Music can express great emotion and even influence those who listen to it. Billie Holiday knew how to capture emotion in her songs with her mesmerizing voice. Though she struggled throughout most of her life, Holiday immersed herself with her passion for music, producing songs that would ultimately morph the discipline of jazz. Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, struggled alongside her mother Sadie during her childhood (“Billie”). Holiday’s single mother could not financially support her, leaving Holiday to live with her abusive cousin Ida. According to Holiday, when [Ida] was upset, she’d beat me something awful. Not with a strap, not with a spank on the ass, but with her fists or a whip. (Holiday 5) Consequently, Holiday began to skip school, leaving her mother to send her to the House of Good Shepherd for Colored Girls, a Catholic institution for problematic African-American girls (Horsley). Unfortunately, after being released a few months later, by age eleven, Holiday returned to the institution after being sexually assaulted by her neighbor as punishment “for having enticed this old goat” (Holiday 16). …show more content…
After moving to Harlem, New York, to live with her mother, Holiday sang in the local nightclubs for extra money and adopted the nickname “Billie Holiday” with the first name “Billie” deriving from Billie Dove, her favorite actress, and the surname “Holiday” from her father’s own surname (Horsley). As Holiday continued to perform in these nightclubs, producer John Hammond discovered her amazing talents (“Billie”). Since, according to