Her archive passed to a private collector and was later used in other writers' biographies of Holiday. window.addEventListener('resize', function(){
Her parents split up not long after getting married, and Halliday became an absentee father who remained out of his daughters life. Her death was ruled as a suicide. ", "I found his passion, his truth-telling, all of his wisdom his honesty, his courage I found him so compelling," Griffin says. Tony Bennett, who says he briefly knew Holiday, sums up the way a lot of people feel about Holiday: She told her own story, just by being herself. She interviewed and interviewed and was still finding people in 1978 almost 200 of them in all. resize772605642e65b47443f(wrapper);
Milt Hilton, a bass player who worked with Holiday during her last music recording sessions, remembers: She was in pretty bad shape. He took many of the widely published photos of her during these last sessions. Detroit Red, a dancer work worked with Holiday at The Hot Cha, remembers: At that particular time, the only vice she had was smoking [marijuana] reefers. Later, Holiday became an alcoholic and addicted to cocaine and heroin. "And I was very happy that the filmmakers gave him as much space as they did.". Tax ID: 26-2810489. WebBiography. It really felt like you were back there in Chicago in the 50s, with all the greats of jazz there, Ella [Fitzgerald] waiting in the wings as Billie performs. She created Freedoms Song: Music of the Civil Rights Movement and was musical director and curator for the Martin Luther King Institutes Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. What was extraordinary was it felt like an archaeological journey, he says, because it felt like we were excavating voices lost to the past. Those now-deceased jazz voices include Count Basie, Charles Mingus, John Hammond, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms. Menu. };
Be the first to contribute! When Linda Lipnack was born about 1940, her father, Sal, was 32, and her mother, Ida, was 25. An epilogue at the end of the documentary mentions that because of the destruction of police records, investigations into Lindas death made during the film proved inconclusive., In the documentary, Luftman explains why her sister wanted to write a Billie Holiday biography: Even thought they came from totally different backgrounds, I think she really identified with Billie. A new documentary uncovers lost tapes to tell the intimate real story of the jazz singer one with terrible resonance today as the US continues to fight institutional racism, Theres an electrifying moment in Billie, a new documentary about Billie Holiday, when Jonathan Jo Jones, a tempestuous, influential African American drummer who played with Holiday from the 1930s to 50s, challenges his white interviewer. Mingus tells Kuehl, "That might be why the cops were against her. Still, director James Erskine was able to create a different approach by combining oral history and film, thanks to tracking down a deep well of preserved transcripts, notes, and roughly 200 hours of cassette tape interviews left behind by Kuehl nearly 50 years ago. Other people interviewed in the documentary include trombonist Melba Liston and singer Carmen McCrae. var popupParams = {
Kuehls extensive interviews of Holidays contemporaries have been the backbone of many Holiday biographies. Joe Guy, a trumpet player in her band, was also one of her main drug connections. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. The insightful documentary Billie (directed by James Erskine) is a highly unusual non-fiction film because most of it is based on previously unreleased audio interviews that were conducted in the 1970s. Her stillness is fantastic for the camera. You can hear Kuehls excellence as an interviewer asking why repeatedly rather than inserting her own understanding. So many people have rhapsodized about her voice that we often forget that for those who saw her sing live her face was also a powerful vehicle of emotion. "What was extraordinary was it felt like an archaeological journey," he says, "because it felt like we were excavating voices lost to the past." captainformCustomVars['772605'] = '';
Many important details of her life and her musical genius have been overshadowed by a lurid interest in her love life and drug use. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. A 1947 shootout with cops in Philadelphia led to Holidays first arrest for narcotics possession. Literally, some would say. [2] Various other writers' biographies on Holiday have drawn upon Kuehl's material, as did the film Billie (2019), which is narrated by Kuehl's recorded interviews. captainformDomReady(function() {
Billie Holiday. For some eight years in the 1970s, Kuehl interviewed everyone she could find who had a personal association with Holiday musicians, managers, childhood friends, lovers and FBI agents among them. Before her death in 1978, Linda Lipnack Kuehl spent eight years trying to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday.Courtesy of the Kuehl family She excited me with just three notes, drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. captainformCustomVars['772606'] = '';
It looks like we don't have any Biography for Linda Lipnack Kuehl yet. One of most provocative moments in the documentary is Kuehl speaking with Jones, a jazz drummer who toured the country with Holiday when they were both in Basie's band. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. After we would eat she always ordered an extra hamburger and shed put that in her purse, because she never knew when she would not be able to be served, a friend says in the the film. At the time, she had her own girls on the street. Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's life, but died before its completion. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup642e65b474c78');
