If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday [Hardcover]

Farah Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2001

Singer, composer, actress, lover, wife, writer, pleasure seeker, drug addict, icon, commodity, myth and mystery: Billie Holiday is still one of the most famous jazz vocalists of all time. But Holiday's image -- the gifted torch singer with insatiable appetites for food, sex, alcohol and drugs -- is not the full story. Farah Jasmine Griffin's enchanting investigation of Holiday, her world and how she is remembered, at last fully liberates Lady Day from the tragic songstress myth.

Griffin argues that the stereotype of a black woman who can always take center stage to command an audience because of her incredible ability to feel, but not to think, continues to hide the real Holiday from public view. Instead of a mindless "natural" with incredible talent but no discipline, Griffin's Holiday is a jazz virtuoso whose passion and technique made every song she sang forever hers. Instead of being helpless against the racism, sexism and poverty that dominated her life, Holiday is an artist, willing to pay a tremendous price to change the sound of jazz forever. And far from being a victim of overwhelming obstacles, Lady Day is an independent spirit whose greatest legacy is that all hurdles can be overcome, whatever the odds.

Holiday's voice has permeated American music from Frank Sinatra to Macy Gray. But, until now, Holiday's influence has never been reconciled with her image. Farah Jasmine Griffin unravels the threads that make up the Holiday mystique and weaves together a new, true Lady Day that jazz fans will both love and respect.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This rumination on the famous jazz singer is a mix of hagiography, music appreciation and criticism of past biographers, yet on its own terms, it works. Griffin (Who Set You Flowin'?: The African-American Migration Narrative), associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, sets out to examine the mythic figure Holiday created over the years, but she states from the outset that her book is not meant to be a formal biography or musical study. She is, though, determined not to see Holiday as a tragic victim. Probably the best-known book about Holiday is her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, written "with" William Dufty (Griffin claims that Dufty actually created the book from talks and previously published interviews with Holiday). Griffin repeatedly points out errors in that work (e.g., it opens claiming that when Holiday was born, her mother was only 13, when in fact she was 19) and speculates as to why such errors might have been made intentionally (e.g., to portray her mother not as promiscuous but rather as the young victim of an older man). Griffin writes in a pleasant, easy tone, and many of her observations about the litany of notorious stereotypes applied to Holiday are astute, but the book suffers from a tendency to circle back over the same themes rather than expanding upon them. On several occasions, for example, Griffin compares Holiday to other artists, like Bessie Smith, L'il Kim and Mary J. Blige, only to decide that none can compete with Holiday; but then Griffin's trajectory changes again, and she devotes "the last chapter of this book... to Abbey Lincoln," whom she believes belongs in the same "pantheon" as Holiday and offers an alternative extension of her legacy. While this book sometimes wanders, in doing so it mimics the very music and elusive character it is describing; and while she has not organized her arguments in a superior fashion, Griffin engages readers throughout with her consistently intriguing observations. Agent, Loretta Barrett.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Readers should note that this is not a straightforward biography of Holiday (1915-59); it is more an invitation to discover a view of the singer grounded not in attention-grabbing headlines and sensationalism but in reality and, perhaps most importantly, in how Holiday's music spoke to listeners and celebrated and reflected their lives. Emotionally and intellectually, Griffin (English, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Who Set You Flowin'; Stranger in the Village) demonstrates a true fealty to Holiday's artistic achievements. Using several facets, including social and political commentary, poetry, and personal experiences, she reveals Holiday as a real person rather than a mixture of the myths and images created by managers, critics, and others who held sway over her, often not having Holiday's best interests at heart. While Griffin's book isn't the last word on Holiday, it does prove to be an excellent antidote to the often ridiculous material that has been written about Lady Day over the years. For music and African American collections. William G. Kenz, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhead
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (May 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684868083
• ISBN-13: 978-0684868080
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #983,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Jazz

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Had Promise, October 15, 2002

By 

D. Davis (Southern CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Paperback)

Griffin's opening chapter is interesting and effectively presented, and by itself would make an adequate article on Holiday's life. There's not enough content here to warrant a book, and, in fact, it reads more like a first-year graduate student's paper than a text polished for publication. It seems that Griffin favored the copy and paste method here, repeating herself, literally, at times, in subsequent chapters, word for word, from previous chapters. This was not done to lend the text a wondeful insularity or elipticalness...I think she was just confused as to what to say and where to go. That Griffin adores Holiday is clear, but her worship of this Jazz Diva doesn't translate well into postmodern theory, and the pomo buzzwords Griffin sprinkles throughout the text seem to hinder her own understanding of and relationship with Holiday and to her music...Ultimately, the author ends up sounding disingenous and uncertain and not quite cognizant of the social politics she purports to examine and explain. Still, the glimpses we do get of Holiday stand out and shine marvelously.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but flawed, June 15, 2002

By 

tombear999 (germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Hardcover)

This book promises much but delivers little....which is a great pity since it could have been a much better book than it is. Part of the problem lies in the fact that it is not well written and is in severe need of editing. The book is repetitive in the extreme (see p. 181 for a glaring example - where we are told in two CONSECUTIVE sentences that Abbey Lincoln was under consideration to play Billie Holiday in a filmed version of Lady Sings The Blues). Other examples involve being told something, and then two or three pages later the same information is repeated. This is sloppy and shows that the author (or her editors) did not bother to proofread the manuscript in any meaningful way.

The other problem with the book is that it offers little in the way of insight. Sure the author has some ideas - but they are not enough to stretch out over the length of a book. It might have made an interesting presentation at a conference where it could have been presented as a 20 minute talk, but over the length of a book it becomes tiresome. Billie Holiday deserves better than this. Sorry to be so negative, but i bought this book with a great sense of anticipation and felt really let down by it. A real case of the critic not being up to the level of her subject.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant work, August 1, 2004

By 

Junior Scholar "Junior" (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Hardcover)

This is a brilliant analysis, rumination, meditation, on Billie Holiday. I believe the previous reviewers who did not agree with me missed Professor Griffin's use of jazz phrasing within the prose of her work, the reworking and repetition of themes to provide new insight. It is a technique that perhaps would only be understandable to a jazz lover, but it is part of the creative wisdom of this piece. This is the best work on Billie Holiday that I have ever read and I highly recommend it. And incidentally, Dr. Griffin is one of the most respected scholars of African American and American Studies, so she should never be compared to a first year graduate student. I suggest readers check out her other work as well.