About the Book
Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer is a full-length biography about Billie Holiday, known famously as Lady Day, from her birth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland, through her 30-year career as a singer, actor, and author by Meredith Coleman McGee. The late great Lady Day became the defining voice in jazz in Harlem, New York in 1933. Her 1939 recording of the protest song, Strange Fruit, made her a superstar, a race woman, and a target of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Though Billie Holiday passed over 64 years ago, her musical influence is wide reaching, and her legacy is everlasting.
About the Author :
MEREDITH COLEMAN MCGEE, a poet, book publisher, book collector, lecturer, contributing writer, professional writer, and a small business owner, is the author of six full-length and seven children's books which include: Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer, Baby Bubba and Kay, Juneteenth: Freedom Day, Every Inch Love Will, Midnight Moon, Odyssey, Nashida: Visits Mississippi's Old Capitol Museum, James Meredith: Warrior and the America that created him, Nashida: Visits the Smith Robertson Museum, Nashida: Visits the Mississippi State Capitol, Married to Sin, Casada al Pecado, My Picture Dictionary, and My First Book Series (a volume of six primer books). Tawanna Shaunte bio: The sultry multi-faceted singer and songwriter is a Mississippi native. She has performed in some of the most notable venues in the U.S. and internationally. Her album and EP discography include: Eclectik Soul, Rising, Shades of Color, Freedom Agent, Life, Blues & LightningBugs and Merry Go Round which express an array of genres from soulful jazz, blues, and more.
Review :
I just read Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer a biography of Lady Day." What a great book!! The author covers so much information in this book. It reads easily, as well. I learned so much from this wonderful biography and feel like I met Billie Holiday! All the great pictures are just a bonus!! Chris Gill, Central Mississippi Blues Society, Musician Member, Performer
Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer is an excellent, informative, inspirational, and musically historically accurate book which is a must read for jazz lovers. Ronald Shelton, Pensacola Jazz Society, Member & Jazz Music Collector
Meredith Coleman McGee's portrait of American icon Billie Holiday is intimate and unflinching, as it details her life and music in the context of 20th century race relations, drug use and abuse, rackets and the jazz business, and complicated relations with her family and friends. As an introduction to the great singer's place in history and the present, it's highly relatable to readers now.Howard Mandel, Author, Editor & President, Jazz Journalists Association
I just finished reading Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer. What a wonderful and refreshing look at her. Her life was chronicled in such a refreshing way; the lows and highs of her life were given true meaning, which showed the promise music provides to healing.Malcolm Sheppard, President, Central Mississippi Blues Society
As Pluto once said, "...Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." I found Meredith Coleman McGee's Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer, a biography of Lady Day, to be an extraordinary and exceptional book which shares the incredible life of Billie Holiday. May the gardenias in the garden continue to bloom for the next generation of artists who have a passion for the arts and revolution.Arcell Cabuag, Director of Education
Restoration Dance Youth Ensemble Artistic Director
Meredith Coleman McGee's scholarly book, Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer, is a loving and sincere reflection of the genius of Lady Day whose contributions to jazz are unparalleled. This intimate work which beautifully summarizes the struggles and accomplishments of this incredible artist spans her life from childhood through her 30-year career to her untimely death in 1959. This
