Search - Billie Holiday :: Jukebox Hits 1935-1946

20 Of Lady Day's 39 Hit Singles

03/21/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As with the Muddy Waters, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Nat "King" Cole volumes, anyone searching under artist will not find this Billie Holiday release from yet another U.K. outlet, Acrobat Music & Media Ltd., as part of their excellent Jukebox Hits series of individual artists and multi-artist compilations focusing on the greats of R&B and Jazz. These also include Lucky Millinder, The Clovers, Erskine Hawkins, Andy Kirk & His Clouds Of Joy, Ivory Joe Hunter, Johnny Otis, Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five (2 volumes), Buddy Johnson, T-Bone Walker, Jimmie Lunceford, Lionel Hampton, Ruth Brown, and Billy Eckstine.



Billie Holiday, born Eleanor Gough in Baltimore. Maryland on April 7, 1915, but known universally as simply Lady Day had her first vocal hit at age 19 while with the Benny Goodman band with Riffin' The Scotch, which hit # 6 Pop in early 1934, before hooking up with the great Jazz pianist, Teddy Wilson and his orchestra, himself a former member of Goodman's recording trio and quartet.



From 1935 to 1938 she and Wilson collaborated on some 35 Pop hit singles and in this volume you get 17 of them, along with 4 others in association with other artists. Only track 22, Good Morning Heartache, which was released on Decca 23676 early in 1946, was not among her hits. As for the rest, they seem to have zeroed in, for the most part, on the higher charting entries. To that end, the first selection here (Twenty-Four Hours A Day from the film Sweet Surrender - # 6 in late 1935 featuring Chu Berry on tenor sax) was actually her second hit with Wilson, coming several months after What A Little Moonlight Can Do, which reached # 12 in April.



They then skip the # 12 If You Were Mine (from Beat The Band) in late 1935, and # 18 You Let Me Down (from Stars Over Broadway) in January 1936, before including the # 5 These Foolish Things from the London musical Spread It Around, which peaked in August 1936. Also left out here is It's Like Reaching For The Moon, which got to # 17 in August 1936. All to date were released by the Brunswick label, and all billed to Reddy Wilson & His Orchestra with vocal by Billie Holiday. From this point on, with releases handled alternately by Brunswick and Vocalion, the billing would be Billie Holiday And Her Orchestra.



This starts off with No Regrets, a # 9 in September 1936, followed by the # 12 (also September) Summertime, from the folk opera Porgy And Bess. Only the first is here. Both were released on Vocalion and both feature Artie Shaw on clarinet, while Chu Berry does the tenor sax honors on Summertime. Vocalion also handled the next two, A Fine Romance (# 9 in November 1936 from Swing Time) and Let's Call A Heart A Heart (# 18 also in November and from Pennies From Heaven) - not included. The great Bunny Berigan played trumpet on the above four, while on these last two the clarinet was played by Irving Fazola.



Four of the next five Brunswick releases are here: The Way You Look Tonight (# 3 from Swing Time); Who Loves You? (# 4) - both featuring Gene Krupa on drums; I Can't Give You Anything But Love (# 5 from the musical Blackbirds Of 1928); and Pennies From Heaven (# 3 from the film of the same name) - with Benny Goodman on clarinet on the last two. All four charted in December 1936, not uncommon in those days when records were released in batches. The flip of the last one, That's Life, I Guess, also charted at # 20, but is not included.



In February 1937, then, you saw two Vocalion and one Brunswick release competing, alternately, for chart space. I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm hit # 4 for Vocalion with Jonah Jones on trumpet, This Year's Kisses # 8 on Brunswick, again featuring Goodman, and Please Keep Me In Your Dreams (# 13 on Vocalion and not included). Ben Webster played tenor sax on several of the foregoing, and Cozy Cole was the primary drummer. On the next two, Henry "Red" Alan plays trumpet as (This Is) My Last Affair hit # 1- in April and, that same month, The Mood That I'm In topped out at # 8. Then came her only # 1, Carelessly which, b/w How Could You? (# 12 and not here), featured Cootie Williams on trumpet.



Neither of the May 1937 charters (They Can't Take That Away From Me - # 12, and Moanin' Low - # 11 - are here, but the Brunswick release, Mean To Me (# 7 in June/July) is included. The remaining hits included here are: A Sailboat In The Moonlight (# 10 August 1937); Getting Some Fun Out Of Life (# 10 in November 1937); I'm Gonna Lock My Heart (# 2 August 1938); Strange Fruit (# 16 July 1939 - a Jazz classic named to the NARAS Hall Of Fame and actually banned from some radio stations at the time); God Bless The Child (# 25 and another NARAS inductee featuring Roy Eldridge on trumpet and Eddie Heywood at piano); Trav'lin Light (# 23 October 1942 and billed to Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra - Vocal by Lady Day); and Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) - a # 16 Pop and her only R&B charter at # 5 in May 1945 with Camarata's & His Orchestra.



Just a superb gathering of some of her most important hits, with descriptive liner notes, and excellent sound reproduction. One can only hope that, as with the Louis Jordan volumes, there will be a second release covering those missing hits. Billie, who passed away on July 17, 1959 at age 44, was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 1991.

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