Ah… yes… Billie Holiday. I vividly recall a somewhat subdued tone in the building before this session commenced. I remember the room went quiet at one point and someone informed me that Billie Holiday was arriving. I thought “Well he sounds like a jolly chap”. We had a groundskeeper named Billy and he was always whistling or singing as he gambolled around the estate and I recall he was even joking soon after father shot him accidentally believing he was a pheasant. And of course, holiday is what we English call a vacation so it all sounded very appealing. But then she arrived and she wasn’t jolly and she wasn’t a man and she was… a bit unwell …poor thing.
She died not all that long afterwards.
Yes, she only had a few more years left in her and everyone seemed only too aware*. She didn’t look at all well and rarely seemed totally with us in the studio. She often seemed like she was in another place.
It shows in the music.
Yes, I believe it does. Of course, I didn’t have any point of comparison because I wasn’t familiar with her work prior to that day, I thought she was a man which gives you some indication of how ignorant I was. But even I could detect a genuine sense of melancholy; a tangible sadness that we all felt. I recall she finished one take and as the final notes died away she kept her gaze firmly on the floor. I stopped and noticed, partly because it was such an arresting sight but partly because I was worried she was perturbed by a stain in the carpet that I had somehow neglected to notice. And then she looked up and noticed me and our eyes met and she gave me a smile that I have to say was the most unutterably poignant thing I’ve ever seen. There was a lifetime of pain in that smile and something that said she knew the pain was coming to an end. I smiled back and even tried to give her a cheery wave to indicate that it was fine really and I’m sure it would turn out for the best in the end… but she was gone. Her eyes clouded over and she was in another place again.
Sad.
Very sad. Can we move on? … I find this particular moment in my career quite painful to recall.
* Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver not long after this album was released. She was an alcoholic with a heroin addiction and extremely bad choice in men. In what can only be described as an appalling lapse in human decency, she was actually arrested for narcotics offences while in her hospital bed. She lay dying in handcuffs under police guard being treated like a dangerous felon in the final moments of her life.
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