Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday

Author:Billie Holiday [Holiday, Billie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78616-6
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

But 52nd Street couldn’t hold the line against Negroes forever. Something had to give. And eventually it was the plantation owners. They found they could make money off Negro artists and they couldn’t afford their old prejudices. So the barriers went down, and it gave jobs to a lot of great musicians.

I went into Ralph Watkins’ Kelly’s Stables as a head-liner no more intermission stuff. The typical bill I appeared with in those days would cost plenty today. One time there was Coleman Hawkins’ band, me and Stuff Smith, and for intermission Nat Cole and his trio. Nobody in the joint got two hundred a week. I was there for two years at a top of $175 and I was the star. Then there was Roy Eldridge’s band, Una Mae Carlisle, Lips Page and his group, and the great Art Tatum playing intermission piano.

Working on the street seemed like a homecoming every night. People I’d met in Harlem, Hollywood, and Café Society used to come in and there was always some kind of re-union. I was getting a little billing and publicity, so my old friends and acquaintances knew where to find me.

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