Billie Holiday's Influences In Music

242 Words1 Pages
Billie Holiday’s biggest influences in music were Bessie Smith and Louis “Pops” Armstrong; she admired the power that Smith had to interpret a song, and Armstrong’s music style. “Lady Day” became famous in 1939 when she recorded “Strange Fruit”, which is song that protests against the lynching of African Americans in the United States (The Biography.com website). A year later, in 1940 she recorded a new version of “All of Me”. This song which was written in 1931 by Seymour Simons and Gerald Marks, is one of the most popular songs from the 1930s. When we listen to Holiday’s version of the song, we are able to hear her ability to tell her own story through the lyrics of the song. Billie Holiday’s interpretation of the song demonstrates how