Black History As We Know It
To many Black history month is a time period that we show respect and honor to the African Americans who have change the world by not only using their voice but their actions as well. When people think of black history, they think of well-known heroes such as Martin Luther King JR, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X and many more. I am going to take you on a journey back to the past to introduce you to the Africans American that contributed the change in the way that blacks were treated, spoken to, approached and their ability to learn also progress in life.
Billie Holliday is known as the greatest woman to ever sing the Blues. With her amazing talent and strong vocals, Ms. Holliday quickly went straight to the top but it was not always look that. Billie Holliday (Eleanora Fagan) was in Philadelphia then moved with her mother to a poor area in Baltimore. At the age of 11 Eleanora reported that she had was rapped. The claim combined with her frequent truancy she had been sent to The House of the Good Shepherd. Thanks to a family friend, Eleanora was released after 2 years and moved to New York with her mother. Times after those years were hard she encountered prostitution, living paycheck to pay check working in clubs. Talent scout John Hammond discovered Billie in a local nightclub. Make her recording debut on a 1933 Benny Goodman date, and Goodman was also on hand in, when she continued her recording career with a group led by pianist Teddy Wilson. Their first collaboration included "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown To You", which helped to establish Billie Holiday as a major vocalist. She began recording under her own name a year later, producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the Swing Era's finest musicians.
Among the musicians who accompanied her frequently was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom she had a...
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