Saturday, July 16, 2011

Clippings

No music to listen to today, just some interesting advertisements I found online in the Baltimore Afro-American...






...and that's just scratching the surface. There are hundreds of record ads, personal appearance plugs, pictures, and articles out there.

Then I spotted this sad news item:

...it was buried under a large (unrelated) picture on the front page of the 1 January 1927 issue.

I was shocked...the name "Eleanora Gough"
(misspelled on the article) was familiar...and this website explains why http://www.victoriansecrets.net/billiebalto.html . There's even a picture of 219 South Durham Street as it appears today.

I can't add any comment here...it's just sad that the first real newspaper article about Billie Holiday has to be something this awful.

I'll have something more cheerful next time around.

PS. I suppose I should mention this website http://www.accuracyproject.org/cbe-Holiday,Billie.html, which gives the actual information from Billie's birth certificate...she was born "Elinore Harris," although some early documents give other spellings of her first name. "Fagan" was the maiden name of Sadie (Billie's mother), which explains why I usually found that name in Billie's biographies, although "Gough" was in some listings)...Philip Gough married Sadie five years after Billie's birth.




6 comments:

Buster said...

Entirely fascinating. Thanks so much.

ALustyGhost said...

Totally unrelated to this post, but here's an mp3 of that private press novelty 45 about Lowell we were talking about earlier:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ELZ1A5VM

ZorchMan said...

Thanks!

Seizan said...

I just found your site through Lee Hartsfeld (well, through HIS site, anyway). Fascinating! And a wierd coincidence, too (if you believe in that sort of thing) I have a few things to ask; how can I contact you directly (not via the comments section)? I can't find your e-mail... Or will the comments section do?
My name is Seizan (say-zahn).

Seizan said...

Sorry, weird, nor wierd...

How wired.

Seizan

ZorchMan said...

Seizan...you can leave a comment here if you like...I posted my email once in the comments for "It Was Eighty Years Ago Today... " (it's buried a bit, but it's there) and you can get me there...