Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas


Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas

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Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald,

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Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and Nina Simone.

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Five queens of jazz who helped to forge

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the soundtrack of American life in the mid-20th century.

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Creatures of troubled times,

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but resplendent in their poise, virtuosity and musical truth,

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these women triumphed, often at great personal cost,

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both embodying and transcending their era.

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From the way they sounded to the way they looked,

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from the joy of seeing them to the pain of being them,

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this is the story of the jazz queen.

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These are images of the lost world that paved the way

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for the great jazz diva.

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America at the dawn of the 20th century.

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All of the great figures who invented jazz

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and the classic American songbook were born in the same period.

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They were all born in the 1890s, early 1900s.

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They grew up listening to the same thing,

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subject to the same social conditions,

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reading the same newspapers, hearing the same recordings.

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But even though they don't know each other

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and may not be thinking of themselves as one big group,

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they were all feeding off each other.

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Have we seen anybody like Ella or Sarah in the last 30 or 40?

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That's a long time, 30 or 40 years.

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They belong to their time.

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Their time was the mid-30s to the mid-60s.

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Three glorious decades

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that now seem as remote and romantic as the jazz diva herself.

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There is certainly something a bit exotic about them.

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And singing those beautiful songs,

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full of imaginary late-night hangs

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in speakeasies and telling these wonderful stories.

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It was a smoky place because people were smoking,

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not cos there was a smoke machine and there was a mist in the air

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because there was sweat and smoke together,

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and there was a grit and dirt about it and it was very cabaret.

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People still felt the need to believe in something bigger.

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And you strove, you had a reason to strive to be better.

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It was a golden era of songwriting, a golden era in great bands

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and it was a golden era of singers.

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# Love is just like a faucet

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# It turns off and on

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# Love is like a faucet

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# It turns off and on

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# Sometimes when you think it's on, baby

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# It has turned off and gone. #

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The jazz diva transcends ordinary life.

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She came into being during the golden age of Hollywood,

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which is why she looks like a movie star

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and why her demise coincided with the death of old Hollywood.

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But while she reigned supreme,

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her looks could be as mesmerising as her voice.

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It was all about mystery,

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and I think mystery is one of the most beautiful things

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to feed people's imaginations.

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That whole glamour thing that happened,

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it happened from ordinary women up,

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so if you were in showbusiness and you had photographers,

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you had that beautiful lighting and black-and-white

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and all of the paraphernalia that goes with presentation.

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They look magnificent, they're overly made up,

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their hair is in a bouffant, six inches above their heads.

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They're wearing these sleek, satiny gowns or beaded things.

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And they're beyond gorgeous.

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They're very human, very real.

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Approachable. Touchable.

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Yet...

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..better than we are. That's just it.

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Nina Simone, she was like a goddess floating through.

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Literally, at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam,

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she seemed to float up the stairs.

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She had this gown on,

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she looked like the empress from another planet,

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like from a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon movie.

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The elegance, the surreality of it all,

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and the down-to-earthiness of it all, that was unique.

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And that was Nina Simone.

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The talented female jazz singer wasn't always in control of the way she looked.

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Sarah Vaughan's early image as just one of the band

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was radically changed by her label, Columbia Records,

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on her way to individual diva stardom.

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They're the ones who changed her teeth. They changed her hairline.

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They're the ones who taught her how to be gowned,

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they're the ones who put her in the spotlight

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and told her how to stop being the gawky New Jersey girl

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who won the Monday night competition at the Apollo.

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And to be a diva.

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# My heart's in a dither, dear

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# When you're at a distance

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# But when you are near

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# Oh, my... #

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But some jazz queens succeeded in creating their own look from the ground up.

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Peggy Lee's image as a cool, white,

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sexy screen goddess with a voice was entirely of her own making.

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She ended up designing her own gowns, and she knew her figure,

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she knew what she wanted to look like on stage.

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She had a strong idea of who she wanted to be,

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who she wanted this persona of Peggy Lee to be.

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And she didn't want somebody else to dictate that to her.

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# Sitting down, wondering what it's all about

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# You ain't got no money, they will put you out

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# Why don't you do right, man, like some other men do?

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# Get out of here and get me some money too. #

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Behind the glamour of the jazz diva often lurks the potent mythology

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of a troubled childhood scarred by all kinds of deprivations, hardships and abuse.

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It's a sort of cliche now, isn't it?

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You know, that, "Well, they had early struggles

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"and bad times and it gives depth to what you do," and yet...

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I suppose, in a way it does.

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Billie Holiday had a dreadful childhood.

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Abused, she was in an orphanage,

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she was farmed out to a madam to clean, I mean,

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the worst things happen to Billie Holiday as a child.

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And people say, "Ah", you know?

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You can't listen to Piaf and not know her early life.

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You can't listen to Billie Holiday, particularly when she's older

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and frailer and absolutely not in the space,

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without knowing that she's a drug addict.

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You can't do that, you can't separate the information.

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# Hush now, don't explain

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# You're my joy and pain

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# My life's yours, love

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# Don't explain. #

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There's a part of me that says, you know,

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the personal lives of the artists,

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I mean, for all we know, Brahms may have had a sour stomach.

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But Billie Holiday, we tend to read into it.

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But I think that she was such a great artist that her stuff transcended it.

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Thousands of people had horrible childhoods

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and they weren't Billie Holiday.

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They created what they did in spite of it all, not because of it.

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Some come from hard backgrounds, of course, but not all of them did.

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Sarah Vaughan had a quite nice, middle-class upbringing,

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and wasn't too up against it, like, say, Ella Fitzgerald was.

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Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were born around the same time.

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They both had very horrible, horrible childhoods.

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What I don't hear in Ella's voice,

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that was very present in Billie's voice, is the pain.

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Ella suffered but somehow that did not translate in her delivery.

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# My fur coat's so low Lord, ain't it cold?

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# But I'm not going to holler cos I still got a dollar

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# And when I get low oh-oh-oh-oh, I get high. #

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Ella Fitzgerald had a very tough start.

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Her mother died very young, she was in an orphanage,

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she was running the numbers for the Mafia,

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she ended up in some very, very dodgy situations.

