. HE LAUGHS

"Look what my man done to me!"

Why? That's what they liked, baby! Why?

You had to treat them rough. That's the way they liked it.

# My man's gone

# I feel alone

# I've got those "Lost my man" blues

# He didn't treat me fair

# It's more than I can bear... #

Did you ever hear her sing... Yeah, yeah. ..when she was a kid?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she used to sing every night.

# I've got those "Lost my man, can't him back again" blues. #

I always knew I could sing cos I always did sing,

but I never knew I could make any money out of it...

..until I was working out of an old joint called Hot-Cha.

Well, now, wait a minute.

It's quite a jump from Baltimore to New York.

Well, it was a jump.

You were 15 years old then, weren't you?

No, I was 14. I beg your pardon.

My first encounter with Billie Holiday was as a listener...

..not as a biographer or critic.

Aged 14, I happened to spot an album, The Essential Billie Holiday,

and curiously listened to the voice -

a strange voice that was more real and true

than anything I'd ever heard before.

It told of experiences so deeply felt,

wailed huskily from some nether world, that I had no choice.

I had to listen to where that voice was coming from.

Linda was my big sister.

And she was my protector and she was my best friend.

We grew up in the Bronx borough of New York.

My father was a labour union organiser.

Our family was Jewish but not religious.

Linda was a public high school teacher,

but she had been doing interviews on women and women's rights

as a journalist for Paris Review,

for the New York Times Sunday magazine section.

That's when she decided to start writing a biography

on Billie Holiday.

Even though they came from totally different backgrounds,

I think she identified with Billie.

I think she felt the pain of someone's struggles.

She did not like seeing her as a victim,

which I think is the way she had been portrayed.

UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC

I worked with Billie at the Hot-Cha.

It was just like a place you'd go and have jam sessions.

All the bands would come in.

Everybody would get up and do a number.

That was during prohibition in the early '30s.

People was coming from all over the world to see Harlem,

because Harlem was Harlem then.

White people were coming up in parties,

big limousines and things like that.

That's where you got all your big money from.

They'd go to the Cotton Club first,

and then they wanted to see a little spice after dark...

..so they'd come to the after-hour places.

What were these people after?

They were after a good time,

to hear some risque numbers and enjoy theirselves. That's all.

How did you used to pick up chicks?

I mean, there's been a lot written...

Well, I used to pick them up between my legs.

She did it too? Yeah, that's right.

Was she smoking pot?

At that particular time, the only vice she had was smoking reefers.

Nothing else stronger than that.

Hello, Pigmeat! How are you? Why, hello, neighbour!

It is good to see you! Yeah, where in the world has you been?

Someone told me about this girl who could sing so beautifully.

And I went by there to see her and hear her,

and that's when I discovered her.

A week or two after, she started coming to the Apollo Theater,

and that's where she made her stage appearance - first time in her life.

And why did you think she was so nervous?

Well, she was stage-frightened. Never been on a stage before.

And a lot of people, they sing in them little small places with

eight, ten, 15, 25 people.

And then when you put them in front a big audience -

1,000-2,000 people - they just freeze up.

Everybody knew she smoked reefers.

In those days, reefers wasn't against the law.

The Apollo was just a haze of smoke.

And I'll never forget -

when Billie came out to sing, they put a green spotlight on her.

She stood on a green spot.

And you could see that smoke all over the house.

LINDA LAUGHS Must have smelled...

Oh, if you didn't smoke, you had a contact high.

And she stood on that green spot

and she sang, and sang, and sang, and sang. She was terrific.

Tell us something, Billie, about the background

that brought about your interest in jazz.

Well, when I was a little girl, there was a lady on the corner

that had a record machine, and I could hear Bessie Smith...

..and Louis Armstrong.

And I always wanted to sing like Louis Armstrong played.

I always wanted to sing like an instrument.

That was it?

And John Hammond - you've probably heard of him... Oh, yes.

..used to come up to hear me in Harlem.

And that's how I sort of got started.

Well, I was the first white guy who ever heard Billie.

I was the first one who introduced her around.

About the eighth stoop up here is where I first heard Billie Holiday.

It says "Laundry" there, see?

And that's the place where Billie Holiday made her debut,

as far as I know, in New York, in about February of 1933.

What did you hear that said to you,

"I have to let the rest of the world know about this?"

I heard a singer who was an improvising horn player...

Horn player? Yeah, well, that's how she sung.

Any specific horn player? Well, I think she liked Louis.

Louis Armstrong? Louis Armstrong, I'm sorry. That's quite all right.

And I knew, you know, that these two would...make music together

that was unprecedented.

# When the moon's kinda dreamy

# Starry eyed and dreamy

# And nights are luscious and long

# If you're kinda lonely

# And all by your only

# Then nothin' but the blues are brewin'

# The blues are brewin'

# When the wind through the willow... #

I really didn't like girl singers very much, you know,

cos they were, most of them, very corny - except for blues singers.

Blues singers, I loved.

# If love goes a-thirstin'

# Till you feel like burstin'

# Then nothing but the blues are brewin'

# The blues are brewin'... #

I persuaded the American Record Company

that they should record the hits of the day with a wonderful girl singer

and hit the jukebox trade.

I said, "It costs so little."

We would do these records, you see, for less than $300 a session.

# Suppose you want somebody

# But you ain't got nobody

# You only got a gleam in your eye... #

At 33, I got her into a studio with Benny Goodman.

It was the first time that Benny had ever recorded with anybody

other than white musicians because he was afraid he'd lose

all his jobs if he was known to record with Black people.

