County of mural: Carroll County
Location of mural: Alley off John Wesley Plaza, back side of 11-115 Rome St., Carrollton
Artist: Unknown
I was walking the streets of Carrollton, taking photos of the buildings in the historic district. Looking for 127 City Hall Avenue, now razed, I turned the corner in a parking lot, and began up the alley....and MY GOODNESS!!will you look at that. This magnificent, huge mural of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday...WOW!! Why is that HERE?
I never found out why, but I stood for a while. I am a jazz fan, and these two were giants in the field during the 1950's ...and their work will never die..
No artist signature on this huge piece...no clues written down...just this magnificent image.
"Lady Day Billie Holiday was a true artist of her day and rose as a social phenomenon in the 1950s. Her soulful, unique singing voice and her ability to boldly turn any material that she confronted into her own music made her a superstar of her time." ~ heyjude72, on Flicker
"Billie Holiday was just 44 years old when her heart and liver failed after years of drug and alcohol use. Thousands of people went to her funeral. A few years ago, we sent NPR's Elizabeth Blair to visit her grave at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx." ~ NPR
"Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), better known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education.
"After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.
"Though she was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Holiday's bad health, coupled with a string of abusive relationships and ongoing drug and alcohol abuse, caused her voice to wither. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction, owing to her damaged voice, but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959.
"She won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972. She is the primary character in the play (later made into a film) Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; the role was originated by Reenie Upchurch in 1986, and was played by Audra McDonald on Broadway and in the film. In 2017 Holiday was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame." ~ Wikipedia
"Louis Armstrong was one of the most recognizable entertainers in the world when he chose the working-class neighborhood of Corona, Queens to be his home in 1943. “And you take this neighborhood we live in,” Louis said in 1964. “We’re right out here with the rest of the colored folk and the Puerto Ricans and Italians and the Hebrew cats. We don’t need to move out in the suburbs to some big mansion with lots of servants and yardmen and things.” Visit us today to see how Louis Armstrong lived!" ~ History Lives