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So you don't always have to parade your neurotic,

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awful behaviour and this terrible life you've had.

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# Love for sale

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# If you want the thrill of love

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# I've been through the mill of love. #

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Once Ella gets close to tragedy, to the dark side of Billie,

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for instance, it doesn't sound right.

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She's acting.

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But it's cheerful. Cheerfulness keeps breaking through with her.

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# A-tisket

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# A-tasket

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# I lost my yellow basket

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# Won't someone help me find my bask

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# And make me happy again, again?

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-# Was it red?

-No, no, no, no

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# Was it green?

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# No, no, just a little yellow basket

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# My little yellow basket. #

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The shiny, white carapace that was the glamorous facade

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of Miss Peggy Lee reflected nothing of a childhood

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spent at the mercy of a cruel stepmother

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and an uncaring, alcoholic father.

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That's how she got through her childhood, I believe, through music

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and writing songs in her head and singing.

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She didn't want to talk about her problems on stage,

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but definitely all of that was there with her when she sang.

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It couldn't not be.

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For all of those women, the important thing was the music.

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They were in it for the music. It was the thing that saved them.

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They're trying to solve a problem.

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They're trying to fix something and they're grasping at straws,

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and sometimes they must feel like they're falling

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and they can't grab onto something

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that will hold them together and this is the nearest thing.

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The effect of years of unhappiness...

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..and not having love...

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..and not knowing that you really are worth something -

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it's very difficult to instil that in someone who doesn't feel that.

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Annie Ross knew about childhood unhappiness.

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She arrived on an immigrant ship from Scotland to New York in 1934

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only to be left there by her parents in the care of an aunt,

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the singer, Ella Logan.

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Only four years old at the time, Ross was a precocious talent

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destined not only to discover the work of the great American jazz divas

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but also to be a fellow traveller on the jazz highway.

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The first time I heard Billie Holiday,

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the first time I heard Sarah Vaughan, the first time

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I heard Ella Fitzgerald, it's such a blissful thing to know

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that you're young and you've got to listen to all these people.

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It's breathtaking.

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# Those that have shall get

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# Those that don't shall lose

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# So the Bible says

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# And it still is news. #

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I hated being a child.

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I hated my childhood. I never wanted to be a child.

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I wanted to be grown and free.

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# But God bless the child that's got his own

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# That's got his own. #

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Singing was part of me...

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..and it was the one treasure I had.

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If singing offered a way out of a bad situation

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for a girl with a voice,

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her best escape route in the '30s and '40s was to join a band,

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most of which were comprised entirely of men.

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She might be hired just to be looked at,

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to be what the band often called "the canary".

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# We keep spending all our time in beauty parlours. #

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They were definitely a flower, you know, cos people

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maybe get tired of just hearing "Da-doop-da-da,

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"da-doop-da-da," hour after hour, blah-blah-blah.

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Finally, a singer coming out, she's wearing...she's dressed lovely.

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Most of these singers were not of the musical level or experience

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of the musicians in the band,

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so I don't think that they cared very much about them.

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They were a cutie-pie, a guy or girl, they were cute

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and the young people came to see them and they sang the song and they got off.

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I think the band always was a little bit snooty, ha-ha!

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You know, the chick singer was a big joke.

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The difference was when a Billie Holiday or an Ella Fitzgerald

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or a Sarah Vaughan, even at the earliest stages

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were on that bandstand, I think it became very clear to the musicians

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that they were dealing with at the very least a peer,

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and for probably many of the musicians, somebody who was superior to them.

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Ella Fitzgerald, you know, initially people didn't want to hire her

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because she was overweight and they didn't think she was pretty enough.

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She really didn't look that great. Smelt a bit.

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Her first frock was a whip-round from the band.

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They said, "We can't have her, look at her, look at her."

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And Chick Webb heard her and said, "Yes, but she can sing.

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"We can fix the look, we can fix the look but we've got to have her."

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The queens of jazz began their careers with busy swing bands

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under the control and leadership of famous bandleaders

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such as Benny Goodman, Chick Webb,

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Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

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This meant spending months and months touring on the bus.

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18 guys in the band and a girl singer.

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There's 200 one-nighters in a row, some of them,

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and it was a constant 300-mile trip every night.

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Ella Fitzgerald was the life of the party.

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She was the only girl on the bus,

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with a big orchestra-sized bus travelling around,

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whether it was early Chick Webb when she was 16 or Duke Ellington

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later on and those guys were working every day, sleeping sitting up.

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How did they present themselves night after night as a figure of glamour?

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What kind of mental strength and backbone did it take

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just to get out of bed and look nice after eight hours on a bus

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without being able to eat or use the bathroom on the way,

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and then in a crummy backstage dressing room,

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if there was a dressing room, probably just the back seat of a bus,

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apply the make-up, put on the gown

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and go and satisfy what these people who came to hear the band

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wanted to see, as the figure of glamour, of sex, of femininity.

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It certainly was difficult but, you know, you're young,

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so riding on a bus with all these guys was great.

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You know, the really hip guys sat in the back.

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And I found love there.

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Love wasn't the obvious thing to find on a bus full of male

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musicians, running on a tank full of testosterone, bound for jazz glory.

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Some girls had reputations, I suppose, you know,

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she might have done the saxophones first and then the trumpets!

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Oh, no, start with the rhythm section, wouldn't you say? Yes.

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If you want a good beat behind your singing!

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Ha-ha! That was tough, tough on the girl!

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18 guys taking a shot at her all the time.

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There were guys, sure, I was young, you know?

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It was quite a combination of music and love.

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It was a fascinating world. I loved it to bits.

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But the fascinating world, tin-canned by the tour bus,

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would, sooner or later, have to disembark

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in those parts of the country where skin colour mattered

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much more than musicianship.

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There were still, you know, black toilets, black restaurants.

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You couldn't go into the white ones. It was kind of embarrassing.

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Going to towns where you went in through the kitchen

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and people spat at you in the street.

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If you were a black woman, your life was untenable in the South

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and if you were a white woman,

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people thought you were a slut and a whore.

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What was it like being a black woman

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and singing to all these white guys in the audience that,

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you know, were noisy and rowdy and disrespectful, how did you do that?