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Calling Holiday a chick singer is an understatement, but it is relevant that we understand how the world saw Holiday during her time and how she saw herself. In her interview with Jimmy Fletcher, the narcotics agent assigned to conduct surveillance of Holiday, Kuehl asks him whether a big star like Holiday would have been a target because it would have been a lot of publicity for an agent. Fletcher concedes, Well, not just for an agent. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. This is all the more refreshing considering that Holidays estate, acquired in 2012 by music company Concord, came on board as producers. We was going through hell! he shouts. As much as Holiday was the first master of microphone singing, she is also a master of the camera. Depending on whom you believe, she either quit or was fired. You do start to wonder, he says, if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billies life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her., 2023 WNET. Hammond says of Goodman, He slept with Billie. He reportedly ripped her off. if ('' == 'left')
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I was one of the people who didnt. Holiday was the first black singer to work with Goodman in those racially segregated times. It's the only way I can describe it. Though Kuehl never met Holiday, her passion for the gardenia-wearing singers music led to eight years of interviews during the 1970s. Billie Holiday's life and artistry have been analyzed, scrutinized, interpreted and embellished more than any other jazz singer in history. Basies saxophonist Lester Young is credited with giving Holiday the nickname Lady Day. It is similar to how the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is as much about Mark Bittner as the parrots. WebView more results from the 1940 Census. id: "captainform_js_global_vars",
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She was a generous person, Id say, in thought anyway. "You do start to wonder," he says, "if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billie's life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her.". Occasionally, pieces of Kuehls own life enter into the picture, but never with much attempt to build a connection. She knew her place. Billie feels typical, even if its attention to detail gives it an obvious appeal. Erskine described Kuehl as a brilliant interviewer who nailed down people from various stages of Lady Days life.
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Did someone consider the pairs intimacy a threat? Its an incendiary piece of prologue for James Erskines thorough, informative documentary, simply titled Billie. She knew by singing it that she was going to lose a lot. var readyStateOverflowInterval;
The film documents this racism. Even in an audio interview with jazz great Count Basie, he alluded that some of his associates were not happy about this tell-all that was in the works. Billie Holiday is the subject of the documentary, and theres expected archival footage of her in her film. Her make-up is minimal. The story is centered around the sting operation led by Fletcher who allegedly was also having an affair with Holiday a/k/a Public Enemy #1. Strange Fruit was banned from radio airplay in certain areas, and many venues forbid Holiday from performing the song. A 1938 portrait, when she appeared at Cafe Society in NYC with a swatch of gardenias in hair hairstyle, which from then on became her trademark. Midgett says that Holiday would talk for hours about how she started in prostitution when she was 13 years old. });
From 1939 to her death in 1959 the government went after her because she was black, she was wealthy and she dared to sing Strange Fruit, Smith says. Sarah Julia Sadie Fagan (a maid) was 13 when she gave birth to Eleanora, and Clarence Halliday (a musician) was 15. ", "I found his passion, his truth-telling, all of his wisdom his honesty, his courageI found him so compelling," Griffin says. We finished the film last year and I didnt see it again until September, says Erskine. For the Bureau of Narcotics. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible');
var captainformDomReady = captainformDomReady || function(e){var t=!1,n=function(){document.addEventListener? Daviss and Parkers women are not given a megaphone to comment on them, and I never have seen their musical genius attributed to drug use. Nalley previously wrote for EatDrinkFilms about Ella Fitzgerald which was accompanied by an extensive gallery of images and videos of both singers. Holidays birth name was Eleanora Fagan, and she was born to teenage parents in Philadelphia on April 7, 1915. if (document.getElementById('captainform_js_global_vars') == null) {
Shaw, bassist Sid Weiss, guitarist Al Arola, guitarist Les Robinson and friend Mae Weiss all mention in their documentary interviews that many racist people back then refused to accept a black female singer performing with a group of white musicians. To give the documentary a cohesive structureand to make sense out of the 200 hours of interview materialErskine says, "We had a discipline that people speaking in the film should only be speaking about an event that they actually witnessed because otherwise the material was just sort of overwhelming.". var captainformThemeStyle = {};
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Lipstick and brow pencil are the hallmark features. Fletcher concedes, "Well, not just for an agent. Plus: Man in Room 301 concludes. Get a load of the critics, the people who judge our music. Kuehl was white, born in the Bronx and relatively prosperous. With the civil rights movement in the 60s people lost their lives, and in essence she lost her life by singing this song., That, she says, on top of the music, is why Holidays legacy has endured.
