Artist · chart history · #370 in indie & aaa artist polls
Billie Holiday
Solo artist Philadelphia United States
Billie Holiday is an artist from Philadelphia. Billie Holiday has 21 chart appearances on 12 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Strange Fruit”, which appears on 9 lists with a best position of #119. The station that charted Billie Holiday most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 8 appearances.
Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan in 1915, came up singing in the nightclubs of Harlem, where the producer John Hammond caught her act and liked what he heard. She signed with Brunswick in 1935 and cut "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" with Teddy Wilson, and through the '30s and '40s she made hits for Columbia and Decca. Her friend and musical partner Lester Young named her Lady Day.
She sang like a horn player: bending the beat, lagging behind it, stretching a phrase until it hurt and then snapping it back, so that a Tin Pan Alley tune came out sounding like private confession. "God Bless the Child", "Stormy Weather", "Loverman" and, above all, "Strange Fruit" all carry that same bruised intimacy.
By the late '40s she was fighting legal troubles and drug abuse, and she served a short prison sentence. She came back with a sold-out night at Carnegie Hall, and two more sold-out shows there followed in the '50s. Her voice grew rougher and her last records divided listeners, but they still sold. Her final album appeared shortly before cirrhosis and a failing heart killed her on July 17, 1959, aged 44. Every one of her four Grammy Awards came after her death, and in 2000 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her as an early influence.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Billie Holiday on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strange Fruit | 9 | #119 | – | – | |
| 2 | God Bless the Child | 3 | #471 | – | – | |
| 3 | Summertime | 1 | #58 | – | – | |
| 4 | You Go To My Head | 1 | #648 | – | – | |
| 5 | Back In Your Own Backyard | 1 | #466 | – | – | |
| 6 | God Bless the Children | 1 | #1189 | – | – | |
| 7 | Loverman | 1 | #674 | – | – | |
| 8 | My Man | 1 | #453 | – | – | |
| 9 | Stormy Weather | 1 | #1836 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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