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They had a sense of expression

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and a family within the musicians that they worked with.

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They did have their art as a kind of salve,

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a kind of bond to heal over it for a time.

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If being part of a big band offered the black female jazz singer

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comfort and protection in a white, male world,

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it was also where she learnt about how to be a musician herself.

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Ella Fitzgerald, being on the bandstand with Chick Webb every night,

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can you imagine what she learned about rhythm from him?

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Billie Holiday, for one year, night after night,

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with the Count Basie Orchestra.

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# Them that's got shall have

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# Them that's not shall lose. #

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Night after night, hearing that, and also them hearing her.

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# Mama may have

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# Papa may have

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# But God bless the child that's got his own

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# That's got his own. #

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When you sing with a big band

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and you learn the discipline that goes on in the big band,

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you're special.

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# You're mean to me. #

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They weren't in charge of their repertoire.

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The arranger said, "I think we'll do this", or the bandleader said, "Why don't we do that?"

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And so, in a sense, they had this quite demanding apprenticeship.

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Someone like Peggy Lee, when she got with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941,

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she wasn't the Peggy Lee of five or six years later.

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There was time for her to mature.

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When you work with Benny Goodman, if you keep your mouth shut,

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and watch what's going on, that's a college education -

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it is four years of college with Benny.

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And that is what she got.

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# You had plenty money, 1922

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# You let other women Make a fool of you

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# Why don't you do right? #

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She was just a member of the band.

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She was one of the instruments

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and she needed to fit in and conform and please Benny.

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# And get me some money too... #

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Benny said, "Don't do that, don't do that."

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HE LAUGHS

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That's the way to do it. He's the boss.

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But the power of the big band bosses didn't survive World War II.

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Nor did the bands themselves -

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their personnel decimated by military service, the rebuilding of life

0:23:200:23:24

after the war, the expense of big band touring and union trouble.

0:23:240:23:28

While the men were at war, a new kind of women had slipped

0:23:330:23:36

out of the kitchen and into popular entertainment -

0:23:360:23:39

a woman of dubious virtue,

0:23:390:23:41

with a troubled past and an uncertain future.

0:23:410:23:44

Resourceful, independent, even dangerous. A femme fatale.

0:23:440:23:49

Meanwhile, the hippest sidewalks now marched to the tune of a new

0:23:510:23:55

kind of jazz called bebop. Modern jazz for a modern age.

0:23:550:23:59

Perfect for a new kind of modern musical woman. The jazz diva.

0:23:590:24:04

After World War II, when the bands died, the singers were liberated

0:24:040:24:07

and the really good ones had a glorious decade in the '50s and early...middle '60s.

0:24:070:24:12

They were all signed to major labels,

0:24:140:24:16

they recorded with luxurious orchestras and string ensembles.

0:24:160:24:21

They were backed up by radio.

0:24:210:24:24

There were jazz clubs around the country.

0:24:250:24:29

And there were the record companies themselves,

0:24:290:24:31

that knew how to publicise them.

0:24:310:24:33

The jazz diva's time had come.

0:24:360:24:39

Like a film noir heroine, she took centre stage,

0:24:390:24:42

this time in a smaller group of musicians

0:24:420:24:45

playing more complex music for audiences to listen to,

0:24:450:24:49

no longer surrounded by 20 guys in a big band

0:24:490:24:51

whose main job was to get people dancing.

0:24:510:24:54

Now she was the focus of attention.

0:24:540:24:57

With Ella, what musicians listen for is the sheer perfection.

0:24:570:25:02

First of all, the instrument, her diction, and her phrasing.

0:25:020:25:10

# Heaven

0:25:100:25:12

# I'm in heaven

0:25:120:25:18

# And my heart beats so That I can hardly speak... #

0:25:190:25:26

Ella's music came out so perfect, it would be the

0:25:260:25:30

envy of any composer to be able to write the things that she sang.

0:25:300:25:35

# Say, hey, hey, hey The bo-o-o-o-o-oy

0:25:350:25:39

# From Ipanema

0:25:390:25:41

# Say the boy from Ipanema

0:25:410:25:44

# Say the boy from Ipanema, Ipanema Yes, the boy from Ipanema. #

0:25:440:25:51

They say that when she first joined Chick Webb's band, she would come on

0:25:510:25:55

and she was, completely sort of blank.

0:25:550:25:57

She would stand there and the music would start

0:25:570:25:59

and she would suddenly come to life.

0:25:590:26:02

And as long as the music was playing, she was animated and moving about, she was smiling and waving.

0:26:060:26:11

And the music stopped, and she stopped.

0:26:110:26:13

The great jazz divas were able to steal

0:26:200:26:22

the limelight by virtue of their own very special and private instrument,

0:26:220:26:27

one that they played inside their own flesh - their voice.

0:26:270:26:32

Singing is the most intimate form of music making.

0:26:320:26:35

Every other musician on the stage has a filter between himself

0:26:370:26:41

and the audience and that is the instrument, but the singer is naked.

0:26:410:26:47

It is all about her insights, her diaphragm, her vocal chords.

0:26:490:26:53

It is different from every other instrument because of that.

0:26:530:26:56

It's inside you. Every part of you goes to making that sound.

0:26:560:27:01

The jazz diva is born with her instrument. It is uniquely hers.

0:27:050:27:10

They had a good sense of how to make themselves individuals.

0:27:120:27:16

And that was something that no-one could really take from them

0:27:160:27:20

-and that was where their power was.

-They were copying no-one else.

0:27:200:27:25

They were the beginning.

0:27:250:27:27

Ella Fitzgerald says that she loved Connie Boswell

0:27:270:27:29

and wanted to sound like her. They had people... I'm sure

0:27:290:27:33

Betty Smith and the other blues singers from before their days

0:27:330:27:36

would have influenced them, but they were trailblazers.

0:27:360:27:38

And no-one could blaze a vocal trail like Billie holiday.

0:27:400:27:44

# Treat me right, baby And I will stay home every day

0:27:440:27:51

# Just treat me right, baby. #

0:27:570:28:00

You cannot teach someone to sound like Billie Holiday.