She was on the receiving end of awful racism (as a Black female singer for a couple of white bandleaders in the 1930s, she couldnt stay in Jim Crow-era hotels or even use their washrooms) and fell prey to multiple addictions. One is the subject Billie Holiday and the other, her biographer Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Culture Clash:Holiday battled drug addiction, and several people who knew her say that she was a target of the FBI. John Fagan, a cousin of Holidays, says in the documentary of their upbringing in East Baltimore: It was a nice community to live. Watching the footage of her face singing with no sound could reduce the watcher to tears alone without hearing a single note. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. Although she was a heavy user of marijuana, alcohol and cocaine, Holiday was most associated with her use of heroin and other opiates. It turned me on., Although Holiday had several male and female lovers, only one woman is mentioned in the documentary as being one of her paramours: actress Tallulah Bankhead. Erskine isnt sure. }, 50);
Kuehl's parents were Sol and Ida Lipnack and she had a sister, Myra Luftman.[1]. Kim Nalley, a PHD Candidate in History at University of California Berkeley, is a historian, playwright, and actress and is most known as jazz & blues singer with a powerful, 3 1/2 octave range that can go from operatic to gritty blues on a dime, projection that can whisper a ballad yet is capable of filling a room with no microphone, and the ability to scat blistering solos without ever losing the crowds interest or the intense swing. WebLinda Lipnack Kuehl. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. And I was very happy that the filmmakers gave him as much space as they did.. Its implied that her addiction issues were inherited, because Sandy Williams, a bandmate of Holidays father Clarence, describes Clarence as a happy-go-lucky guy who loved his booze and was often drunk. if(typeof cfJsHost != 'undefined'){
Immediately we were transported back to the 1950s through that deep voice. Holiday was promptly arrested and did time in Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt); she lied about her age to make sure she did not end up in juvenile until she was the age of majority. The most important takeaway from Jo Jones is that anyone who believes music has no color negates the experiences of African American musicians who lived with racism dictating almost every aspect of their lives. This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : WikiProject Biography. Arrestan a un hombre en conexin con incendio mortal en centro de detencin de inmigrantes en Jurez. "You don't know anything about it because you never had to subjugate yourself to it. }
John Levy became her manager and lover, even though he was married at the time. jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 - wrapper.outerHeight());
Before her death in 1978, Linda Lipnack Kuehl spent eight years trying to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday.Courtesy of the Kuehl family She excited me with just three notes, drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. Monroe would become Holidays first husband, whom she married in 1941. }, 10);
Kuehl was and still is, posthumously, THE preeminent biographer of Billie Holiday, despite never having completed Holidays biography before she died in 1978. Jones questions whether Kuehl, a white woman, is capable of understanding the racism they faced. Hopefully someday a filmmaker will be able to tackle the intersectionality of Holiday being both Black and a woman when neither had many rights, and Holiday as a jazz genius when singers were considered neither musicians nor geniuses. Become a member of WLIW ($5 monthly or $60 annually) and get access to WLIW Passport as our thanks for your support. id: "captainform_js_global_vars",
If Billie gives short shrift to its subjects artistry while underscoring her lifes squalor, it still offers pockets of valuable insight. Some people in the documentary allude to Holiday being fond of sex orgies. Her career of 30 years has no breaks, stops or retreats into obscurity. The documentary doesnt uncover any new visual footage of Billie Holiday. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible');
Holidays mother Sadie (who took an interested in her daughters career) was nicknamed Duchess. Her body was found on a cold Washington, D.C. street during the unforgiving Blizzard of 1978. "[9] However, Kuehl did not complete the book. Never., For Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Cant Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, Kuehls interview with Jones is extraordinary., I found his passion, his truth-telling, all of his wisdom his honesty, his courage I found him so compelling, Griffin says. });
That archive is where director James Erskine first began pulling together the story Kuehl was never able to finish. This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : WikiProject Biography. She had not performed with nor seen him in years and her delight is plain. }
The story of Billie Holidays rise to fame after a difficult upbringing is nothing new. His handling of Keuhls interviews is better; whats said on the tapes often has an uncomfortable kick. When she was released from jail at age 14, she left prostitution for good and set her sights on singing for a living. if('' == 'floating') {
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Culture Mix Survey
