#16 Lady In Satin by Billie Holiday

While it is great relief for me to have finally reached an album where female vocals take the centre stage it is in a way a bit double-edged. The thing with Billie Holiday is that even though in her hay-day she never had the most powerful of voices her trump card was always the emotion she was able to convey. It is for this reason that she has been remembered and why her recordings of Strange Fruit and Gloomy Sunday (a song that urban legend has linked to multiple cases of suicide) live on in infamy.

Her life was, by any standards, a troubled and highly turbulent one. Raised in poverty, raped at a young age and working in the brothels until the early thirties when her voice caught the attention of a promoter. Even with all that behind her she came to be highly dependent on drugs and alcohol, and really you can not blame her for succumbing to them.

Anyway, back from the ramble about musical history it is time to attend to the matter at hand. Namely Lady In Satin and my thoughts regarding it. The first thing that I believe needs to be said is that it is anything but an easy listen. Due to years of substance abuse this 43 year old woman sounds old beyond her years with her voice being reduced to a reedy state. However, where most artists would probably count their losses she ploughs on through and gives possibly the most emotional set of recordings you could find. You just believe everything she says, this woman whose voice, and body, had been reduced to one belonging to a woman beyond her years. You feel her pain. This is definitely the most disarming thing about Lady In Satin and reflects the lyrics that she wrote back in the late forties:

Lady sings the blues
She’s got them bad
She feels so sad
Wants the world to know
Just what the blues is all about

With the rating I know I am about to give this album it feels stupid to outline a few of the tracks as highlights when the whole thing needs to be taken in one fair dose. However I would like to specifically mention the opener I’m A Fool To Want You as well as Violets For My Furs, which occupies the midpoint. Both of these are the prime example of the use of this broken blues-soaked voice that is backed by sweeping orchestral movements which together give her the space to truly soar.

9.0/10

Fab Four:
I’m A Fool To Want You
Violets For My Furs
It’s Easy To Remember
But Beautiful