A singer is an actor putting on the persona of the song he or she happens to be singing. It seems some artists will only do songs they identify with; whereas truly great artists, like Jeannie Kendall put on various personas even though the contents of the song have nothing whatever to do with their life. They do though, for someone else, someone out there who does identify with it. She sings for them more than for herself. Take all those “cheatin’” songs she and The Kendalls had big hits with, Heaven’s Just A Sin Away, Pittsburgh Stealers, You’d Make An Angel Want To Cheat, It Don’t Feel Like Sinnin’ To Me. The fact is you won’t find a more modest, chaste, upright, church-goin’ individual than Jeannie Kendall, ever faithful to her husband of many years, more Kitty Wells (also known as Muriel Deason) than Patsy Cline.

In the case of Billie Holiday, however, especially with the song T’aint Nobody's Bizness If I Do, unfortunately, here art imitates life. It’s autobiographical and she almost seems proud of that fact. It was the last song she ever sang in public (and she didn’t even make it through that performance before being helped off the stage). Six weeks later she was dead, cirrhosis of the liver (among other things). As sick as she was before she died the hospital and police had placed a twenty-four-hour-a-day guard to keep her from taking heroine, to which she was addicted (although there was evidence the drugs were planted on her). One of the great singers of the twentieth century died with just 70 cents in her checking account, just as the song indicates she would (“. . . If my man ain’t got no money and I say take all of mine honey . . . if I give him my last nickel and it leaves me in a pickle”). And of course as you listen to the lyrics, “I swear I won’t call no copper, if I’m beat up by my papa.” “Copper” is a term that no doubt is a throw back to her early upbringing at a time in Baltimore and New York where the police uniforms had copper buttons and hence the term “copper” was coined. Billie would have known many “coppers” as a teenage prostitute on the streets of New York learning the trade from her mother, of all people. But she’s wrong you know? It “T’iss Somebody’s Bizness.” We have, society has, created laws to protect people like Billie. This country’s Judeo-Christian tradition has a “love thy neighbor” heritage even if it means protecting the person from themselves. But a daughter needs a father, and she didn’t have one when she needed one most. A father wants to protect and love his daughter and see that she grows up and ends up happily married with children of her own. And, as is often the case, children without fathers are very poor, barely getting by where a quick buck seems to be an answer. And she was black. And to be black in the 20s and 30s in Harlem meant she needed a miracle. Her voice was that miracle, her ticket out, but she didn’t get out in time. She didn’t get out before becoming addicted to drugs, booze and brutal men.

T’aint Nobody’s Bizness . . . is Billie singing about Billie. I listen to that lovely phrasing (a la Louis Armstrong) and wonder what could have been.

She should be an old lady now of about ninety; but, she died young at age forty-four. We mourn her, because her recordings bring us pleasure, but what about the thousands of other throwaway kids in slums all over the country who can’t sing or dance or shoot a basketball? Our Judeo-Christian society has failed them perhaps more than they’ve failed themselves.

Billie Holiday was probably one of the most “desperate lovers” I’ve ever read about. I include her song for several reasons, but especially because it is so extreme. I would like to say lovely things to go with her compellingly remarkable vocal performance, but I can’t. I never knew the woman (she died in 1959), but even at an early age she was heading for trouble. Her sex and marital life were deeply flawed. She was married to one band member, but lived with another, while also being openly bisexual, which included an affair with actress Tullulah Bankhead (whose own personal life was nearly as flawed as Billie’s though she was David O. Selznick’s first choice to play Scarlett O’Hara, but whose biggest role turned out to be in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat). But I digress.

What really bothers me about Billie is that it seems in her life, brutality was not only accepted but expected, even welcomed. If you’re reading this and find yourself in Billie’s kind of “desperate,” this album is not strong enough medicine for you. You need some serious professional, medical, spiritual help. Please get it. Now, before it’s too late for you too. Actually, there is one fine thing I can say about Billie, with the singing of the controversial song Strange Fruit, Billie became an early member of the Civil Rights Movement and a historical figure of importance, drawing attention to the hateful and dehumanizing practice of lynching blacks in the South where the trees had such “Strange Fruit” hanging from them. Billie – R.I.P.