0:28:000:28:06

I don't know.

0:28:060:28:09

Billie, Billie, Billie!

0:28:090:28:11

What have you done? I don't know, it's just so free and natural

0:28:110:28:16

and does she care if she was drunk? No. To imitate her would be folly.

0:28:160:28:22

You couldn't stop her and say, "You shouldn't do it like that."

0:28:240:28:27

It was too subtle, too cute.

0:28:270:28:29

Everything has a sheen, a perfection,

0:28:310:28:34

-and it seemed so carefree and so lazy.

-Her tuning was impeccable.

0:28:340:28:40

She was off her tits most of the time, and her tuning was bang on.

0:28:400:28:46

You hear her life and you hear her truth

0:28:460:28:50

and I think a lot of people throw out cliches like that.

0:28:500:28:53

But it is true. Truth is what you hear.

0:28:530:28:56

With Billie Holiday, you begin with the strange fact that she

0:28:560:29:00

only has a range of about 12 to 15 notes.

0:29:000:29:03

If you were to look at what she sings written down

0:29:030:29:05

and then look at the song copy, the song copy the notes go up and down

0:29:050:29:08

like this... Billie just goes like this.

0:29:080:29:10

It is the opposite of Sarah Vaughan.

0:29:100:29:13

Sarah Vaughan could have probably have done opera if she had been born in a different world.

0:29:130:29:18

I heard her singing Bali Hai on an opera version of the musical

0:29:180:29:22

South Pacific, with Kiri Te Kanawa.

0:29:220:29:26

Sarah's voice is as pure and powerful as beautiful as Kiri's soprano.

0:29:260:29:30

# Sweet and clear as can be

0:29:300:29:38

# Come to me

0:29:400:29:43

# Here am I

0:29:430:29:46

# Come to me

0:29:460:29:53

# If you try You will find me

0:29:530:30:00

# Where the sky meets the sea

0:30:000:30:05

# Here am I your special island... #

0:30:050:30:10

I wanted to be her manager.

0:30:100:30:12

# Come to me... #

0:30:120:30:14

But Sarah was of

0:30:140:30:15

the school that her manager had to be her guy, you know.

0:30:150:30:20

And that was her school.

0:30:200:30:22

She always felt that way.

0:30:220:30:24

And she never found the right guy.

0:30:240:30:25

I was not interested in being Sassy's guy.

0:30:250:30:30

I respected her as an artist, I thought she was a beautiful woman,

0:30:300:30:34

but that wasn't what I wanted,

0:30:340:30:36

and so that didn't work.

0:30:360:30:39

Sarah was a great artist who also understood modern jazz,

0:30:410:30:45

also understood modern harmonies,

0:30:450:30:47

because she came up through

0:30:470:30:49

the Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie era.

0:30:490:30:52

She was THEIR singer.

0:30:520:30:53

# I don't know why, but I'm feelin' so sad

0:30:540:31:01

# I long to try... #

0:31:010:31:04

Just about the first record she made

0:31:040:31:06

had Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker on it,

0:31:060:31:08

and it was a bebop record.

0:31:080:31:09

And in the late '40s, she's singing the sort of thing

0:31:090:31:14

that most instrumentalists couldn't get at, let alone singers.

0:31:140:31:18

And she never, ever put a foot wrong.

0:31:180:31:19

The jazz divas were able to sing

0:31:220:31:24

in a way best suited to their individual range and personality

0:31:240:31:28

because of technical advances in microphone technology.

0:31:280:31:32

As these sculptural devices became more sensitive,

0:31:320:31:36

so the jazz voice could become more detailed and powerful

0:31:360:31:40

or more conversational and minimal.

0:31:400:31:43

Someone like Billie, who came up in the age of the microphone,

0:31:430:31:48

couldn't belt out loudly.

0:31:480:31:51

But they could...

0:31:510:31:52

they could bring it down to like what Marlon Brando did later, which

0:31:520:31:56

is just to that, you know, that essence of the slightest movement.

0:31:560:31:59

No jazz diva embraced the microphone age

0:32:010:32:03

more than Peggy Lee whose solo career motto was,

0:32:030:32:07

"Softly, with feeling,"

0:32:070:32:09

which she coupled with method-actor minimalism.

0:32:090:32:12

APPLAUSE

0:32:120:32:15

# Never know how much I love you

0:32:150:32:18

# Never know how much I care

0:32:180:32:21

# When you put your arms around me

0:32:210:32:23

# I get a fever that's so hard to bear

0:32:230:32:26

# You give me fever... #

0:32:260:32:28

She kind of toned it down and made it almost conversational

0:32:290:32:33

and made these rowdy clubs that she sang in come to her.

0:32:330:32:37

She's almost purring at you, isn't she?

0:32:370:32:40

And the sound is so intimate.

0:32:400:32:43

# Fever, in the morning

0:32:430:32:46

# Fever all through the night... #

0:32:460:32:49

Stillness. And...

0:32:490:32:52

she's just, like...like that.

0:32:520:32:55

And her hands, she's like, still.

0:32:550:32:57

# You give me fever

0:32:570:32:59

# When you kiss me

0:33:010:33:02

# Fever when you hold me tight

0:33:020:33:05

# Fever... #

0:33:050:33:07

Just two pieces. Bass and drums.

0:33:070:33:10

# Fever, ba-dum! #

0:33:100:33:11

That was her arrangement, you know.

0:33:130:33:15

She would whisper when she sang,

0:33:170:33:19

and she sang beautiful, slow tempos

0:33:190:33:21

and she sold the lyrics.

0:33:210:33:23

And she made you believe it.

0:33:230:33:25

Peggy Lee believed that every song was a little story that had to

0:33:300:33:34

be acted out and stage-produced.

0:33:340:33:37

The person she chose to do this was Miss Peggy Lee,

0:33:370:33:41

a persona she constructed right down to the last detail.

0:33:410:33:46

We would go into the dressing room

0:33:460:33:48

and she would start her transformation with make-up,

0:33:480:33:51

with hair, with the costume,

0:33:510:33:54

and I would watch this person,

0:33:540:33:56

my grandmother,

0:33:560:33:58

become Miss Peggy Lee, the star.