Right. Could you tell me about how that came about?

We have to turn off the tape machine.

He slept with Billie. You see, I was one of the people who didn't.

If you went to Harlem just for music and no sex,

it was the strangest thing in the world.

And I went just for music.

The first time I met Billie was in a place behind the Apollo Theater.

And she asked me to take her home,

because some of her friends that were there...

She says, "I don't want them to take me home."

The apartment was in Harlem. That was considered a ghetto.

We got there and she asked me to stay with us.

I ended up staying about six months.

Her mother used to tell me about her when she was a little girl.

What would she tell you?

That she was still in love with Billie's father.

And a lot of times when she used to talk about it, she'd cry.

Somebody told me that Billie used to go with girls.

Now, is there any truth in that? Oh, of course.

Her nickname, among the men, they called her Mr Billie Holiday -

because she was seldom seen with fellas.

And I will always believe that her mother was the cause of it,

cos she never wanted Billie to get close with any fellas.

She would tell her, "They're no good.

"Now, I heard this about him and I heard that about him."

Her mother pushed that in her mind to be careful -

cos they'll break your heart.

Just like Billie's father.

What was Clarence like?

Oh, just a happy-go-lucky guy. Yeah? Yeah. Full of fun.

What was his idea of fun?

Oh, loved his booze.

Clarence would drink anything you poured in a glass.

Is that so? Could he hold it? Oh, yeah.

Did you ever see him drunk? Quite often.

Would he change at all when he was drunk?

No, he would get more happy.

He wasn't violent at all.

Did you ever see Billie with Clarence?

Come to think about it, no.

First time I ever saw her...

..of course, Billie was young, you know?

Carefree, just like a big kid.

Sonny Wright was playing piano.

She was going with Sonny.

What was he like?

Sonny was a nice, quiet, very good musician.

They were engaged?

Yes. Her mother and I hoped that she would marry him.

But Monroe broke that off - Jimmy Monroe.

Did Billie's mother ever say that he was a pimp? Yes. She hated Monroe.

He had stolen her.

And then the next thing I heard, he had her using coke.

Lady and Jimmy used to fight a lot, you know.

But I didn't see too much of Lady after...Monroe.

Whether the men who Billie went with treated her well or not,

she always chose them for a reason.

They played for her. They protected her.

And, in the man's world of the nightclub,

they allowed her to do the one thing that mattered, which was to sing.

Music didn't bring Billie to Harlem,

but it was her voice that would allow her to escape.

Attention, everybody!

# Now, here's a boogie-woogie solid beat

# Come on, you dancers, on your feet

# The winners get a prize, as you all know

# And we pick 'em by the speed and the class they show. #

Let's go!

Billie, I'm just wondering if you might tell us

how people began to call you Lady Day.

Well, now, that came about with Count Basie's band.

Lester Young, he was a saxophone player.

Lester named me Lady Day and he named my mother Duchess -

and there was Count Basie - so we were the royal family.

I returned the compliment and called him the President.

SHE LAUGHS

And I had some swell cats in there with me.

Beautiful. She was a gorgeous woman.

Was she one of the boys?

She was like a man, only she was feminine.

When you travel along like that with a woman,

she becomes just like another man.

Who did she sit with on the bus?

Her and Lester Young would sit together most of the time.

They'd light up, back of the bus.

A lot of people thought her and Lester were lovers.

He wasn't the type that she went for.

And what kind of places were you playing?

Oh, they were the worst. Really? They were the lowest.

We used to have conversations like, "What are we doing down south?

"What are we trying to prove?"

The management made Billie blacken her face?

Yeah, we did. We made her darken down. So, she was light.

How did she take that?

Actually, she didn't dig it.

When I came out on the stage and saw it, I laughed.

It was funny to me.

And then she turned around and called me a motherfucker.

I don't even know what transpired for that to happen.

What would be a good question for you to ask me... You?

..about Billie?

She said that you used to alternate riff-raff joints

and then you'd play some big white hotel.

You'd go from one extreme to the other. Is that true?

Well, I don't call no place a riff-raff that pays me.

She said you weren't your own boss, that you had too many managers.

BASIE LAUGHS

It's true? I don't know, maybe.

I ran that through John Hammond.

Was it true that she had to make her face darker...

..because she was too light to sing with a Black band?

Maybe it happened. See, a lot of these things might've happened

that I didn't know anything about, see?

I always wanted to straighten that out.

I don't know. How do I know?

Are you interviewing me about my band or Billie Holiday?

Both? I can't write about Billie Holiday with your band

if I'm not going to talk about your band.

THEY LAUGH

You... Am I?

Can I?

My name is Jonathan David Samuel Jones -

professional name Jo, J-O -

and everybody that professes to know her, they knew nothing about her.

All that they knew - what was in it for them.

What happened with her and Count Basie? I mean, why did that...

Count Basie? Yeah. Can't you leave Count Basie alone?

There's no problem. There was no problem.

There was no problem. Why did she leave the band?

She didn't leave the band. She was fired. Who fired her?

John Hammond.

John Hammond fired her?

Why?

That's a big question.

If you can answer that, they wouldn't have the UN.

About Basie - why did Billie leave the band?

Well, you see, here's the thing.

There was a real problem with Billie and Basie.

She wasn't making enough money.

Simple as that. And this is really one of the principal reasons

why she left the band.

How much was she getting paid, then?

I think 100 and a quarter a week, something like that, at the most.

She quit?

Oh, she did.

John Hammond wanted her to sing the blues.

So, since she wouldn't sing the blues, he fired her.

