Billie Holiday, For Her Birthday: She Was VERY Involved in Creating Lady Sings the Blues, 1

As you know from my many previous posts on Billie Holiday, I am a huge advocate for her and her work. But it always amazes me that sometimes when other people say that they are advocates for Billie, they unwittingly deprive her of any agency whatsoever. For example, the common claim that she had nothing to do with her autobiography is false, as I will show. Why do so many authors find that idea appealing? I guess they are trying to show how people took advantage of her, how unfair they were to her. But in the process they make her seem to be oblivious of what’s going on around her, in effect to be kind of dim-witted. In fact, she was brilliant, not dim-witted, and of course she was involved in writing the story of her own life!

Those who do not believe that Holiday wrote her autobiography assert, with no evidence, that her coauthor William Dufty wrote the whole thing without her. (By the way, Dufty was not technically a “ghostwriter.” That term refers to an experienced writer whose name does not appear on the final book. Such writers are invisible—that’s why they are called “ghosts.” But every edition of Lady Sings the Blues says right on the cover, “with William Dufty.” Clearly, he was very visible. That’s usually called a “coauthor” or, as indicated by the word “with,” sometimes a “secondary author” or an “assisting author”—that is, not as important as the main author.)

The claims about her lack of involvement are summarized in an article by Matthew Sutton, an English Professor at Morehead State College in Kentucky, entitled “Bitter Crop: the Aftermath of Lady Sings the Blues” (Auto/Biography Studies, 27:2, Winter 2012. I am not offering my usual link to the article because I truly recommend that you do not read it.) He writes as follows—and please note, he is wrong on every count, as are the many other writers who have said these and similar things:

…[She] had no direct input in his [William Dufty’s] writing or editing. The publisher, Doubleday, overruled Holiday’s desire to name the work Bitter Crop, after a line from one of her most poignant songs, “Strange Fruit” (Chilton 160). A postcard Holiday sent to Dufty almost a month after Lady’s publication, inquiring whether Dufty was still working on the book, demonstrates her detachment from the authorship of her autobiography (Blackburn 264). As biographer Stuart Nicholson notes, some in Holiday’s inner circle alleged she did not even read the book after its publication (233). Lacking final approval of her own life story, Holiday was effectively shut out of the writing process…

We will take these claims one at a time. But first, please know that Professor John Szwed, in his short but very valuable book on Holiday, is the only person who actually did research at the publisher, examined the unpublished version of the manuscript, read the letters between the authors and the publisher, and reconstructed the process by which the book was created. He even details the financial agreements between Billie, Dufty, and Doubleday Publishing. I will be drawing partly upon Szwed’s research, and adding a few notes of my own.

Okay—now let’s go over the claims “against” Billie’s involvement, point by point:

“She had no direct input in his writing or editing.” FALSE.

Exhibit A: Here is a letter that Holiday sent, dated December 30th 1955, to LeBaron “Lee” Barker, an editor at Doubleday Publishing:

It’s a little hard to understand her handwriting, so here you can read what she says:

Dear Mr. Barker,

I have been reading the book and there are many changes I want made. Mr. Lieb sent us a letter which I enclose for your consideration. I am leaving for Cleavland [sic] for a week and suggest you hold up any galleyes [sic] until I return if there is any question please call Mr. Lieb. PS excuse writing, [I] never write letters,

Billie Holiday

(A few notes: “Galleys” are the first printing of a book or article, intended as a last chance to proofread and edit, not for publication. Sometimes, galleys are sent to critics and potential “blurb” writers, with a warning that it is not a final copy. In those days galleys were on paper, basically an unbound book. Today they are PDF files. And I don’t know why she wrote this on stationery from the Cunard Cruise lines. She was touring the USA at this time, not taking a cruise.)

Notice, she says “I have been reading the book.” She had already read the book, as I will show in Part 2, so really she means, “I have been re-reading the book.” The book was published about six months later, on July 5, 1956, so this was not a “last minute” attempt to look at the manuscript. And she wants “many changes.” Does that sound like a passive person who has no interest in the book?

Harry Lieb was a lawyer hired by Billie and her husband Louis McKay. The letter that she refers to is below, dated three days earlier, December 27. So she responded quickly and wrote to the publisher on December 30, soon after she received this. Lieb was worried about possible libelous statements. (As Szwed reveals, passages about Orson Welles, Charles Laughton, and others were deleted before publication.) But then he gets personal, saying that he was disappointed by the overall negative tone of the book and the emphasis on “gripes” (complaints):

(There is a typo in Szwed’s book, p.21, which has the letter begin “Dear Mr. Barker.”)

Lieb does question whether Billie has read the entire manuscript, but that is really his way of saying “If she has read it, I can’t believe that she thought it was okay.” As he knew well, she had signed a statement on October 3 that she had gone through the manuscript “page by page.” You will see that statement in Part 2 of this essay.

My point remains that she took a serious interest in the book. And remember it was Billie, not Dufty, who wrote to the publisher right after receiving this letter. Also, it’s important to note that the writing process was moving very quickly. She had started working with Dufty in June 1955, and they spent many hours talking together. By late September they had completed a manuscript! As Szwed shows, it was constantly changing during that time as Dufty wrote, deleted, revised, and—with her knowledge and permission—inserted stories and details that she had told in prior magazine articles, without citing the sources. (That is not an unusual practice, although I don’t do it or approve of it.) And Billie was very busy performing and recording. She did not take time off to work on the book. So, if she had previously rushed through the manuscript, and was now re-reading it more carefully, that made perfect sense. To sum up, the statement that “She had no direct input in [Dufty’s] writing or editing” is completely false.

“The publisher, Doubleday, overruled Holiday’s desire to name the work Bitter Crop, after a line from one of her most poignant songs, ‘Strange Fruit.’” MISLEADING.

Apparently prompted by a press release from Doubleday, the original title was mentioned in various periodicals in the fall of 1955. For example, here is DownBeat, September 21, 1955:

The title was indeed changed before publication, and according to Szwed, Billie did prefer the original title Bitter Crop. But I can tell you, as the author or co-author of seven books, that the publisher always reserves the right to choose the title of a book. That is a very important marketing decision, and they have the expertise to determine what’s best. Yes, it’s typical for the authors to make a suggestion, but publisher contracts usually specify that they are in no way bound to use that suggestion. (Superstars like Stephen King have different contracts, but even in his case a respectful conversation about titles would not be unusual.)

Now – if truth be told, Lady Sings the Blues is an excellent title. Many people knew her as “Lady” or “Lady Day,” and knew that she was a singer. And the title tells them that the book is her story. On the other hand, Bitter Crop does not even tell you who wrote the book, or that it was about a singer. The only problem with the “Lady” title is that many people misunderstood the use of the word “blues.” Many thought it meant “Billie Holiday is a blues singer,” which she was not, and to be fair, Billie did not even like to be called a blues singer. But that’s not what the title means. The actual meaning is “Lady talks about her hard life,” as in, “She sure is ‘singing the blues.’” To sum up, the statement that “the publisher overruled Holiday’s desire to name the work Bitter Crop” is misleading, because the publisher always has the final say about titles, and because this is not evidence that Holiday was not involved in writing the book. She was very involved!

As I will show in the second and last part of this essay, the other claims are also wrong. I have completed that essay and will post it soon.

All the best,
Lewis