0:33:580:34:00

And then I would run around,

0:34:000:34:02

go out on...into the theatre,

0:34:020:34:04

and watch her, and it was amazing.

0:34:040:34:08

I have to say, it was amazing for me.

0:34:110:34:14

And then she'd come off stage,

0:34:140:34:16

and she would just be high.

0:34:160:34:18

And then she'd say, "Oh, I'm just famished,"

0:34:210:34:24

and we would go to McDonald's

0:34:240:34:26

or Carl's Jr or something. Wendy's.

0:34:260:34:29

But Peggy Lee was white.

0:34:330:34:36

Popping out for a bite to eat after the show hadn't always been an option

0:34:360:34:40

for those singers who were black, however famous they were.

0:34:400:34:44

Racism was still at the very dark heart of jazz in America in the '60s.

0:34:440:34:50

The struggles for African-American female singers were doubly daunting.

0:34:500:34:54

Well, they are queens.

0:34:570:35:00

I mean, they're royalty in American culture,

0:35:000:35:03

but they're royalty

0:35:030:35:06

during a fractious time in society,

0:35:060:35:10

before desegregation in America.

0:35:100:35:13

To be a black woman in America before the civil rights movement,

0:35:160:35:19

and even during the civil rights movement, is...

0:35:190:35:21

has got to be something that's unimaginable today.

0:35:210:35:24

They'd be people that would be worshipped around the world

0:35:240:35:29

and couldn't go into a restaurant in America.

0:35:290:35:32

This created tremendous psychological problems.

0:35:320:35:36

These ladies experienced that, even though they are divas.

0:35:380:35:41

They could be well-known, selling, you know, tens of thousands

0:35:410:35:45

of records, and they're going to have these moments every day.

0:35:450:35:48

And if there's trouble in the land...

0:35:480:35:50

..then you gotta sing about it. You've got to.

0:35:520:35:55

And that's what these women did.

0:35:550:35:57

# Southern trees

0:36:020:36:05

# Bear strange fruit

0:36:060:36:11

# Blood on the leaves

0:36:140:36:17

# And blood at the root... #

0:36:190:36:22

Those singers can deliver performances

0:36:220:36:26

that reach a level of emotional uneasiness

0:36:260:36:31

for the audience that is profound.

0:36:310:36:33

# Black bodies swingin'

0:36:330:36:36

# In the Southern breeze

0:36:380:36:40

# Strange fruit hangin'

0:36:420:36:45

# From the poplar trees. #

0:36:460:36:51

Protest music. Jazz has always been protest music,

0:36:510:36:54

and it's supposed to be.

0:36:540:36:56

Sometimes, when we listen to Ella Fitzgerald,

0:36:590:37:02

we hear her sunny disposition.

0:37:020:37:04

# Oooh... #

0:37:040:37:07

We think that we're not hearing

0:37:070:37:08

so much of a reflection of the tough times of the eras

0:37:080:37:12

when we hear someone like Billie Holiday, but I think if we take

0:37:120:37:14

a step back and think, "What did it take for Ella to present that face?"

0:37:140:37:19

I think, with all these iconic figures we're talking about,

0:37:210:37:24

whether it's Billie, Sarah, Ella, all those great

0:37:240:37:26

African-American women who were trailblazers,

0:37:260:37:30

anything and everything that we saw of them on the stage spoke

0:37:300:37:33

to their condition of the time.

0:37:330:37:34

This is either by omission,

0:37:340:37:37

or you have to dig deeper underneath the surface to see these things.

0:37:370:37:42

The youngest of our jazz queens found omission impossible.

0:37:430:37:47

You don't need to dig very far beneath the surface of Nina Simone's

0:37:470:37:50

music to find the racial indignation of the last of the great jazz divas.

0:37:500:37:55

# I don't belong here I don't belong there

0:37:550:37:59

# I've even stopped believing in prayer

0:37:590:38:02

# Almost but not quite... #

0:38:020:38:06

She took the race issue on in that she actually became involved

0:38:060:38:11

with the whole civil rights movement.

0:38:110:38:13

She took it on at a very different level.

0:38:130:38:16

# Well, that's just the trouble

0:38:160:38:18

# Do it slow

0:38:180:38:19

# Desegregation

0:38:190:38:21

# Do it slow

0:38:210:38:22

# Mass participation

0:38:220:38:24

# Do it slow

0:38:240:38:25

# Unification

0:38:250:38:27

# Do it slow

0:38:270:38:28

# Do things gradually

0:38:280:38:31

# Do it slow

0:38:310:38:32

# But bring more tragedy

0:38:320:38:34

# Do it slow

0:38:340:38:35

# Why don't you see it? Why don't you feel it?

0:38:350:38:37

# I don't know, I don't know... #

0:38:370:38:42

There was a woman who had enough balls to talk about the things

0:38:420:38:45

that nobody wanted to talk about and do it in a way that it wasn't

0:38:450:38:47

entertainment tonight and it wasn't television, it was real,

0:38:470:38:50

and it was significant.

0:38:500:38:52

# You don't have to live next to me, love

0:38:520:38:55

# Just give me my equality, love

0:38:550:38:58

# Everybody knows about Mississippi

0:38:580:39:01

# Everybody knows about Alabama

0:39:010:39:05

# Everybody knows about Mississippi

0:39:050:39:08

# Goddam. #

0:39:080:39:13

Here's somebody with a great talent and a great genius

0:39:140:39:17

and a great composing genius,

0:39:170:39:18

who took a social stand to the detriment of her pop career.

0:39:180:39:24

She was being moulded to be like Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald.

0:39:240:39:29

There was a song she sang after the death of Martin Luther King.

0:39:310:39:37

There was...such disgust in her voice, she gets to this lyric,

0:39:390:39:46

"He was not a violent man."

0:39:460:39:48

-SOFTLY:

-# He was not a violent man... #

0:39:490:39:53

Now, she could sing it that way. But she sang it...

0:39:530:39:58

# He was not

0:39:580:39:59

# A vi-i-i-i-olent man... #

0:39:590:40:02

She just...she just squalls all the juice she possibly could.