How can I verify it?

His number's L0803 4173.

Call him up and I'll tell him and I'll give him another heart attack.

Call him!

I'm... Call him! I'm not going to call him now... Call him!

Listen, I'm going to call him... I'm going to ask... No, call him!

You know I'm not going to get through to him.

I guess you've heard by now that Jo Jones said that you fired her...

Oh, absolute lie.

Absolute lie! ..because she wouldn't sing the blues.

How can Jo say a thing like that?

Did you talk to Jo? Yeah.

Jo said I...? Oh, Jo's out of his mind!

He's a garbage-mouthed liar. Why didn't...?

He fired her because he wanted her to sing the blues,

he wanted her to be a coloured mammy!

Didn't I tell you not to let me catch you at that piano again?

I'm sorry, ma'am.

If I'd have heard you coming, I wouldn't have let you catch me.

Let me fix you a good hot tub...

Now I'm telling you this in front.

He wanted her to just be "Yessa, boss! Yessa, boss!"

And everybody talk about, "He's the great white father."

Don't give me that shit!

But nobody got guts enough to tell the people that,

because they're afraid of him.

The problem with Jo is, you know,

that Jo is not always the most reliable... I just saw Jo last week.

I'll have to ask him how he could possibly have given you... Sure.

Do indeed.

It happened. That was a long time ago.

How in the hell can I tell you what happened... How can I prove it?

You don't have to prove it. It happened!

I believe you... No, it happened! OK!

But when I put something in print... I don't give a damn.

Put it in print and quote me. It happened!

So why... So don't you ask... If you interviewing me

and when I tell you something, you print it!

Are you interviewing me or am I interviewing you?

Where the hell were you 30 years ago? I was in a crib.

Linda was very conscious of being a white writer

and writing about Billie.

You don't know what we was going through...

What were you going through? We was going through hell!

Miss Billie Holiday didn't have the privilege of using a toilet

in a filling station.

The boys at least could go out in the woods.

You don't know anything about it

because you've never had to subjugate yourself to it.

Never.

Most neighbourhoods where we were were segregated by race...

..but we were very much aware of what was happening in the world

racially.

The violations of people's civil rights...

..the horrors of dogs attacking Black people in the South.

The African-American struggle resonated with Linda.

And it was always an outrage to Linda

that people walked in the front door who were coming to see her

but Billie Holiday had to walk through the kitchen to perform.

This is no secret, of course,

that wherever musicians gather and talk about singers,

they generally elect you as their favourite.

Now, who is your favourite?

Well, I like Billy Eckstine's singing very much.

He has sweet sounds.

# Alone from night to night, you'll find me... #

Jo Jones told me that Hammond fired Billie from the Basie Band

cos she wouldn't sing the blues.

Is that the truth? It's probably, sure... It could be?

She never told you...? No, she never told me,

but I want to be known as a singer who can sing the ballad,

who can sing up-tempo things.

Don't tell her to become a blues singer -

that that's all I can do is blues. And that's... That's what they did!

Did you two ever talk about this? We would've had to.

See, now, you've got the misconception

that Black is the blues?

Sure.

It seems as if the people who were running the recordings were white -

and I mean the powers, the agents -

but let's say seven-eighths of the musicians were Black.

You see what people do to suppress you,

the frustration of what connected with Black performers...

..the difference of being "a Black star"

in relationship to being "a star".

Billie Holiday - she's a Black singer.

Billy Eckstine - "Oh, you mean the Black singer."

And not Peggy Lee, she's a "Slav singer",

or Barbra Streisand, she's a "Jewish singer".

Not that. You don't get that.

Get a load of the critics for God's sake,

the people who judge our music as being good or bad.

There isn't a Black critic.

There never was a Black critic in swing music. Why? Why?

Because of the power structure is such that you never got a chance.

You had all white critics to decide whether or not you were good or bad.

It's a pleasure, always, to welcome Mr Billy Eckstine.

APPLAUSE

Black people get bugged...

I think this is one of the most ironic things,

that a man named Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz.

Paul Whiteman was a white man. And jazz is...

Benny Goodman was the King of Swing.

LAUGHTER

She used to laugh at the fact that Benny Goodman was King of Swing.

Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz?

You know, these things, they're absolutely comedic!

Look at Tom Jones.

Tom Jones openly says that he got his start from Otis Redding,

Jackie Wilson, from Chuck Berry,

and he started learning how to sing ballads by listening to my records.

Now, all four of us that they named - where's ours?

Where's our compensation?

Where's your payday?

The most remarkable thing

about jazz performers, you're way ahead of so many of the rest of us

when it comes to desegregation.

Why is it that the colour thing has not ever really been

that important with musicians?

Well, I guess we have more nerve than other people

and we get a chance to meet bigger people.

Who was it that brought about the job you did with

Artie Shaw in the old days? Remember?

Well, Artie Shaw.

He asked me if I wanted a job.

So, I says, "Yeah, I want a job."

But there was still a policy of no coloured singers being with

a white organisation. Would you tell that story to us now?

Well, I'd rather not.

I first met Billie back in around 1930.

Billie was just a young kid then,

and I was almost as hungry in those days as she was.

I remember saying to her one day, "Billie, if I ever make the grade

"and get a band of my own, you're going to sing with it."

And, sure enough, that's what happened.

Do you remember when Billie first came to sing?

To the best of my knowledge that would have been

in either '36 or '37.

We were a travelling group of minstrels.

We got on a bus and travelled 300 miles...

..and the way we carried it out was part of the life.

Did Billie ever have any trouble as a Black singer with a white band?

