Religion and the Life, Times, and Music of Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan Gough) was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Enduring a turbulent childhood, she started singing in New York City in her teenage years, becoming an exceptionally talented, and then famous, jazz and swing singer in the 1930s and 40s. Billie won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously. We would like to investigate the religious influences on Billie Holiday’s life, times, and music. We believe that understanding this particular thread of the American fabric will make each of us more effective stewards of religion’s role in the ongoing American project.   Season 4, Episode 17 – Religion and the Life, Times, and Music of Billie Holiday   Guest Bio Tracy Fessenden has agreed to help us with this. Professor Tracy Fessenden is the Steve and Margaret Forster Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University and Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, where she also directs the Initiative in Spirituality and Public Life. Her work focuses on, among other things but most relevant for our topic today, religion and American literature and the arts and the relationship between religion and the secular in American law, culture, and public life. She is the author of Religion Around Billie Holiday and Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature. It is our hope that by answering this question, each of us will be more effective stewards of religion’s role in the American experiment in self-government. SHOWNOTES: https://billieholiday.com/ Billie Holiday - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday “Strange Fruit” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit “God Bless the Child” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_the_Child_(Billie_Holiday_song) House of the Good Shepherd for Colored Gils in Baltimore, Maryland: https://mavcor.yale.edu/mavcor-journal/colored-magdalens-house-good-shepherd-colored-girls-baltimore-ca-1930s   Podcast Support Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo. Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the private, digital-first National Museum of American Religion, which tells the story of how religion has shaped America and how America has shaped religion. This includes the establishment of religious freedom in the United States Constitution’s Article VI and Bill of Rights religion clauses.