Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, endured a difficult and unstable childhood in Baltimore before moving to New York, where she began singing in Harlem nightclubs as a teenager, quickly drawing attention for a phrasing style unlike any singer before her — intimate, behind the beat, and emotionally direct.

She began recording in 1933 and rose to fame through the 1930s performing with major jazz musicians, becoming one of the first Black women to work with a white orchestra when she toured with Artie Shaw's band. Her sound reshaped how jazz vocals were understood, treating the voice as an improvisational instrument capable of carrying deep emotional nuance within even simple melodies.

In 1939, Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit," a haunting protest song about the lynching of Black Americans, based on a poem by Abel Meeropol. Despite resistance from her own record label, who feared the song's explicit subject matter, Holiday insisted on recording and performing it, and it became one of the earliest and most powerful protest songs in American musical history. She continued recording and performing through the 1940s and 1950s despite struggles with addiction and persecution by federal authorities, and remains regarded as one of the most influential vocalists in the history of American music.