Yes. The normal kind of problems that would exist

with any Black person in those days.

She was remarkable in that she was a trailblazer

without really... Being conscious of making it...

Wasn't making it a thing or anything.

Today it's hard to even describe the climate,

you know, like waitresses refusing to serve her.

After we would eat, she always ordered an extra hamburger

and she put that in her purse, because she never knew

when she would not be able to be served.

The incidents concerning Billie were mostly concerning

finding a place to stay, wherever we went.

The usual racial problem.

Especially if you're a Black woman travelling with a white band.

We'd get in in the early morning hours, you see,

and many times she either slept in the car or the bus or wherever.

And where would you go?

To a hotel. How did she take it?

Billie was kind of sensitive.

Well, not kind of, she was extremely sensitive.

Do you remember an incident by any chance when you first hit Kentucky

and the sheriff came up to the bandstand and said,

"What's that Black bitch going to sing?"

There was a brawl or something?

Oh, there was a hell of a fight, I remember.

I think somebody was calling her nigger or something, I don't know.

I hit somebody over the head...

When we got to the Lincoln hotel in New York,

which began our so-called big break,

they didn't allow a coloured, Black girl to sing.

It was just one of those things, a sacrifice there,

it had to be Billie.

She just kind of left, she just quit.

Did anybody blame Artie Shaw for staying

when Billie really couldn't stay there?

Well, he didn't fire her. She left on her own.

She had a lot of pride.

And how did she take it? Philosophically, I guess,

in her vulgar language method.

HE LAUGHS

If she had other words at her disposal, she would have used them.

The only words she could speak were those in the song.

This beautiful soul she had that she could only do

by expressing herself singing.

And now a little tune written especially for me, Strange Fruit.

# Southern trees

# Bear a strange fruit

# Blood on the leaves

# And blood at the root

# Black bodies swingin'

# In the Southern breeze

# Strange fruit hangin'

# From the poplar trees... #

About '39, she actually was a Columbia artist

and they gave me permission to record Strange Fruit,

which they didn't want to record.

Why not?

Because of the social content of it, I guess,

and how unusual it was to do a protest song.

That was the thing that made all the publicity and noise.

# Pastoral scene

# Of the gallant South

# The bulgin' eyes

# And the twisted mouth... #

It was actually a shocking piece of material.

She would come close to breaking up when she was singing Strange Fruit.

You hear the crack in the voice.

Yeah, also in the eyes, and almost a reflection of what she had

to do in her lifetime in order to make it.

The fact that negroes did not have equal chances,

this is something that she felt very deeply

and about the only way she could really crusade

or bring these thoughts to air would be to sing songs like that.

# Scent of magnolia

# Sweet and fresh

# Then the sudden smell

# Of burnin' flesh

# Here is a fruit

# For the crows to pluck

# For the rain to gather

# For the wind to suck

# For the sun to rot

# For the tree

# To

# Drop

# Here is a strange

# And bitter

# Crop. #

Do you remember the first time she sang that song at Cafe Society?

Sure, it's unforgettable.

Every time she sang it was unforgettable.

Soon after the Time Magazine appeared and the caption read,

"Most unusual song ever to be heard in the nightclub."

When she sang Strange Fruit, she never moved.

Billie stood there.

All service stopped at the bar everywhere.

And do you remember any time

when anybody might have caused any problems? Oh, yes.

I had people walk out.

These were white people? White people.

One party after another.

"We come to your nightclub to be entertained,

"we don't call this entertainment."

Strange Fruit. "What is that, man?"

And she was fighting equality before Martin Luther King.

How? Well, in the songs she chose to sing, exposing discrimination.

Putting it on stage.

They used to have riots when she'd sing that in New York

and that might be why the cops were against her, too.

Not just junk.

The Treasury Department intends to pursue a relentless warfare

against the despicable dope peddling vultures and public enemies,

and we hope to place the drug addicts arrested

under institutional care.

But not everyone stood to applaud her primal howl

against the bloody history of white America.

And her refusal to stop singing it would give vindication

to those powerful men already circling the decadent world of jazz

in search of a high-profile target to burnish their reputation.

And now that Billie's star shone so brightly...

I need to get myself ready for this.

I'll have a couple of bits because if I'm going to talk about her,

I want to feel good. She was something else.

Really something.

When did you first meet her?

I met her in 1942.

I was just a kid, I was only like 20 years old.

She used to call me in there to add chords to this tune.

Where was this, in her dressing room?

Yeah, and she'd stand there with nothing but a pair of shoes on.

That was it.

No clothes.

# My man don't love me

# He treats me oh so mean

# My man, he don't love me

# He treats me awful mean

# He's the lowest man

# That I've ever seen... #

Her boy was Lester Young.

She was always happy when she knew Pres was playing for her.

The way he played behind her,

she was just like she was in her mother's arms.

I like Lester's feeling, you know.

But when he first started,

everyone felt his tone is too thin.

I told him it doesn't matter

because you watch, after a while,

everybody's going to be clapping you.

# He wears high-draped pants

# Stripes are really yellow... #

They had the funniest way of loving each other.

It was brother and sister but it was another thing.

Anybody that ever knew him

would tell you he's one of the strangest people on earth.

He was like a visitor, really,

and she was, too, so you figure the two of them together is pretty wild.

That was the way it was all the time.

But everybody loves a wild woman.

THEY LAUGH

# But you're so mean to me, baby

# I know you're gonna drive me away... #

Sang from her crotch.

You bet she had the greatest crotch in life.

Now that I look back, I'm sorry I missed it!

