16. Billie Holliday — Lady in Satin (1958)

1. It’s important to note that Billie Holiday was 43 when she made this album. 43! Her voice carries twice that age, for both better and worse. It lends this album a sadness that I haven’t quite heard from anything else in the project so far. It’s simultaneously shocking and unsurprising to realize she died the year after its release, at 44.
2. I’m not super well-versed in Billie Holiday, outside of a handful of tunes, but her vocal stylings here are fascinating, leaping up and down, settling into almost spoken word at times, scratching and clawing to the top and then smoothly sliding back down. When it works, as on “I’m A Fool To Want You,” it’s brilliant, the voice-as-instrument in a manner I’ve rarely heard.
3. Unfortunately, it frequently doesn’t work. Listen to the intro of “I Get Along Without You Very Well” — she uses her voice like a trombone on the words “very well,” and it sounds…well…sloppy. It drives me a little nuts each time she fails like this.
4. Still, it’s easy to hear how Billie led to any number of later vocalists, from Nina Simone to Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse. (I’m struck by how the latter two suffered many of the same issues as Billie. Mere correlation, but sad nonetheless.) I find myself wanting to go back to her earlier work, to hear her at her most vibrant.
5. Don’t do heroin, kids.

One Essential Song:

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