Bobservation

Really just a singular Bobservation about the madness that can be me and my thoughts and how Carlos helps save me from myself.

Ooooh, dark, eh?

During Christmas, Carlos suggested a vacation, just the two of us, for some time in January. He said it was for my birthday and “other stuff,” and I knew what that meant.

You see, we’re coming up on a year since my father died and I have had this feeling that I might not live past that date; I said it was dark. I don’t dwell on it, but the fact that so many of my close family have died in February makes my mind go there, so Carlos planned a vacation.

In the last four years or so our “vacations” were just me, or sometimes the two of us, going to Oregon because my father had a health issue and needed help at home; and I was always glad to go and help, but it became a depressing thought … flights, airports, cars were not for fun trips but for family responsibility and that became a drag as much as I wanted to help and was only too happy to help, so Carlos planned a trip.

New York was a first choice because he knows how much I love it but the cold snap, with 30s during the day and below freezing at night kinda put a damper on exploring the city outdoors as we like to do, so he switched gears … Savannah.

All the years we’ve lived here we never visited so he thought a new place would be just the thing, and it was, except while we got a hair over an inch of snow, Savannah got nearly half a foot, so it was cold down there and icy down there and, yeah.

But it was just the trip we ... I ... needed. Just the two of us lounging in the hotel room in early mornings, and then going on walkabouts through the waterfront and down into the Historic District, the City Market, art galleries, coffee shops, hole-in-the-wall pubs and some upscale eateries. We wandered and ate and drank and drank some more, and then ate again, and laughed and talked and just had a good time.

It really was the getaway we both needed, me especially at this time. While I am generally a positive person, I can get dark and very introspective and a little nutty at times and while this trip didn’t change that ... I am still dreading the next few weeks ... it did give me, both of us, a much-needed break.

I joke about Carlos, pick on his eyesight, and his horrid hearing, his forgetfulness, his love of Nerd News, the disasters he leaves in the kitchen … that’s all. I kid; I joke about all of that but there is no one who gets me more and knows what I need and how to make me feel better on those Blue Days that come up, or maybe even the Blue Months. He understands that this first year will be difficult as my mind wanders into the abyss, but I really am very lucky that I found him, and he found me.

Now … that’s all … other than a few photos of Savannah.

#BillieAt100: Happy Birthday Lady Day

There isn’t another singer, alive or dead, who moves me as much as Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I have been a fan since, well, probably forever. The first time I heard that voice, that soul, that pain, that life, in song, I was hooked. And so, while today we’ll celebrate Carlos’ birthday, we are also celebrating #BillieAt100, because this is her 100th birthday.

She was born Eleanora Fagan, and grew up in Baltimore in the 1920s. As a teenager, she would sing-along with Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong records in the neighborhood after-hours jazz clubs. When Eleanora’s mother, Sadie, moved to New York in search of a better job, Billie soon followed, and made her debut in nightclubs in Harlem, changing her name to Billie Holiday.

Billie had no training; she couldn’t even read music. But man what she could do with a song. She worked all the clubs in Harlem, sometimes signing with the accompaniment of the house piano player or working as part of a group of performers.

At just 18, Billie was spotted by John Hammond and recorded her first record as part of a studio group led by Benny Goodman. In 1935, at age 20, Billie’s career rocketed when she recorded four sides that went on to become hits, including “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Miss Brown to You,” and landed her a recording contract of her own.

Billie began working with Lester Young in 1936 — he nicknamed her Lady Day — and she then went on to work with Count Basie in 1937 and then Artie Shaw in 1938, where she became one of the very first black women to work with a white orchestra.

In the 1930s, while recording for Columbia Records, Billie heard the poem “Strange Fruit,” an emotional piece about the lynching of a black man. Though Columbia would not allow her to record the piece due to subject matter, Holiday went on to record the song with an alternate label, Commodore, and “Strange Fruit” became one of her classics.

In the 1950s Billie recorded about 100 new songs for Verve Records, her voice more rugged and vulnerable, but still so powerful.  Despite her lack of technical training, Billie’s unique diction, phrasing and intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day.

“Singing songs like the ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Porgy’ is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck. I’ve lived songs like that.” — Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday died far too young and far too soon, in 1959 at the age of 44. True, her life was filled with bad men, bad choices, drugs, drug arrests, and heartbreak, but none of that matters when you just listen to her sing … like this …

  

photo credits:

Fashion Bomb
Downbeat
BET
see also:
Billie Holiday on YouTube
BillieHoliday.com