Lady Sings The Blues – Billie Holiday with William Duffy

"Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three."

From this famous, brilliant and untrue opening line, the story of my favourite female singer begins as it goes on. That is to say that I really enjoyed the book but that I didn’t quite trust the authorial voice (Holiday dictating, Duffy transcribing and organising). Even if the tales here are only half-true, though, then she deserves our admiration for surviving unbelievable hardships, yet alone emerging with her dignity and leaving us those beautiful, other-worldly recordings.

p.s. From Wikipedia: “The Black-Eyed Peas recorded a tribute to Billie Holiday for a Coca-Cola commercial” – How much wronger could you get? The answer is none. None more wrong.