HE LAUGHS

How do you envision her sex life?

It had an awful lot to do with the way she was with everything

she did, so, you look at Lady Day, you've got to include her sex life

or you don't look at her.

# Sometimes when you think it's on, baby

# It has turned off and gone. #

Even from the beginning, she'd choose me,

because I had admired her so long.

She came down one night between shows and she said,

"Pick me up tonight."

And as I was walking in the door

she was walking out the door with a chick.

But the next night she collected me.

She would go off with a chick or something like that,

she planned to make them perform like a three-ring circus.

After that, she'd probably go out and get a prostitute.

She was a sex machine.

HE LAUGHS

I know a couple of good friends of yours who are not musicians.

Orson Welles, Tallulah Bankhead.

Miss Bankhead, I love her.

She had a lot of affairs with girls at that time.

Tallulah was her girl.

Everybody was talking about it.

I was like the relief drummer.

She's like, "I'm going to do four tunes tonight. Start your heart."

She'd excite you with just three notes.

The bar used to be packed with hero worshippers.

She looked like a panther, is the only way I could describe her,

with the most unbelievable face in the world.

She really dug being high, that's the one thing I've got to say,

but I never knew anyone with such a capacity.

All the doormen along 52nd Street

positively knew.

Like what? Like pot.

When we first started going together,

there was nothing but weed involved.

All of a sudden, she started fixing.

Whiskey didn't make her high.

She was using heroin and cocaine at the same time.

And she had a 10lbs candy box, full of pills.

She'd grab a fistful of them.

And she'd just eat and drink Scotch behind that.

And she would consume more stimulants than any ten men

and still perform.

She was an extremist.

Why?

Why all those extremes? Why?

She just wanted to get high.

That's as simple as that.

And why shouldn't she?

I'm Jimmy Fletcher,

one of the top narcotics agents in the country.

Billie Holiday, she was kept under observation for years.

She had been raided by police dozens of times

and they'd never found anything.

One day, I was called in for a confidential conversation

with the supervisor and he said, "I just got a call from Anslinger."

He said that Billie Holiday's agent, Joe Glaser,

wants a coloured agent to work with him

on getting a case on Billie Holiday.

You mean Joe Glaser wanted Billie busted?

Yes, for her own good.

He confided in me he'd like to save her,

and the only way to save her

is to have her knocked out by the government.

Why couldn't you bust Billie then, when Glaser wanted her busted?

Well, because she never sold anything, never handled it.

So, what happened? You were following her movement?

That's right, keeping her under observation, night and day.

And would you say Billie was extremely smart

in protecting herself?

Well, she was. The information came that Joe Guy,

during that period when she was going with him,

he bought an ounce every day.

Wasn't Joe Guy a musician? Oh, yes, he played the trumpet.

Every day, Joe Guy walked up 8th Avenue, picked up an ounce,

put it under the collar of Billie Holiday's boxer dog.

He'd walk with the dog from way down on Morningside Drive

up to Braddock Hotel.

He lets that dog go and the dog goes all around

to the elevator operator and he'd guide the dog to the top floor.

The elevator operator was in collusion, $2.

He always got it for looking out for her.

She sailed along without being caught

until that shoot-out in Philly.

Until that shoot-out in Philly in '47, you mean? Yes. What happened?

In Philadelphia, they found 2oz of heroin in the car

but they couldn't get any warrants to make a clean arrest

before Billie got in the car.

The chauffeur, he got a tip-off,

he got away, then Billie Holiday's Cadillac was shot up by police.

A lot of bullet holes in it.

She got away and she was headed for the Grampian Hotel.

Washington had wired the New York office

and told them to put somebody on Billie Holiday's tail.

And I'm not supposed to make any attempt at arresting Billie.

I'm supposed to tail her.

And she was in the hotel?

When I arrived, the only way I knew it was the Cadillac

was when I went around, and saw that there were bullet holes.

And, then, the next day, the arrests were made.

Let me ask you this.

Given the fact that she was so famous, would she have been a target

because there would have been a lot of publicity for an agent?

Well, not just for an agent. For the Bureau of Narcotics.

So, then, in that sense, somebody could make a reputation?

That's right.

Here at Alderson, the system was that

when a person came in who was on drugs at the time, that they were

sent to the hospital and remained

there until they were drug-free.

ALARM BELL RINGS, DOG BARKS

This prison was segregated as to race.

She really went into the woodwork here.

She had made up her mind that she was just going to do her time

and get out as fast as she could.

This was the room she occupied.

She certainly was no trouble ever.

She was a generous person, I'd say, in thought, anyway,

and she never bothered anybody.

It's almost impossible to say how quiet she was.

To my knowledge, she never sang a note.

WIND CHIMES PLAY

It took Linda a long time to work on the book.

Eight years of her life, and she had some bad times.

We would get calls in the middle of the night.

I just don't feel like doing it.

All this should have been done about this woman before she died,

not after she's dead and everybody's just going through

all kinds of shit about it now.

Because I've had it up to here with that shit.

As the time went on,

she kept pushing her own set deadline further and further.

At one point, I remember we had a discussion and I said,

"You know, maybe it's just time

"to finish it and to leave it imperfect."

But she couldn't. It was so much part of her.

The reason that Linda struggled so much was that inside her own

head, she heard the voice that she wanted Billie to have,

but she couldn't get that correct voice on paper.

# Just one more chance... #

Haven't you got a fine piano man of your own

that you bring in there? Yes, he goes everywhere with me.

His name is Bobby Tucker.

Bobby's been with me for years and he is a very great musician.

