Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday: The Life And Artistry of Lady Day DVD
(Idem Home Video)

Undeniable talent and heartbreaking tragedy were constants in the life of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. Holiday's velvety vocals won accolades from jazz enthusiasts, contemporaries like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie and cemented her position as one of the 20th century's finest vocalists.

Holiday endured a rough upbringing in Baltimore—including abandonment, rape, and reform school—before moving to New York with her mother in the late '20s. At age 18, she was discovered in a Harlem nightclub by John Hammond and quickly recorded with Benny Goodman. Soon after, she appeared in Duke Ellington's Symphony in Black, and began recording and performing full-time.

From the '30s through the '50s, Holiday went on to record classics like "Strange Fruit," "God Bless the Child" and "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do." She married twice and began using heroin, eventually spending some time in jail for possession, which resulted in the revocation of her cabaret license and the end of her club performances in New York. She toured Europe in 1954 and her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was published in 1956. In 1959, at age 44, she died of cirrhosis of the liver in the New York hospital bed where she had been arrested for narcotics possession a month before.

This account includes a discography and the lyrics to "Strange Fruit." Informative and heart-wrenching, this DVD relays Holiday's tragic story and highlights the indelible mark she made on American music history.—Katie Handlon