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(Courtesy of the Kuehl family) Kuehl left behind a trove of notes, transcripts and some 200 hours of interviews on cassette tapesmostly in shoeboxes, some labeled, some not. The journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl worked for years on a Billie Holiday biography before Kuehls sudden death in 1978. With the most unbelievable face in the world, marvels Syms, singer and Holidays friend. Oral history is only as good as the interviewer and Kuehl, a very attractive white woman, put her interviewees at ease by interviewing them most often in bars where they worked and turning off the microphone when asked. Erskine at least benefits from the basic volume of his source material. And by the age of 14, Holiday was singing professionally in nightclubs. Coy revolutionary Holiday and collaborators, 1939. Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that For some eight years in the 1970s, Kuehl interviewed everyone she could find who had a personal association with Holidaymusicians, managers, childhood friends, lovers and FBI agents among them. Holidays eyes plead, her lips sneer and her single eyebrow rises suggestively and reproachfully. Billie Holiday, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins in The Sound of Jazz.. This meant everyone from friends and family, to an FBI agent, jazz luminaries like Count Basie, and even a former pimp. She only knows how to be her., The testimonials are riotous. Holidays time with Basie and his band ended on a sour note when she left. We dont call this entertainment. Jazz musician Charles Mingus says Strange Fruit was very impactful because it shows that Holiday was fighting for equality before Martin Luther King. Holidays light brown skin contrasts dramaticallywith her dark dresses, and smooth-straightened glossy dark hair and the white gardenias (or lily or orchid.)
The film reaffirms some oft-told legends about Billie Holiday: She could curse up a storm; had affairs with men and women (according to some, Tallulah Bankhead among them); liked to get high from cannabis, heroin and cocaine; and often surrounded herself with men who treated her horribly. clearInterval(captainForm772606PreloadInterval642e65b474c78);
Despite there being no proof, the young high school teacher/journalists death was ruled as a suicide (a jump from a hotel balcony).
She excited me with just three notes, drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. She tells us of her hopes and dreams in her own voice. else if ('' == 'right')
"I'd like to write something that is real," we hear Kuehl tell one of her interviewees in the film, "that is really Lady Day, and people who don't see her in any sentimental way, you know? append_element({
And the legendary drummer Jo Jones seethes with an anger at Holidays exploiters you can still feel decades after the fact. var popupParams = {
Theres a lingering sense that Kuehl understood something deeper, but Billie never seems all that curious to find out what that might be. Heres what to watch this evening For some eight years in the 1970s, Kuehl interviewed everyone she could find who had a personal association with Holiday musicians, managers, childhood friends, lovers and FBI agents among them. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup642e65b474c78');
The problems became too much for her, and she quit working with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. Her family, however, believed otherwise. And it seems that Holiday didnt want to settle down with anyone who was considered nice or normal., Irene Kitchen, one of Holidays friends, mentions musician Sonny White, who was briefly Holidays fianc, as nice, quiet, a very good musician Her mother and I hoped that she would marry him. She wasnt making enough money. On tour, especially in the U.S. South, they encountered a lot of vicious racism. She just looked fast., However, Holidays former pianist Memry Midgett says in the documentary that Holidays prostitution past haunted her throughout her life. She looked like a panther. On 6 February 1978, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl fell from the balcony of a Washington DC hotel. For some eight years in the 1970s, Kuehl interviewed everyone she could find who had a personal association with Holiday musicians, managers, childhood friends, lovers and FBI agents among them. Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's life, but died before its completion. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. San Antonio Food Bank lanzar una campaa de un milln de comidas, Juez federal dictamina que los libros retirados deben ser devueltos. Kuehl died in what was deemed a suicide from a hotel balcony in 79, but family members believe it might have been murder and even related to the Holiday book shed worked on for years. Contact Us
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Linda Lipnack Kuehl was writing a biography of Holiday when she died suddenly in 1978, though her family believe she may have been murdered, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. I think she felt the pain of someones struggles. In 1940, she was 0 years old and lived in New York, New York, with her father and mother. Holidays short life she died in 1959 at the age of 44 from complications related to substance abuse was packed with incident, much of it upsetting. Her cousin John says, During them times, she had to survive. Trending. resize772605642e65b47443f(wrapper);
Erskine describes Kuehl as "a brilliant interviewer" who tracked down everybody from various stages of Holiday's life.