After she came out of jail, she was so glad to get back

and she was so amazed that people hadn't forgotten her.

# Still I'm hoping... #

We did Carnegie Concert Hall.

I remember opening night.

There was a line around the block and the people were standing out

there and really waiting to see what a woman prisoner looked like.

MALE INTERVIEWER What happened in Carnegie Hall? Were you frightened?

I was scared to death.

I waited until the last minute and I said I wasn't going to go on.

There was too many people.

And I couldn't control my knees.

Well, you could see my knees is going and people didn't know

whether I was going to dance or sing!

THEY LAUGH

# Still I'm hoping... #

She would walk out, and, before she opens her mouth,

she had everybody in their place.

# I said that I... #

She didn't really think that she was a good singer.

She could tell a story.

She had no confidence in her voice? No. None at all?

Actresses, actors, I look at them like, "Ooh!"

And you don't consider yourself in the same league? No! Why not?

You've thought as much about it. You have developed a style,

a technique just as much as they have done.

You please just as many people,

so, why are you not just as much an artiste as any one of them?

Well, maybe I am in my little way, but, my God, they make me cry,

they make me happy.

I don't know if I've ever done that to people, really.

Oh, I think you do, I think you do.

There was a difference between what Ella did and Billie.

Ella says, "My man's gone,"

you'd think the guy went down the street for a loaf of bread.

But when Lady says, "My man's gone," man, you can see that cat going down

the street, he's got his bags packed and he ain't never coming back.

She taught me that if you almost laugh out loud

but never quite make it, the audience will laugh.

If you almost cry but never quite make it, the audience will cry.

Would she cry?

She would cry about a lot of things,

but never when she thought anybody was watching her.

# Cried my heart out... #

Nobody can sing like Lady. Not ever.

We worked at Club Ebony together.

That's when John Levy came into the spotlight.

But Billie did not care about such legal considerations anyway.

She did not relate to legal codes.

# It cost me a lot

# But there's one thing

# That I've got

# It's my man... #

John Levy. The bastard,

the dirty, rotten, stinking bastard.

There is nothing good you could say about that man? Not one thing.

Sweetheart, I try and say something good about, you know...

There's no reason to say anything good about him?

There is no reason to say anything good about him.

# All of this I'll soon forget

# With my man... #

John Levy's a pimp.

Parasite. I wouldn't want to brush up with him if I had overalls on.

# He's no hero... #

See, these kind of guys with the Cadillac or whatever,

they represent something to Lady.

They represented what she came up from. Yeah.

# Yes, I love him

# Two or three girls says he

# That he likes as well as me

# But I love him... #

I usually spit after John Levy.

If she asked him for $50, he'd knock her down.

How would he knock her down? With his fist. His fist in her face?

You darn right.

In the stomach. Anywhere.

# He beats me, too

# What can I do?

If she was hooked, she was hooked, and I mean on man, chick,

dope, whatever it was.

She was hooked.

# But I don't care

# When he takes me in his arms

# The world is bright

# All right... #

She's up there singing My Man. She's a masochist, is what she was. Yes.

All she wanted is a guy to just tell her he loved her, you know,

but not all the time, because she digs punishment.

So, when he does say it, it's got to mean something real wild,

like in the middle of something crazy.

# I'm his

# Forever

# More. #

APPLAUSE

Probably late '49, I was playing trombone.

It was like my first time on the road.

Were you the only two women on the tour?

Yes.

She was with John Levy at that time. Mm-hm.

They didn't get along too well. They had fights, you mean?

Yeah, they had a couple of good ones, yeah.

One started on the bus.

Like, I as I say, I climbed, I tried to get under a seat.

The other one was in the hotel.

She hit him over the head with a Coke bottle or something

and kind of laid his head open.

And they both went to the hospital.

Billie Holiday's man at that time,

Johnny Levy, had been an informant since 1934.

He wanted to get rid of Billie Holiday.

Why did he want to get rid of her?

He said, "Goddamn it, I sometimes feel like killing her."

He couldn't control her. He couldn't control her.

So, he had had this fella to call me,

"Tell Agent Fletcher that Johnny Levy and Billie Holiday

"are smoking pot in the hotel."

Was this before they were arrested in San Francisco?

Yes. Much before?

I'd say two weeks before she went out there.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have bothered about Billie Holiday.

Why not?

She was not a trafficker, she was an addict.

I knew that she'd been arrested before.

Every time she'd been arrested, she generally dodged the questions.

And Billie was fond of her way of living,

with her fancy coats,

and fancy automobiles,

and the jewellery, and the diamonds,

and she was the big lady.

One Saturday morning, I found out that she was living in the hotel,

and that's why I took in a couple of policemen with me.

To help kick in the door.

And we both reached the bathroom at about the same time.

She'd more or less tried to throw the stuff into the open toilet.

We arrested them both.

We charged them with the possession of opium.

Do you think Billie was a victim of the federal agents?

You victimise yourself by becoming a junkie.

Was she a victim?

She was victimised by Johnny Levy.

Later on, she had sense enough to leave him.

Billie was indicted.

As soon as she was arrested,

I immediately put her in Twin Pines,

kept her under full psychiatric controls for five days,

and proved that she was not addicted to an opiate.

You made observations. You have to, especially if you're psychotic.

But what's the matter with the way she is?

What drove her to a series of John Levys and heroin?

I don't like to use this word,

and it's not a good word, but...

..she's really a psychopath.

A psychopath.

An impulse-driven,

strong, talented,

but not dependable individual...