0:40:020:40:07

# He was not a vi-i-i-olent man

0:40:070:40:12

# Tell me, folks, if you can

0:40:140:40:17

# Just why

0:40:200:40:22

# Why was he shot down the other day? #

0:40:220:40:27

The voice is sometimes not beautiful.

0:40:280:40:31

She is not easy to listen to sometimes, sometimes she is

0:40:310:40:34

so in the space of whatever it is she is telling you, that there is no

0:40:340:40:39

distance between the information and you, and it rips your heart out.

0:40:390:40:44

# And did Martin Luther King

0:40:440:40:47

# Just die

0:40:470:40:49

# In vain? #

0:40:490:40:52

Nina Simone didn't have a choice.

0:40:540:40:56

Ella Fitzgerald didn't have a choice.

0:40:560:40:58

They do what they do, so when one tries to figure out, "Did they trade

0:40:590:41:04

"this off at the expense of that?" They didn't have a choice.

0:41:040:41:08

Nina Simone's voice wouldn't work, her brain wouldn't work,

0:41:090:41:13

her heart wouldn't beat,

0:41:130:41:14

if she wasn't going to sing Mississippi Goddam.

0:41:140:41:17

I choose Nina over all of them because she was crazy enough

0:41:170:41:20

to do it, and she was sane enough to make it sound right.

0:41:200:41:23

She was also the kind of woman who, apparently she put

0:41:230:41:25

a man at gunpoint to return a pair of shoes, which is pretty crazy.

0:41:250:41:29

I like that story.

0:41:290:41:30

She was proud, but the jazz diva proved that love has no pride.

0:41:360:41:40

Although she transcended her time, she seemed to be its victim

0:41:410:41:45

when it came to romance.

0:41:450:41:47

Behind all the poise was the pain of man trouble, which she

0:41:520:41:56

endured like a sacrificial heroine for those audiences

0:41:560:42:00

that preferred their jazz divas coloured blue.

0:42:000:42:03

Billie Holiday was a masochist.

0:42:050:42:07

Literally, a masochist, from what I understand.

0:42:070:42:10

She chose bad husbands, she chose bad lovers, my next-door neighbour,

0:42:100:42:14

the late Billy Taylor, told me a story of seeing her

0:42:140:42:17

beat up once by her manager husband in a club in front of other people.

0:42:170:42:21

Even though she has always been reported to be at the very

0:42:220:42:26

least bisexual, if not often gay, she loved men,

0:42:260:42:30

she liked having a man in her life.

0:42:300:42:33

And she chose the worst possible man, I mean,

0:42:330:42:36

she just chose one thug after another.

0:42:360:42:39

Sarah Vaughan, whom I knew quite well, did not do a lot better.

0:42:410:42:45

She just seemed to choose men who would exploit her.

0:42:450:42:49

I'm going to say something that will make a lot of women very unhappy.

0:42:500:42:54

But all those singers, every one of them, needed a man.

0:42:560:42:59

They needed a man behind them.

0:43:010:43:02

You need that support, and for a man to take that time to give you

0:43:040:43:08

that support means he doesn't have his own life.

0:43:080:43:11

They were taken advantage of.

0:43:130:43:15

They all ran into problems because these guys looked upon them

0:43:160:43:20

as meal tickets, and they needed that.

0:43:200:43:24

I don't know why, but philosophically,

0:43:250:43:28

psychologically, they needed that.

0:43:280:43:31

What is interesting about all of them

0:43:310:43:33

is the number of times they all get married.

0:43:330:43:36

You know, there is a big thing going on with marrying a lot.

0:43:360:43:40

I think that is partly because that is protection, there is

0:43:400:43:43

a lot of marrying your musicians.

0:43:430:43:47

Peggy Lee's first marriage was to Benny Goodman's guitarist,

0:43:470:43:50

Dave Barbour. They had a child.

0:43:500:43:53

But that turned out to be only the first of four marriages

0:43:530:43:56

for Peggy, who was likely to greet a husband with

0:43:560:43:59

the unwelcome news that dinner was not ready, but the song was.

0:43:590:44:04

She really did want that white picket fence,

0:44:060:44:09

that dream of everlasting love, a family, she really wanted that.

0:44:090:44:17

# Some day

0:44:170:44:20

# We'll build a home on a hilltop high

0:44:200:44:25

# You and I... #

0:44:270:44:29

She wanted that dream of the folks who live on the hill,

0:44:290:44:32

that song was her favourite song, and it's not surprising,

0:44:320:44:35

it's just about this love that grows old together and stays together.

0:44:350:44:42

# And we'll be pleased to be called

0:44:420:44:48

# The folks who live on the hill. #

0:44:490:44:55

DOG BARKS

0:44:550:44:57

That, unfortunately, is not what she got.

0:44:570:45:00

But what she did get was this unbelievable career.

0:45:000:45:06

So the choice, life or art, isn't straightforward

0:45:070:45:11

because what you get from art is life.

0:45:110:45:16

Meanwhile, Billie Holiday made private disappointments

0:45:200:45:23

the very subject of increasingly painful public performances

0:45:230:45:27

in the unflinching glare of the spotlight.

0:45:270:45:31

# But I love him

0:45:310:45:33

# I don't know why I should

0:45:360:45:40

# He isn't true

0:45:420:45:45

# He beats me too

0:45:480:45:51

# What can I do?

0:45:550:45:59

I do sing it and I always preface it with saying,

0:46:020:46:05

"Well, it's of its time, you know." It's still a great song.

0:46:050:46:09

# He'll never know

0:46:090:46:11

# How my life is just despair... #

0:46:120:46:16

And you know, "sometimes he beats me" is in the lyric.

0:46:160:46:20

And, "I don't know why I should, he isn't good.

0:46:200:46:23

"He isn't true, he beats me too, but what can I do?

0:46:230:46:26

"Oh, my man, I love him so."

0:46:260:46:28

You think...

0:46:280:46:29

SHE EXHALES

0:46:290:46:30

# What's the difference if I say...? #

0:46:300:46:34

I always imagine outside the spotlight, the circle of rather

0:46:340:46:38

blank-faced, mild-looking men rather interested by this,

0:46:380:46:43

and the women, I think, just think, "Thank God it's not me."