In the documentary, Kuehl's sister says the family does not believe she died by suicide. "Billie documentary review an oral history of Billie Holiday", "Singer, activist, sex machine, addict: the troubled brilliance of Billie Holiday", "Billie is a fanatical yet fascinating portrait of an immortal talent", "Billie a powerful documentary about the life of the singer", "Documentary Billie squanders its incendiary premise review", "Biography covers range of a vocalist (Published 2005)", "Billie review a double tragedy of destruction and obsession", "One Scats, the Other Doesn't (Published 1994)", "Observer review: With Billie by Julia Blackburn", "Billie review a truer, historical spin on the great Billie Holiday", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linda_Lipnack_Kuehl&oldid=1111802271, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 September 2022, at 00:47.
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The boys at least could go out in the woods. WebTalk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Were also reminded that when Holiday sang Strange Fruit, she was fighting inequality before Martin Luther King, Jr, as Mingus puts it. Kuehl had dedicated the last eight years of her life to a biography of jazz singer Billie Holiday, whose rich, sensuous voice had been steeped in a lifetime of pain. But the first biographer to fully immerse herself in the world of Lady Day was a New York journalist and avid Holiday fan named Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Holidays boxer dog was used as a way to transport drugs underneath the dogs collar. Kuehl was twice-divorced with no children, while Basie was married with children. Release Calendar Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. Movies. This is not to say that there is no filmed footage. resize772606642e65b474c78(wrapper);
The documentary includes stories of people witnessing McKay (whos been described as a mafia enforcer) being physically abusive to Holiday. captainform_preload_form_popup(popupParams);
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Kuehl was and still is, posthumously, THE preeminent biographer of Billie Holiday, despite never having completed Holidays biography before she died in 1978. Josephson sums up the usual complaint that he got was: We came to your nightclub to be entertained. }
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var captainformDomReady = captainformDomReady || function(e){var t=!1,n=function(){document.addEventListener? Her drug problems led to her multiple arrests at the height of her fame. (LogOut/ To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. Kuehl had even grown close to some of her interview subjects, including Holidays former bandleader Count Basie. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f');
The boys at least could go out in the woods, Jones tells Kuehl. if(typeof cfJsHost != 'undefined'){
That made her a target of the FBI. Some of her work was used in subsequent published biographies, but this movies director, James Erskine, acquired the rights to her entire collection, and Billie is the first project he derived from it. She was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. });
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An epilogue at the end of the documentary mentions that because of the destruction of police records, investigations into Lindas death made during the film proved inconclusive., In the documentary, Luftman explains why her sister wanted to write a Billie Holiday biography: Even thought they came from totally different backgrounds, I think she really identified with Billie. A new documentary uncovers lost tapes to tell the intimate real story of the jazz singer one with terrible resonance today as the US continues to fight institutional racism, Theres an electrifying moment in Billie, a new documentary about Billie Holiday, when Jonathan Jo Jones, a tempestuous, influential African American drummer who played with Holiday from the 1930s to 50s, challenges his white interviewer. Mingus tells Kuehl, "That might be why the cops were against her. Still, director James Erskine was able to create a different approach by combining oral history and film, thanks to tracking down a deep well of preserved transcripts, notes, and roughly 200 hours of cassette tape interviews left behind by Kuehl nearly 50 years ago. Other people interviewed in the documentary include trombonist Melba Liston and singer Carmen McCrae. var popupParams = {
