page_title: Billie Holiday
section_title: 1947–52: Legal troubles and Carnegie Hall concert
hierarchical_section_title: Billie Holiday / Life and career / 1947–52: Legal troubles and Carnegie Hall concert
caption_attribution_description: English: Billie Holiday at the Downbeat club, a jazz club in New York City. [1]
context_page_description: Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz and swing music singer with a career spanning for 26 years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
  After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.
context_section_description: By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
  On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt," she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
  Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948), because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy," she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service," she said.
  Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear.
  On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark," Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears," she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
  On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit," she said. But it closed after three weeks.
  Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949 in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco.
  Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
  In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
  Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked becau
caption: Holiday at the Downbeat Jazz Club, New York,[72] c. February 1947
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