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Billie Holiday

'The United States v. Billie Holiday': A Tortured Artist and Audience

Andra Day plays singer Billie Holiday in Lee Daniels' new movie about the singer's tumultuous personal life. Takashi Seida/Hulu hide caption

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Takashi Seida/Hulu

Review

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'The United States v. Billie Holiday': A Tortured Artist and Audience

The United States v. Billie Holiday is the latest dramatization of the singer's tumultuous personal life. Directed by Lee Daniels and starring Andra Day, it focuses on the government surveillance Billie Holiday endured for her drug addiction and her song "Strange Fruit."

'The United States v. Billie Holiday': A Tortured Artist and Audience

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New Documentary 'Billie' Explores Mysteries Of Billie Holiday And Her Biographer

Billie Holiday performs in New York City in 1947. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption

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Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Music News

New Documentary 'Billie' Explores Mysteries Of Billie Holiday And Her Biographer

The film continues writer Linda Kuehl's unfinished investigation into Holiday's life through never-before-heard interviews with jazz luminaries, and explores her experiences with institutional racism.

New Documentary 'Billie' Explores Mysteries Of Billie Holiday And Her Biographer

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We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence

Lil Baby performs during a Juneteenth voter registration rally on June 19, 2020 at Murphy Park Fairgrounds in Atlanta, Ga. One week earlier, he released "The Bigger Picture," a song protesting police brutality. Paras Griffin/Getty Images hide caption

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Paras Griffin/Getty Images

America Reckons With Racial Injustice

We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence

These songs take on some of the ugliest stories in our history and reflect the commitment of Black musicians to telling the truth of how Black people have been wronged, and survived, and fought back.

Turning The Tables: Celebrating Eight Women Who Invented American Popular Music

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NPR

Turning The Tables

Turning The Tables: Celebrating Eight Women Who Invented American Popular Music

WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center

This year, Turning the Tables focused on music's "founding mothers." Watch the season-opening concert at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Lizz Wright and more.

Turning The Tables: Celebrating Eight Women Who Invented American Popular Music

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Returning To Lady: A Reflection On Two Decades 'In Search Of Billie Holiday'

Billie Holiday performs on stage at the Sugar Hill nightclub in Newark, N.J. Farah Jasmine Griffin's 2001 book posed a challenge to biographers and helped reimagine Holiday's legacy. Bob Parent/Getty Images hide caption

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Bob Parent/Getty Images

Turning The Tables

Returning To Lady: A Reflection On Two Decades 'In Search Of Billie Holiday'

Farah Jasmine Griffin's 2001 book on Billie Holiday posed a challenge to biographers and our understanding of Holiday. Here, she reflects on her changing connection to Lady Day since its release.

Strange Fruit

Portrait of Billie Holiday singing at the Downbeat club in New York City on February 1947. Library of Congress hide caption

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Library of Congress

Throughline

Strange Fruit

Billie Holiday helped shape American popular music with her voice and unique style. But, her legacy extends way beyond music with one song in particular — "Strange Fruit." The song paints an unflinching picture of racial violence, and it was an unexpected hit. But singing it brought serious consequences.

Strange Fruit

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Turning The Tables: 8 Women Who Invented American Popular Music

Turning The Tables: 8 Women Who Invented American Popular Music Chelsea Beck for NPR hide caption

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Chelsea Beck for NPR

Music

Turning The Tables: 8 Women Who Invented American Popular Music

These women made some of the most significant music of the past century. They originated genres, broke political boundaries, nurtured generations of followers and in most cases, became icons.

Hear a conversation about the third season of Turning the Tables on Morning Edition

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From Chuck Berry To Tupac Shakur: Taking Stock Of The 2008 Universal Fire

Chuck Berry in the Chess Records recording studio. The New York Times reports that originals of Berry's Chess catalog were burned in the 2008 Universal fire. Gilles Petard/Redferns/Getty Images hide caption

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Gilles Petard/Redferns/Getty Images

Music News

From Chuck Berry To Tupac Shakur: Taking Stock Of The 2008 Universal Fire

The loss from the 2008 Universal Studios backlot fire was thought to be a few movie sets and film duplicates. But Jody Rosen reports that it was one of the largest losses in recorded music's history.

From Chuck Berry To Tupac Shakur: Taking Stock Of The 2008 Universal Fire

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The Politics And Passions Of Roger Waters
Carl Court/Getty Images

All Songs Considered

The Politics And Passions Of Roger Waters

The bassist, singer and songwriter behind some of the 20th century's most iconic music goes deep into race, civil rights, prison reform, the troubled music industry and more.

Guest DJ Roger Waters

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Getting Personal With Alt.Latino Guest DJ Natalia Clavier

Natalia Clavier. /Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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/Courtesy of the artist

Alt.Latino

Getting Personal With Alt.Latino Guest DJ Natalia Clavier

The Argentine singer makes her own music when she's not working with the band Thievery Corporation.

Getting Personal With Alt.Latino Guest DJ Natalia Clavier

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Billie Holiday: A Singer Beyond Our Understanding

Billie Holiday has become a mythic presence in absentia. William Gottlieb/Getty Images hide caption

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William Gottlieb/Getty Images

Jazz Night In America

Billie Holiday: A Singer Beyond Our Understanding

Most artists belong to their times. But Holiday, born 100 years ago Tuesday, fits in the present.

Billie Holiday: A Singer Beyond Our Understanding

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Billie Holiday: 'Lady Sings the Blues'

Billie Holiday, early 1950s. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

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Hulton Archive/Getty Images

NPR's 'Jazz Profiles'

Billie Holiday: 'Lady Sings the Blues'

Few voices in recorded music are as immediately distinctive and arresting as that of "Lady Day."

Billie Holiday: 'Lady Sings the Blues'

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Cassandra Wilson 'Couldn't Wait' To Reinvent The Billie Holiday Songbook

Cassandra Wilson's Billie Holiday tribute album is titled Coming Forth By Day. Mark Seliger/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Mark Seliger/Courtesy of the artist

Music Interviews

Cassandra Wilson 'Couldn't Wait' To Reinvent The Billie Holiday Songbook

On Coming Forth By Day, one of today's premier jazz singers pays an imaginative tribute to one of her idols, born 100 years ago. As Wilson says, a simple imitation "would be almost insulting."

Cassandra Wilson 'Couldn't Wait' To Reinvent The Billie Holiday Songbook

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Opera Star Jessye Norman Picks Her Favorite Jazz Singers

In a conversation aired on WBGO, Jessye Norman credits the study of jazz with her understanding of song interpretation. Carol Friedman/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Carol Friedman/Courtesy of the artist

A Blog Supreme

Opera Star Jessye Norman Picks Her Favorite Jazz Singers

WBGO

As a fledgling classical soprano in New York, Norman went to hear singers like Mabel Mercer perform. She tells WBGO's Rhonda Hamilton that her study of jazz vocalists influenced the way she interprets songs — including operatic arias.

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