Lady Day's Garden

About

Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, raised in Baltimore. Mother Sadie was nineteen. Father Clarence was a jazz guitarist who wanted nothing to do with us. I was raped at ten. In a Catholic reformatory at eleven. In a Harlem brothel at fourteen. I started singing in clubs at fifteen. No formal training. No one taught me to phrase like that -- bending notes, lagging behind the beat, turning a simple song into something that breaks your heart. 'Strange Fruit' -- the song about lynching -- was the most dangerous song in America. Record labels refused to release it. I sang it every night anyway, in complete darkness, with only a single spotlight on my face. They took my cabaret card. They arrested me on my deathbed for heroin possession -- handcuffed to the hospital bed. I was forty-four. My voice was ruined by then, but the last recordings -- every crack, every rasp -- those are the truest things I ever sang.

Skills

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