..who does this because this is what she has impulse to do right now

and she gets into all sorts of trouble.

A psychopath.

Key to this thing is the impulse.

Was there any perversity in this?

When I said perversity, I meant a demon.

You know, there's a demon sometimes eating away

that kind of forces you to do something

that's going to elicit some kind of shock.

And this is something I can identify with.

As Linda went on, the identification became much more intense.

Like Billie, she was attracted to men who were not

bringing out, necessarily, the best in her.

She was married twice and she was divorced twice.

While she was writing the book,

Linda became close with some of the people she interviewed.

One time, we were in our apartment,

the phone rang and a man's voice said, "Can I speak to Linda?"

Of course I asked, "Who's calling?"

And he said, "Well, it's Bill."

Linda said, "You know who Bill is?" I said, "No."

And she says, "Well, you do. It's Count Basie."

Ask me a question about Bill.

Me ask you a question about him? Yes.

THEY LAUGH

Why don't you call me William?

Because you asked me to call you Bill.

I didn't ask you, I mean... You commanded me.

Well, all I'd say, I mean, my close friends call me Bill.

You want to work with me and write my book?

Bill, if I worked with you to write your book,

we'd have such terrible fights. That's right.

I don't know, I don't think so. I don't know, because, you know...

I'm not really actually hard to get along with.

I don't really feel you are.

No, but you're a pretty smart cookie.

I'm not sure what Linda's relationship

with Basie actually was.

It's an impression that there was a closeness based on

what she had said to me.

I understand that one of the reasons for your present happiness

is your husband Louis.

How does he react to some of your more suggestive lyrics?

Oh, no, he tells me how to sing

and what to sing, and, oh,

it's just getting terrible. SHE LAUGHS

But your husband's right here in the dressing room with us,

Mr Louis McKay.

Mr McKay, tell us something about how you two work together.

Well, we have something like a private agreement.

I handle all the business, she handles all the music.

Because she tells me, sometimes, "You stay out of my music."

And does she stay out of the business? She does.

Then you get along fine.

What else are you doing besides the records

and touring around the spots? Well, to be honest,

my dream is supposed to come true, I'm going to Europe.

Oh, you've never been there? No.

Oh, well. I've always wanted to go.

This is a vacation trip to Europe, or...? No, honey. No vacations.

All work.

# Are the stars out tonight?

# I don't know if it's cloudy or bright

# For I only have eyes for you, dear

# The moon may be high

# Millions of people go by

# But I only have eyes for you

# I don't know if we're in a garden

# Or on a crowded avenue

# You are here, so am I

# Millions of people go by

# But they all disappear from view

# And I only have eyes for you... #

What is it that you're after out of life yourself, Billie, now?

Right now? Yeah.

I want a beautiful home

and I want kids.

That's what I want.

She'd always wanted some, they never ever had any.

I just had two girls there.

She used to love to paint their fingernails,

and she would sing to them, and she would take them shopping.

# You are here, so am I

# Millions of people go by

# But they all disappear from view... #

It was her dream to retire someday

with enough money to buy a big spread

and have a home for children who had no mother and father.

# And I only have eyes

# Big, bulging eyes

# Great big eyes for you. #

But he was just using her to get control of her money.

APPLAUSE

I was with her doing the return to New York.

This was a tremendously big concert.

I'm sure you've been told all the people that were on it.

Duke Ellington's Orchestra, Sarah Vaughan,

Bird, Chris,

Count Basie.

But it seems like everybody there had come to see one person.

And I'd like you to know America's number one song starlet,

Miss Billie Holiday.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

She closed the show.

And she sang encore after encore after en...

If we stayed on that stage an hour, we stayed on an hour and 30 minutes.

Well, after the concert was the fight.

Louis began to loudmouth

and that started a big rumble,

which then we all ended up out in the street.

And he literally knocked her across the street.

But she loved that punishment.

This is the nature of a masochist.

After he had just beaten her severely and kicked her,

they said after they have gotten the punishment, then they have been

so completely gratified, then they can just enter into a sexual tryst.

But Louis had a technique going of trying to control her mind.

It was like hypnotism.

"You can't depend on anyone but me, you have no friends but me,

"you must stay in here and keep yourself away from everyone but me."

There were days when he just kept her under lock and key.

He'd boss her around and tell her

she couldn't do this, she couldn't do that.

And she wanted something to eat, and he said, "Go on to bed.

"You don't need anything to eat."

And she'd lost so much weight.

She looked like a skeleton.

If you were to talk to Louis,

he would probably tell you an entirely different story.

He's a pathological liar.

He would probably ask for money.

There was a time he came up to the apartment after

he hit her on the head.

You said he hit her on the head with a telephone?

Yeah, yeah. "I locked her in my bathroom."

He came in and he said, "I've got a gun here."

I don't want to put this on tape.

TAPE REWINDS

You see, I can't write, whether you're telling me something

about Louis or not. I can't say it, write it,

because I'm liable and he's alive and he's tough.

I'm in trouble, not you.

In the process of interviewing for the book...

..Linda had been threatened...

..by people within the world that she was travelling.

I don't know why she was threatened.

She was a journalist, she was interviewing.

But I think the threat was personally motivated.

At times, she said there was discomfort with how

she was spoken to in terms of having a relationship with Basie.

I don't know whether it was because of the age,

I just know that she had been threatened...

..not by Basie but by some of the people surrounding him.

OK, uh, I guess we're at an end, Bill. Do you know something?

This is the end of our interview.

# I'll never smile again

# Until I smile at you

# I'll never laugh again

# What good would it do?... #

I got a call from a producer, who asked me

if I could do an album with Billie Holiday.

