Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [87]
When I finished that show, I couldn’t wait to get out of town. I couldn’t stand the sight of that hotel room one more night. I had to sleep and I couldn’t sleep there.
We took a taxi to the station. Luck was still with us. There’d been a big train wreck near Washington, and there’d be no trains before morning. The station was deserted. There was hardly anybody there but the fuzz. They looked as tired of watching me as I was of them.
Louis tried to negotiate a connection on a bus.
The best we could do was a couple of single seats on a crowded bus. It took me back twenty years, to be heading back to New York the way I had so many times before: busted, out on bail, broke from paying the bondsman, hungry from having no time to eat, beat from twenty-four hours without sleep, remembering the smell of that jail as I rattled around in a damn bus with a sleeping sailor falling all over me. But all that I soon forgot, with my man.
This time, the doctors have told me, with any kind of luck, I should be able to stay straight for two whole years. Who can ask for anything more? I’ve got enough of that Fagan Irish in me to believe that if the curtains are washed, company never comes. If you expect nothing but trouble, maybe a few happy days will turn up. If you expect happy days, look out.
But no doctor can tell you anything your own bones don’t know. And I can let the doctors in on something. I knew I’d really licked it one morning when I couldn’t stand television any more. When I was high and wanted to stay that way, I could watch TV by the hour and loved it. Who can tell what detours are ahead? Another trial? Sure. Another jail? Maybe. But if you’ve beat the habit again and kicked TV, no jail on earth can worry you too much.
Tired? You bet. But all that I’ll soon forget with my man.…
A FAN-FRIENDLY DISCOGRAPHY
By David Ritz
Good news: Now more than at any time in history, a wealth of Billie Holiday music is available in mainstream record stores. The major labels that recorded her have assiduously and lovingly remastered and repackaged her work in editions ranging from the economical to the lavish.
It’s hard to go wrong. Pick out any Billie Holiday CD and, chances are, you’ll be thrilled. As someone who has listened to Billie for over fifty years, I’m still debating which period of Holiday’s twenty-six-year record career I love most. She was brilliant when she started out in the thirties, brilliant when she matured in the forties, brilliant when her soul and sensitivity deepened in the fifties.
These, then, are personal choices offered from one fan to another. Exhaustive scholarly listings with scrupulous annotations can be found elsewhere. I find them useful, but this guide is written for the casual listener who, after reading this book, is looking for a little consumer advice. Everything mentioned is easily available in stores or online.
If you asked, “If I were to buy one Billie CD, which would you recommend?,” I’d answer Lady in Satin, her penultimate album, recorded in 1958, the year before her death. This may be an idiosyncratic choice. Some critics find Lady in Satin depressing. Some say her voice is shot. For me, though, this is the album. Carmen McRae, one of Lady’s disciples, called it “a miracle.” “She saw death coming,” McRae told me, “and that knowledge gave her strength and wisdom she never had before. Besides, she had never sung these particular songs. They were new for Billie, and they revived her spirit.” Every time I hear this miraculous suite of songs, my spirit is revived. There is nothing else in her catalog that possesses such haunting beauty and depth of feeling. The presence of lush strings adds to the ethereal, otherworldly quality. “She had been denied strings so long,” said McRae, “that their presence gave her fresh inspiration.”
If, instead, you asked, “Which single compilation gives the best overview of Billie’s career?,” I’d say Billie Holiday Gold, a well-priced two-CD set from