Did Billie Holiday Have Any Quotes & Sayings

I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers. — Sophie B. Hawkins

And when you're poor, you grow up fast. — Billie Holiday

Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing. — Billie Holiday

They think they can make fuel from horse manure - now, I don't know if your car will be able to get 30 miles to the gallon, but it's sure gonna put a stop to siphoning. — Billie Holiday

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit. — Billie Holiday

If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing. — Billie Holiday

And when we pressed our heads to each other's hearts how did we not hear Carmen McRae singing? In Angela's fisted hands, Billie Holiday staggered past us and we didn't know her name. Nina Simone told us how beautiful we were and we didn't hear her voice. — Jacqueline Woodson

Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, Glenn Miller on Fridays, and Mozart on Sundays. Unless it was raining. If it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday. — Clare Vanderpool

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. — Billie Holiday

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know. — Billie Holiday

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. — Ahmet Ertegun

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words. — Billie Holiday

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday. — Billie Holiday

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music. — Billie Holiday

Was her whole life going to be like this now, avoiding certain songs or music that reminded her of her mistakes? Billie Holiday made her think of Eric Dalton; Iron & Wine was Jeremiah; and if things didn't work out with Kara, she'd never be able to listen to Bob Dylan again. By the time she reached her twenties, she'd be a huge, lumbering mass of musical baggage. — Cecily Von Ziegesar

I was a 12 year old kid in Northern Idaho listening to Billie Holiday and Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. This whole genre of music is a part of who I am. — Cheyenne Jackson

Yeah. My singing and my songs were very influenced by all of that. People would come up to me and ask, Is that a Billie Holiday song? I'd say, No, it's my song. The lyrics would be in my style, but the songs would be very jazzy. — Regina Spektor

I love oldies just kind of sweet, slinky, Fifties music. The slow stuff. And Billie Holiday. — Nastassja Kinski

What I loved with Billie Holiday is she had a good way of parlaying the sorrow with a positive musical twist. — Rebecca Ferguson

When I was around 19 years old, working in the college library, I was talking to a friend of mine and this older woman interrupted and said "You're too young to know about Billie Holiday." My response was "I'm too young to know about Shakespeare, too ... should I not read him? — Wanda Lea Brayton

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size. — Billie Holiday

My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday. — Etta James

John Coltrane was an addict; Billie Holiday was an addict; Eugene O'Neill was an addict. What would America be without addicts and post-addicts who make such grand contributions to our society? — Cornel West

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way. — Madeleine Peyroux

I really do love bluesy-jazzy music, so I love Etta James, B.B. King and Billie Holiday. I love that they have soul in their voices - I think that's something important is having. — Bridgit Mendler

The difficult I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while. — Billie Holiday

The beauty of Billie Holiday is that she gave every singer after her the license to interpret and perform music in ways that were unique to each of us. Her uniqueness was very much a part of the way she sang the songs, the story she wanted to tell through the songs. I didn't really have a full understanding of Billie until I left home
until I'd lived a little, shall we say. At different seasons of my life, when I'd sing her songs or listen to her albums, I'd hear things I didn't hear before. Wherever you are in life, you'll hear different things in her songs. — Dianne Reeves

I've made my own music, and the way I've always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there. — Evan Rachel Wood

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music. — Billie Holiday

What can we learn from women like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday that we may not be able to learn from Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell? If we were beginning to appreciate the blasphemies of fictionalized blues women - especially their outrageous politics of sexuality - and the knowledge that might be gleaned from their lives about the possibilities of transforming gender relations within black communities, perhaps we also could benefit from a look at the artistic contributions of the original blues women. — Angela Y. Davis