0:46:430:46:48

# For whatever my man is

0:46:480:46:51

# I'm his. #

0:46:530:46:57

The question is, what were people...

0:46:570:46:59

what was the attraction for people?

0:46:590:47:02

Schadenfreude is one of the more disturbing aspects of the human condition,

0:47:020:47:08

that we get pleasure out of pain, other people's pain.

0:47:080:47:13

They're singing the songs, the emotions,

0:47:130:47:18

and sometimes the solutions to life's problems.

0:47:180:47:23

They're sometimes solving it, the question,

0:47:230:47:29

solving the problem for people.

0:47:290:47:31

One person has a hard time and the other person in the audience

0:47:310:47:34

listens to it and hears those words, like,

0:47:340:47:37

Ray Charles, Hard Times, man.

0:47:370:47:38

# My mother told me Before she passed away

0:47:380:47:42

# Said darling when I'm gone Don't forget to pray

0:47:420:47:46

# Cos there'll be hard times Hard times

0:47:460:47:51

# Who knows better than I? #

0:47:510:47:53

You know, when he says that, I listen to that and I go, "Man!"

0:47:530:47:56

Well, I soon found out just what she meant,

0:47:560:47:58

had to sell all my clothes just to pay the rent.

0:47:580:48:01

I did that eight times in my life.

0:48:010:48:03

Man, when someone writes a lyric that is real, everybody understands.

0:48:030:48:09

I mean, it sounds like you're talking about the Greek Furies

0:48:110:48:14

all of a sudden and we're going back to the whole problem

0:48:140:48:17

of catharsis, you know, that we all need that.

0:48:170:48:21

We need to believe in these stories

0:48:210:48:25

in order to purge the pain from our own lives.

0:48:250:48:30

Another way to purge the pain from your life was to develop

0:48:340:48:38

a keen appetite for all kinds of drugs -

0:48:380:48:41

jazz's default setting in the bad old days.

0:48:410:48:45

I think singers in the '50s would be stumbling upon all sorts

0:48:450:48:49

of stuff going on, you know, heroin was rife, cocaine,

0:48:490:48:53

you know, everybody was smoking reefers, everybody.

0:48:530:48:57

I think you'd have to dodge it to come out unscathed, you know.

0:48:570:49:02

In the '30s and '40s, and I've interviewed a lot of musicians on this,

0:49:040:49:08

the idea that heroin was suicide was not genuinely known.

0:49:080:49:12

It really wasn't.

0:49:120:49:13

People thought that they could take it and if they exercised a lot

0:49:130:49:17

and ate well, that it was less dangerous than alcohol.

0:49:170:49:21

'It's one extreme to the other.'

0:49:240:49:26

You're either really busy or not have anything to do whatsoever,

0:49:260:49:30

you're teetotal or you're getting drunk all the time.

0:49:300:49:34

Loads of different things, it's all...

0:49:360:49:39

There's one extreme to the other in most musicians' lives.

0:49:390:49:43

As with everything else in the world of the jazz diva, Billie Holiday

0:49:460:49:50

fulfilled the role of drug addict better than any other jazz queen,

0:49:500:49:54

with fellow heroin user Annie Ross

0:49:540:49:57

sometimes on hand to take care of her.

0:49:570:50:00

When she was really bad...

0:50:000:50:02

..and when she wasn't, I would go up to her little apartment.

0:50:040:50:08

I remember I even gave her a bath because she said, "I'm too weak,"

0:50:100:50:15

I said, "I'll do it," and I would sit by the bed, so that as she smoked,

0:50:150:50:22

she wouldn't burn the place up,

0:50:220:50:25

and she would watch cartoons. She loved cartoons.

0:50:250:50:30

And I was happy to do it. I mean, this was my idol.

0:50:320:50:37

Did Billie need to be on drugs? Did Lester Young need to be on drugs?

0:50:380:50:43

Did Charlie Parker need to be on drugs?

0:50:430:50:46

You know...maybe they did.

0:50:480:50:51

Maybe they did. Maybe that was part.

0:50:530:50:56

And...all I know is they could play a song and make you cry.

0:50:570:51:03

Thank you. And now I'd like to do a little tune,

0:51:050:51:08

entitled Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone.

0:51:080:51:12

The last time I saw Billie live, her voice was light and...

0:51:200:51:26

"Ooooh, what a little moonlight can do to you"

0:51:260:51:29

and you know, lovable, huggable Emily Brown,

0:51:290:51:32

Miss Brown, she was singing all those songs.

0:51:320:51:34

# Please don't talk about me when I'm gone

0:51:340:51:37

# Though our friendship ceases from now on... #

0:51:400:51:45

I says, "Lady, you sound better than I've ever heard you,"

0:51:470:51:50

and she says, "I'm straight now, George, I'm straight."

0:51:500:51:54

Talking about drugs.

0:51:540:51:56

"You've got to help me."

0:51:560:51:58

# It makes no difference

0:51:580:52:02

# How I carry on... #

0:52:020:52:04

Four weeks later, she was dead.

0:52:040:52:07

# Please don't talk about me when I'm gone. #

0:52:070:52:11

Lady was dead at 44. Long live the Lady.

0:52:170:52:20

She was, of course, the first of the great jazz divas to die on the job

0:52:230:52:27

but they all had to face the treachery of their own unique instrument,

0:52:270:52:32

their body, letting them down.

0:52:320:52:34

# I know that I'll

0:52:420:52:47

# Be contented with yesterday's memories

0:52:470:52:54

# Knowing you'll think of me

0:52:570:53:03

# Once in a while. #

0:53:030:53:10

In the latter years, her highs were getting lower and lower,

0:53:120:53:16

and her lows were also not there.

0:53:160:53:18

She was only singing in the middle range of her voice.

0:53:180:53:22

Ella Fitzgerald, with only this much,

0:53:220:53:24

saying more than anybody else.

0:53:240:53:27

She lived for it.

0:53:270:53:29

And even though she'd nearly smoked herself to death

0:53:290:53:33

and had both her legs amputated and she's wheeled onto the stage,

0:53:330:53:37

she's still doing it.

