1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 17. Billie Holiday – Lady in Satin (1958)


A strange choice here, looking at the history of it. This was Holiday’s last studio album, recorded not long before she died, after her voice had been altered by alcohol and drugs. It’s got a frail rasp to it which, when you know the timing, makes sense (see also David Bowie's Black Star, Queen's Innuendo, and Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around for albums recorded by people near the end of their lives). 

It’s a lot like Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours album, in that it’s a lot of melancholic songs set to a lush orchestral backdrop. There’s even a Sinatra-written song on it, and the extended version has a Holiday version of The End of The Affair as also heard on Wee Small Hours. Not only that, but Holiday originally had Sinatra’s bandleader Nelson Riddle in mind for her backing, but in the end chose somebody else.  

As with the Wee Small Hours, it’s a deeply melancholy and subdued album which, if you’re not in the mood, can tend to pall a bit. I don’t know if this really gives a measure of Holiday as a performer in her prime. Perhaps if Dimery had gone further back in the 1950s rather than start at 1955 he could have included a better testament to her?  

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