Of course, I was fantastically elated!

I was in love with Billie,

not necessarily Billie but somebody. That voice, it turned me on.

But when I met her, she was repulsive.

She looked a little scaly, a little dirty.

With Billie, her heart was just broken.

# I'll never love again... #

She was late, and she had a stool and she had the vodka.

And her legs were swollen right down to her ankles.

She was in pretty bad shape.

Everybody in the band wanted to cry.

We knew this couldn't go on. It was too long.

Not because she was old but because she had dissipated.

Photography being my hobby, I had a camera strung on my shoulders.

I've got a little picture.

She's sitting there with that glass of vodka.

It's the shadow of death.

The shadow of death? The shadow of death.

Of all the songs you've written, Billie Holiday,

which one most clearly tells your story?

Oh, I think Don't Explain. Did you write the words and the music? Yes.

Both of them? I had to help with it.

Close your eyes and speak the words, like a poet.

Um, "Hush now, don't explain.

"I know you raised Cain.

"I'm glad that you're back. Don't explain.

"Quiet. Don't explain.

"You mixed with some dame. Skip that lipstick. Don't explain."

# You know that I love you

# And what love endures

# All my thoughts are of you

# Boy, I'm so completely yours... #

She would call me up, maybe 3:00, 3:30, 4 o'clock

in the morning, and it seemed like she was almost hallucinating.

And she would say, "Oh, I'm so scared. I'm here all by myself."

Like, she would talk to me for hours and tell me

about how she got started in prostitution...

..she was 13 years old -

and at time that she had her own girls on the street.

She was terribly worried

about whether or not God would forgive her.

# My life's...

# ..yours, love

# Don't explain. #

Everybody wanted something out of her.

But, then again, this was a woman

who was only happy when she was unhappy. Does that sound strange?

She lived in constant fear that she would be set up.

How much of it was paranoia?

There was a good deal of paranoia.

But you do understand why, how she got arrested and made headlines.

As far as I'm concerned, her use of narcotics was

just another way of self-punishment.

She told me that when she was a little girl down in her hometown,

she was raped.

Who raped her?

She didn't tell me.

There were tears in her eyes.

She was always a vulnerable child to me.

I don't think she was ever really in love in her life.

No-one ever knew what it was.

She just suffered.

She said, "Everything you told me has come true.

"He has just robbed me of every dime. I have no money.

"I don't have any health."

And she says, "Now he has a white girl that he's going with.

"But, you know, I have finally done it.

"I have filed for divorce, and at last I have put him down."

The irony of the situation was that before she could sign those

papers in the hospital,

she died.

And then that left all of her estate to go to him.

She went to hospital on the Sunday.

She knew she was dying.

That damn hospital.

They had her under arrest.

This woman laying in bed!

But she did tell me one time that, if they ever arrested her again,

that she couldn't go through that experience and she'd rather be dead.

Heaven help the United States of America.

No innovator was like her. Nobody!

All she wanted to do was sing.

She never bothered nobody.

Billie had her Cadillac and her mink. So what?

What's wrong with that? Wasn't she entitled to have a Cadillac?

Wasn't she entitled to have a mink?

Wasn't she entitled to have diamonds?

"Oh, you ain't supposed to have that. You're a negro!

"Stay in your place." You know?

"All y'all need to do is get some black-eyed peas and rice.

"That's all y'all need."

I'm talking about what we went through.

No vocalist had ever went through what she went through.

Greatest country in the world - the most stupid,

the most prejudiced race...

..even as of today.

I'm leaving, quick as I can.

I will not be a part of this farce.

July the 17th. That's when she died.

I closed up Miss Billie Holiday's casket...

..and put the flowers on it.

The question, Billie, that I was going to ask was why

so many jazz greats seem to die so early?

The only way I can answer that question is...

..we try to live 100 days in one day.

I myself have tried to please so many people.

I guess we all suffer.

It was in the middle of the blizzard of 1978.

Linda was going to Washington, DC, for a Basie concert.

And we received a phone call from my mother.

She said, "You have to come home. Linda just died."

The police told my parents that she had committed suicide

and jumped out of the window, and...

..we were just devastated.

And also...

..you know, unsure that that was how she died.

To our knowledge, there was no note.

She was a writer, and there never was a letter.

At the time, the Washington, DC, police did not have a great

reputation for integrity, and we really questioned how much

they had actually investigated Linda's death.

My thought is that...

..somebody had pushed her.

I have absolutely no evidence of it...

..only what I know of Linda and the surrounding situations.

When Linda died, it appeared that she had been getting ready to

go to sleep, because one of her rituals was to put on a face mask.

When she was found, she had the face mask on.

# I love you, Porgy

# Don't let him take me

# Don't let him handle me

# And drive me mad

# If you can keep me

# I want to stay here

# With you forever

# I've got my man... #

I just thank the Lord that I did know this girl

when things were different.

# I know he's coming... #

And I would pray that she come back.

# He's going to handle me and... #

Wouldn't that be nice? Just one day?

# Hold me so... #

But you had to get the ticket to get there.

# It's going to be

# Like dying... #

I can't cry about Billie now.

I don't even cry about her when I listen to her.

She makes me smile, even sadly.

# But when he comes... #

And it's just too bad that it took

all this time for all of this shit to come up.

# I'll have to go

# I love you, Porgy

# Don't let him take me

# Don't let him handle me

# And drive me mad

# If you can keep me

# I've got to stay here

# With you forever

# I've got my...

# ..man. #

APPLAUSE