John Szwed Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth

Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, "Billie Holiday "stays close to the music, to her performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy."