Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday

This documentary shows rare archive footage of Billie Holiday aka Lady Day. She inspired Annie Ross who is interviewed here with others like Carmen MacRae. The documentary shows her performances including "Strange Fruit" which was both groundbreaking and revolutionary about lynchings in the South. Billie was subjected to plenty of prejudice as she was an African American singer and performer. With a flower in her hair, she could mesmerize her audiences as if she was singing to your soul. Her performance of "Strange Fruit" does that here. The song is beautifully and masterfully written where her voice compliments the poetic nature while displaying the horrors of lynching. If it is a wake-up call about the brutality in the South where Jim Crow laws reign supreme at the time. Billie had a very troubled personal life though which added fuel to her performances. She died too young.