Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [22]
She didn’t want to listen, but she had to.
I tried to tell her they hadn’t done me any harm. It was just shock she got from finding it out this way that had made her angry. But she had been taken in by the stuff she’d read and heard about what marijuana does to you. She’d believe that before she’d believe her own eyes. She thought I was headed for trouble and that it was my fault because I was weak.
The first time Pop heard me sing as the main attraction in a Harlem joint it turned into a big scene too. Mom was there that night, sitting at another table. She never drank a drop, but this night she broke her rule. I guess she always resented people jumping to the conclusion that my musical talent all came from the Holiday side of the family.
Duke Ellington had just written “Solitude” along about then, and after three drinks Mom stood up in this joint on 139th Street, said something about Billie not being the only star in the family, and then started singing “Solitude” in her tinny, high, baby voice. She sounded like Butterfly McQueen singing out of her register, but she stuck it out for one whole chorus until the whole joint was listening—even Pop.
Pop had been sitting across the room with his new wife, Fanny, but after Mom did this number he came over and sat down with Mom. Mom smiled at him like he was the only man in the world. And Pop was very nice.
“Eleanora’s going to be a big star in show business, isn’t she?” said Pop to Mom.
Mom beamed with pride and love all mixed up together. “She’s a big star already,” she said.
Those smiles bouncing back and forth between them must have bugged Fanny Holiday no end. She flipped and came bustling across the room and hit Mom over the head with her pocketbook. When Fanny landed her first blow on Mom, I got into it and started whaling away at Fanny. Pop tried to untangle us, but we were too much for him. Big Sid Catlett, the big-time drummer, was there and tried to get us apart. But we were too much for him. He came over, told us the police were on the way, and then threw me and Mom into a cab and sent us home.
In those days everything that happened, happened at a jam session somewhere. I’ll never forget the night Benny Goodman brought a skinny young cat uptown with him by the name of Harry James. It was one of the nights almost everybody was on deck—Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, Lester Young, Benny Webster.
James was pretty hostile at first, as I remember him. He came from Texas, where Negroes are looked on like they’re dirt. It showed. We had to break him out of that—and also of the idea that he was the world’s greatest trumpet player. Buck Clayton, whom I thought was the prettiest man I’d ever seen, was a big help. He blew him out with his horn. Of all the cats around, Buck played a style that was sweeter than the others and closer to the thing Harry James was trying to do. It only took a few earfuls of Buck Clayton’s playing, and Harry wasn’t so uppity. He’d had his lesson, and after that he came up to jam and loved it.
It was at one of these sessions I first met Lester Young. From then on Lester knew how I used to love to have him come around and blow pretty solos behind me. So whenever he could, he’d come by the joints where I was singing, to hear me or sit in. I’ll never forget the night Lester took on Chu Berry, who was considered the greatest in those days. Cab Calloway’s was the biggest band and Chu Berry’s was one of its big sounds.
Well, this night Benny Carter was jamming for a session with Bobby Henderson, my accompanist. And then there was Lester with his little old saxophone held together with adhesive tape and rubber bands. Chu was sitting there and everybody started arguing as to who could blow out whom, trying to promote a competition between Lester and Chu.
Benny Carter knew Lester could shine in this sort of duel, but for everybody else the end of the story was considered a pushover: Chu was supposed to blow Lester right out of the