Kuehls extensive interviews of Holidays contemporaries have been the backbone of many Holiday biographies. Joe Guy, a trumpet player in her band, was also one of her main drug connections. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. The insightful documentary Billie (directed by James Erskine) is a highly unusual non-fiction film because most of it is based on previously unreleased audio interviews that were conducted in the 1970s. Her stillness is fantastic for the camera. You can hear Kuehls excellence as an interviewer asking why repeatedly rather than inserting her own understanding. So many people have rhapsodized about her voice that we often forget that for those who saw her sing live her face was also a powerful vehicle of emotion. "What was extraordinary was it felt like an archaeological journey," he says, "because it felt like we were excavating voices lost to the past." captainformCustomVars['772605'] = '';
Many important details of her life and her musical genius have been overshadowed by a lurid interest in her love life and drug use. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. A 1947 shootout with cops in Philadelphia led to Holidays first arrest for narcotics possession. Literally, some would say. [2] Various other writers' biographies on Holiday have drawn upon Kuehl's material, as did the film Billie (2019), which is narrated by Kuehl's recorded interviews. captainformDomReady(function() {
Billie Holiday. For some eight years in the 1970s, Kuehl interviewed everyone she could find who had a personal association with Holiday musicians, managers, childhood friends, lovers and FBI agents among them. Before her death in 1978, Linda Lipnack Kuehl spent eight years trying to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday.Courtesy of the Kuehl family She excited me with just three notes, drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. captainformCustomVars['772606'] = '';
It looks like we don't have any Biography for Linda Lipnack Kuehl yet. One of most provocative moments in the documentary is Kuehl speaking with Jones, a jazz drummer who toured the country with Holiday when they were both in Basie's band. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. After we would eat she always ordered an extra hamburger and shed put that in her purse, because she never knew when she would not be able to be served, a friend says in the the film. At the time, she had her own girls on the street. Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's life, but died before its completion. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup642e65b474c78');
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Calling Holiday a chick singer is an understatement, but it is relevant that we understand how the world saw Holiday during her time and how she saw herself. In her interview with Jimmy Fletcher, the narcotics agent assigned to conduct surveillance of Holiday, Kuehl asks him whether a big star like Holiday would have been a target because it would have been a lot of publicity for an agent. Fletcher concedes, Well, not just for an agent. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. This is all the more refreshing considering that Holidays estate, acquired in 2012 by music company Concord, came on board as producers. We was going through hell! he shouts. As much as Holiday was the first master of microphone singing, she is also a master of the camera. Depending on whom you believe, she either quit or was fired. You do start to wonder, he says, if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billies life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her., 2023 WNET. Hammond says of Goodman, He slept with Billie. He reportedly ripped her off. if ('' == 'left')
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I was one of the people who didnt. Holiday was the first black singer to work with Goodman in those racially segregated times. It's the only way I can describe it. Though Kuehl never met Holiday, her passion for the gardenia-wearing singers music led to eight years of interviews during the 1970s. Billie Holiday's life and artistry have been analyzed, scrutinized, interpreted and embellished more than any other jazz singer in history. Basies saxophonist Lester Young is credited with giving Holiday the nickname Lady Day. It is similar to how the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is as much about Mark Bittner as the parrots. WebView more results from the 1940 Census. id: "captainform_js_global_vars",
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She was a generous person, Id say, in thought anyway. "You do start to wonder," he says, "if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billie's life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her.". Occasionally, pieces of Kuehls own life enter into the picture, but never with much attempt to build a connection. She knew her place. Billie feels typical, even if its attention to detail gives it an obvious appeal. Erskine described Kuehl as a brilliant interviewer who nailed down people from various stages of Lady Days life.