Billie Holiday - Lady Sings The Blues (1956)

To accompany her autobiography, Bilie Holiday released an LP in June 1956 entitled "Lady Sings the Blues". The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues" (title track), "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", as well as eight new recordings of Holiday's biggest hits to date.

The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child".´On December 22, 1956, Billboard magazine reviewed "Lady Sings the Blues", calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," said the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track in the LP, was also noted positively.

Taken from sessions taped during 1954-1956, "Lady Sings the Blues" features Holiday backed by tenor saxophonists Budd Johnson and Paul Quinichette, trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Wynton Kelly, and guitarist Billy Bauer. Though Holiday's voice had arguably deteriorated by the 1950s, the album is well-regarded - in a 1956 review, "Down Beat" awarded the album 5 out of 5 stars, and had this to say about the co-current book:

"Lady Sings The Blues is Billie Holiday's autobiography (...) she tries to get the reader on her side of the mirror, so don't expect a three-dimensional view of the subject. The book was written with William Dufty, assistant to the editor of the New York Post (...) Seldom in the book does she talk about her singing (...)"

On Saturday, November 10, 1956, Holiday appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall in front of a sold out crowd. The show was planned to commemorate the edition of her autobiography, some paragraphs being read during the performance.

Tracklist:

A1		Lady Sings The Blues
A2		Trav'lin' Light
A3		I Must Have That Man
A4		Some Other Spring
A5		Strange Fruit
A6		No Good Man
B1		God Bless The Child
B2		Good Morning Heartache
B3		Love Me Or Leave Me
B4		Too Marvelous For Words
B5		Willow Weep For Me
B6		I Thought About You

Billie Holiday - Lady Sings The Blues (1956)
(256 kbps, cover art included)