The full title of this photograph is "Billie Holiday on Broad Street leaving after a gig at the Sugar Hill club in Newark 1957" and here we have a completely natural, random and candid moment where living legend and internationally celebrated Jazz royalty is caught in a second just as a natural, breathing and probably slightly tired human.
As much as we love to romanticise and admire celebrities (specially dead ones), its easy to forget they were just humans, like any of us - nobody starts with the idea that one day they will be remembered as giants and cornerstones of anything. Most of us are just living day to day and its the people's perception of us what makes all the difference. Billie Holiday herself was long gone and became a myth, our jazz lady of perpetual sorrow - under the layers of beautiful, melancholic music there is a real person buried deep, the old photos showing her fragile beauty, Gardenias and all. Mostly, we see her in the dressing rooms, alone with her dog, on a stage, her life lived between sharp contrasts of expected 1950s comfortable home life and night clubs. Majority of her pictures were posed so this one comes as a refreshing glimpse into a moment, when Lady Day is deep in her thoughts, walking towards the cab, perhaps to her dealer, the stage glamour just a prop, she needs a drink and her feet hurt her. What an excellent photo.
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