More than four decades after her death, Billie Holiday remains
one of the most gifted artists of our time–and also one of the most
elusive. Because of who she was and how she chose to live her life,
Lady Day has been the subject of both intense adoration and wildly
distorted legends. Now at last, Farah Jasmine Griffin, a writer of
intellectual authority and superb literary gifts, liberates Billie
Holiday from the mythology that has obscured both her life and her
art.
An intimate meditation on Holiday’s place in American culture and
history, If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery reveals Lady Day in all
her complexity, humor and pain–a true jazz virtuoso whose passion
and originality made every song she sang hers forever. Celebrated
by poets, revered by recording artists from Frank Sinatra to Macy
Gray, Billie Holiday is more popular and influential today than
ever before. Now, thanks to this marvelous book, Holiday’s many
fans can finally understand the singer and the woman they love.
關於作者:
A Billie Holiday fan for as long as she can remember, Farah
Jasmine Griffin is currently a visiting professor at Columbia
University. She is the author of “Who Set You Flowin’?”: The
African American Migration Narrative.