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Becoming Billie Holiday

A fictional verse memoir

by Carole Weatherford, Art by Floyd Cooper

Buy the book

Reading &  Discussion Guide

Lady Day’s Literary Salon

Read the book and then indulge your inner Billie Holiday with a celebration worthy of Lady Day. As Holiday’s jazz plays in the background, guests with flowers in their hair read passages from the book, pose for “Sophisticated Lady” photos, and pass the mic for Billie-oke. Add music videos and live jazz to the mix for unforgettable fun. Here’s how to plan your event.

Favorite Billie Holiday Songs

(Carole's list)

Getting Some Fun Out of Life

Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine

Summertime

Love Me or Leave Me

God Bless the Child

Autumn in New York

Moonlight in Vermont

Ain’t Nobody’s Business

I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

Spreadin' the Rhythm Around

Strange Fruit

10 things about Billie

• She loved dogs. She owned boxers and chihuahuas and crocheted a sweater for one pooch. She took her dog with her to clubs, restaurants and church. 

• She read pulp fiction magazines and love comics.

• She competed in the amateur contest at Baltimore’s Harlem Theatre.

• She helped her mother in soul-food restaurants that she ran out of their homes.

• She shoplifted as a girl.

• She was a tomboy and fought boys who teased her.

• She was afraid of bugs and dead people.

• She was baptized in the first African-American Catholic church in the United States (St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Baltimore).

• She dropped out of school in fifth grade.

• She was the first African-American vocalist to tour with an all-white big band.

Bille's bio

Billie Video Footage

Strange Fruit

The Blues Are Brewin’

My Man

Fine and Mellow

What a Little Moonlight Can Do

Please Don’t Talk About Me

God Bless the Child

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

Duke Ellington’s Symphony in Black

Buy Billie's music

Photo credits: Billie Holiday, 1947

Library of Congress, Carl Van Vechten Collection