Billie+Holiday+(3)

**//__Billie Holiday__//** Born Eleanora Fagan, also known as Billie Holiday born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the most influential singer of her time. She had a thriving career for many years. Until her battles with substance abuse got the better of her.

She spent most of her life in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother was a teenager when she gave birth to Billie. Her father was believed to be Clarience Holiday, he had become a extremely successful musician, playing with Flether Henderson. Too bad for Billie though, she barely got to see her father in her growing up life. She had a girl named Sadie ( birth date not found yet) after a few years she found a husband. Sadie married a man called Phillip Gough in 1920 and for a little while she had a steady home life. After a few years Phllip and Sadie got a divorce. Leaving Billie and Sadie to struggle. Sometimes Billie was left alone. Sadie started skipping school, and she and her mother went to court over Holiday's truancy. She got sent to the House of Good Shepherd, a facility for troubled African American girls, in Janruary 1925. Sadie was only 9 years old at the time, she was the youngest one there. She got returned there in August of that year. According to Donald Clarke's biography, //Billie H//oliday: Wishing on the moon, she was returned there in 1926 after being sexually assaulted. Holiday found a solace in music, singing with the records of Bessie Smith and Lois Armstrong. She moved to NY in the late 20's. Near 1930, Holiday began singing and renamed herself "Billie" after Billie Dove. At 18 she got discoved by John Hammond whil she was performing in a Harlem jazz club. She made her first commercial release "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and the 1934 top ten hit "Riffin' the Scotch".She died **July 17, 1959, at 3:10 a.m., Metropolitan Hospital, New York City, New York, U.S.A. (Heart failure/Cirrhosis of the liver)**