Must Have Evening Music. The Best of Billie Holiday

Must Have Evening Music | The Best of Billie Holiday – $7.97

It’s tough to find music about bad things that can make you feel strangely good.  Billie Holiday was the master of that paradox.

She changed the way songs were sung by injecting real emotion into her performances.  Ms. Holiday came about at a time when American Music… Jazz, blues, and pop, all merged into a perfect rolling canvas of horns and strings with notes punctuated on piano. And Billie Holiday had the perfect voice for it all.

The CD starts with the immensely powerful “Strange Fruit,” and moves on to more emotionally palatable favorites like “Lover Man,”  “Good Morning Heartache,” and “Lady Sings the Blues.”

Like many obscenely talented artists, her success in producing gut-wrenching yet beautiful pieces seemed to be born of her struggles she experienced throughout her life.  That life ended when she was only 44 years old, due to drug and alcohol related damage to her organs.

You need slow moving jazz in your collection.  Not that electronic fueled musak crap.  The real deal.  This is it.