0:53:370:53:39

Sarah Vaughan had that funny joke.

0:53:420:53:44

She'd be perspiring, she'd have a drink of water,

0:53:440:53:46

and she'd say, "Every night, I come up here looking like Lena Horne

0:53:460:53:49

"and I go home looking like Sarah Vaughan."

0:53:490:53:53

And, you know, so she would make fun of that. She became heavier.

0:53:530:53:57

She became more diva-like. But she was Sarah Vaughan.

0:53:570:54:00

And she could get away with that because her genius

0:54:000:54:02

was so undeniable.

0:54:020:54:05

# We seem

0:54:050:54:09

# Like passing strangers now

0:54:090:54:13

# How can you hurry by?

0:54:150:54:20

# There were never two who loved

0:54:220:54:28

# Half as much as you and I... #

0:54:280:54:33

# Don't look for me... #

0:54:330:54:39

Peggy Lee decided to keep Miss Peggy Lee the performer alive

0:54:390:54:44

until the bitter end.

0:54:440:54:46

You can still be running a fever when you're virtually bedridden.

0:54:460:54:50

She arrived in a limousine.

0:54:500:54:52

And they wheeled out this wheelchair in sequins!

0:54:520:54:58

# Don't smoke... #

0:54:580:55:01

It was covered in sequins!

0:55:010:55:02

# ..in bed. #

0:55:020:55:04

And she came in, she went, "Thank you.

0:55:040:55:07

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

0:55:070:55:09

And they announced, "Miss Peggy Lee."

0:55:090:55:13

APPLAUSE

0:55:130:55:14

The lights went down, the lights came back up, and like magic,

0:55:140:55:20

there she was.

0:55:200:55:21

Now, imagine this woman,

0:55:210:55:24

having had a stroke, wearing a blonde pageboy wig,

0:55:240:55:29

big glasses with rhinestone so you were distracted from her face a bit.

0:55:290:55:34

And she started to sing Fever.

0:55:340:55:37

MUSIC: "Fever"

0:55:370:55:39

She used to always start with her hand out like that.

0:55:420:55:44

Always when she started that song.

0:55:440:55:47

Well, she'd clearly had a stroke, so what they did,

0:55:470:55:50

they had the drummer play the sound and her hand lightly snap,

0:55:500:55:55

but there was the drummer, like, right on time,

0:55:550:55:59

-and when she got to the point where she said...

-# Fever... #

0:55:590:56:01

..she held both hands up like that

0:56:010:56:03

and then brought them down in a series of steps!

0:56:030:56:06

She no longer had the fluidity or the timing

0:56:060:56:09

in terms of her hand movements,

0:56:090:56:11

but still you learn how you can adjust a performance.

0:56:110:56:15

I think it's really hard for a singer

0:56:160:56:19

to age in front of us on stage,

0:56:190:56:23

when you're a beauty and you're singing about desire

0:56:230:56:28

and you're trying to be sexy

0:56:280:56:30

and you're singing Fever and Big Spender and I'm A Woman...

0:56:300:56:34

# I can wash out 44 pairs of socks and have 'em hangin' on the line

0:56:340:56:39

# I can starch and iron two dozen shirts

0:56:410:56:43

# 'Fore you can count from one to nine... #

0:56:430:56:46

But then do you stop? She didn't want to stop singing.

0:56:470:56:52

But in truth, it was curtains for the jazz diva by the mid-'60s.

0:56:560:57:01

She was consigned to history by the triumph of pop and rock,

0:57:010:57:06

leaving her struggling to remain relevant,

0:57:060:57:08

forced to cover the odd Beatles song.

0:57:080:57:11

# Been a hard day's night

0:57:130:57:16

# I should be sleeping like a log

0:57:160:57:20

# But when I get home to you I find the things that you do

0:57:200:57:23

# Will make me feel all right... #

0:57:230:57:26

# And he's got another woman now... #

0:57:280:57:31

But Nina Simone, who had always embraced every kind of music,

0:57:310:57:36

made it across the bridge from the lost world of the jazz diva

0:57:360:57:39

to soul, R&B, gospel and beyond.

0:57:390:57:43

# Hey, lordy, lordy, mama

0:57:430:57:47

# What you gonna do about it?

0:57:470:57:52

# Hey, lordy, mama... #

0:57:520:57:53

There's a lot of singers and a lot of people in the world,

0:57:530:57:56

but nobody reminds me of Nina.

0:57:560:57:57

# Tell me what you gonna do now? What you gonna do? #

0:57:570:58:02

I wish I could have met her

0:58:020:58:04

and hung with her and got in all kinds of trouble with her.

0:58:040:58:07

That would have been my sister. I'm not in trouble enough.

0:58:070:58:10

I'd like to be in trouble with Nina Simone.

0:58:100:58:12

# And don't know how to treat him... #

0:58:120:58:16

Nina is just a big soul that nobody...

0:58:160:58:20

I don't even know how they got her into a casket,

0:58:200:58:22

cos her soul was so big, she didn't have a place to go.

0:58:220:58:25

You know?

0:58:250:58:26

The Ellas, the Sarahs, the Billies, the Dinahs, the Anitas,

0:58:290:58:32

the Peggys, they become more and more magical

0:58:320:58:35

because we know we're never going to see their like again.

0:58:350:58:38

These women were the first, they are the originals and the best.

0:58:400:58:44

And I often wonder... why I even bothered doing it,

0:58:440:58:50

cos it's been done so well before!

0:58:500:58:53

These are women that were artists

0:58:550:58:57

and they found a platform to be artists,

0:58:570:59:01

and to be heard and to be accepted

0:59:010:59:05

and to be subtly, you know, freed.

0:59:050:59:09

# Me myself and I

0:59:090:59:12

# Are all in love with you

0:59:120:59:15

# We all think you're wonderful We do

0:59:150:59:20

# Me, myself and I

0:59:220:59:24

# Have just one point of view

0:59:240:59:28

# We're convinced

0:59:280:59:29

# There's no-one else like you... #

0:59:290:59:32

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0:59:320:59:34

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