Lady Sings the Blues [Paperback]

Billie Holiday (Author), William Dufty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 1984

This work presents the Billie Holiday story - her rise to the top from the slums and the streets, to the eventual slide down.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 6, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140067620
• ISBN-13: 978-0140067620
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the good, the bad & the ugly...beautifully recounted, March 13, 2000

By 

Johnny Roulette - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lady Sings the Blues (Paperback)

I picked this book up because the woman's voice moves me. I wanted to learn more about her; wanted to know where all of the pain and dignity came from. I'll admit that I was apprehensive...I was certain that her version of the story would be sugar-coated. My fears were unfounded. Billie doesn't leave anything out. She seems to understand that darker points of her life were where the gift was coming from. She candidly discusses her heroin & alcohol addictions, as well as a brief bout of prostitution. She was as interesting as she was talented. Hers is assuredly a harrowing tale, but it is tempered with dignity, honesty & intelligence. She possessed a wisdom that can only derive from a lifetime of tragic mistakes. My one complaint would be that the disturbing chain of events leading to her death aren't covered here. But, alas, this is an autobiography & death can't really be covered in an autobiography. Get her life from her...try Donald Clarke's Wishing On The Moon: The Life & Times Of Billie Holiday(Viking/1994) for adequate coverage of her untimely death. There is enough trgedy and triumph in Lady Sings to satisfy the strongest craving. Ms. Holiday & Mr. Duffy educated me about jazz and its lifestyle, but, more than that, they made me want to know more...to experience more. Lady Sings The Blues is an amazing chronicle of one of music's most gifted and soulful human beings. If you have the slightest spark of interest, you would be cheating yourself by passing on this wonderfully haunting book. Billie Holiday saw that her story's value was dependent upon absolute honesty on her part. This book would mean nothing without it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Put back this autobiography within the context of its time, June 14, 2005

By 

winifred_winthrop (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lady Sings the Blues (Paperback)

Long before celebrity confessions in magazines such as People Weekly, and when a pecadillo we'd find trivial today could still kill a career, it wasn't expected that a celebrity would ever tell the full truth about his/her private life. In Lady Day's time, almost all biographies were mere collections of colorful anecdotes and moral tales; true or not, few people really cared as long as they were entertaining. Anyhow, most readers would just shrug and give the book the benefit of the doubt, and enjoy the picaresque or sordid adventures of the celebrity, and nod with approval at all the morality lessons tough times had given the celebrity.

From what I've heard, Billie Holiday spoke to William Dufty and he put the book together based on her monologues. I'm sure that both Billie and Dufty wanted the book to be as commercial as possible; among other things, they found a very catchy opening with her Mom and Pop getting married when she was three... Yes, this is a lie, but by saying to the world that Sadie had married Clarence Holiday, she was just being loyal to her mother who had wished so much to marry Clarence in real life... and she was saving Sadie's face you could say since it was such a social stigma to have a kid out of wedlock until the early Seventies.

There's some evidence that Billie read the first draft of the book and approved it, even though she would claim later on that she had never read "the damn thing".

Rather than expecting the full truth about her entire life, you should read this book to catch a poignant, vivid glimpse of Billie Holiday, singer and African-American woman, who was blessed in so many ways but also had to overcome so many obstacles such as we can barely imagine today.

I apologize for my shaky English. My first language is French.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Glimpse into a unique life, July 7, 2004

By 

R. J. Marsella (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lady Sings the Blues (Paperback)

Other reviewers have made the case that this autobiography is less than accurate. That may be true however I believe the book captures the spirit of Billie Holiday as well as the tenor of the times in which she lived and consequently it is an important and very interesting book.

The tragedy surrounding Holiday's life and struggle with addiction is well known and yet here it is dealt with in such a gripping and personal way that the story is moving and emotionally wrenching. Billie Holiday emerges from this book as a warm living human being with a remarkable amount of wisdom regarding her own struggles and failings. One would expect an autobiography to seek to afix blame elsewhere or excuse shortcomings. None of that is found here. This was an inteligent, wise and obviously talented though flawed woman whose story deserves to be told.
Reading this has rekindled my interest in her music and that alone was a great benefit I received from this book.