Few blues singers can truly sing as if they have lived through what they are singing about. One is Billie Holiday, a singer whose voice truly captures the turmoil she went through in her personal life. In an era when most jazz and blues songs were basically cut and pasted from one album to the next without much change or emotion other than the lyrics, Billie Holiday added the power of her voice and life story to her music. Even early on in her career, she took the liberty to rearrange the music and toy with the vocal style of the songs. According to her autobiography “Lady Sings the Blues,” she was born in 1915 to a young teen mother who frequently left her with uncaring family members. All the pain she went through in her early childhood and early adulthood led to her powerful blues voice, so riddled with pain that the music of her voice itself makes your stomach sink and your mind fill with sorrowful imagery.She got her break in the early 1930s when she began working her way through the New York City club circuit. One of her more notable songs would have to be the classic “Strange Fruit,” a dark tale about life in the Deep South. “Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”The sound of her voice paints dark visuals into your mind’s eye. You can see the long trees and feel the thick and humid summer breeze blowing through and even after the song has ended, you can still feel the darkness of her voice lingering around you.Unfortunately, like many artists of her era, she struggled with alcohol and heroin addiction for most of her career. Holiday passed away at the early age of 44 due to heart disease and heroin withdrawals. However, if you are looking for something powered by soul and pain, then you should give Billie Holiday a chance.