Etta James Sings Billie Holiday (1994)

I am not completely convinced with this, for many reasons.

Billie Holiday was an artist capable of expressing happiness and sadness - in her short life she had recorded some amazingly happy, bouncy swinging songs and later some devastatingly sad material, covering the whole gamut of human's experiences. On the other hand, Etta James was a blues/R&B shouter known for her soulful growling and though she did occasionally reach out into old "songbook" repertoire (after all, her biggest hit "At Last" was ancient 1930s ballad updated for R&B market) she would rely on rhythm and shouting to get the point. The only connecting link between these two singers is actually Etta James's mother who was big fan and played her recordings at home when young girl was growing up. So now, decades later, Etta is paying tribute to both women on album of late-night ballads focused entirely on heartbreak. Obviously that was Billie Holiday for her. Very one-sided. Like Billie never sung happy note in her life. The album was actually big success and got her "Grammy" (and side-lined her career into several similar albums) but I don't care much for this - Etta James sounds old,tired and weary - perhaps the biggest surprise was the fact that she actually toned down her typical growling for a moment. It's not a pleasant listening (despite fine music background) and it bothers me to see how people perceive Billie Holiday as only and exclusively sad, destroyed woman when in fact I know and love many of her uptempo music. Billie was NOT a victim, she was a strong woman who enjoyed life, smoked, drank and had a fist-fights when inspired - the fact that this album focuses only on sad ballads from her repertoire is like if Hollywood makes movie about your life and describes you only in very basic terms,like the street where you lived and supermarket where you bought your food but leaves out everything else. Come to think of it, it already happen when Hollywood made movie about Billie's life and just mangled everything. People who knew Billie were actually very upset. 

If you want to hear really good Billie Holiday tribute check out albums with similar albums by Anita O'Day and Carmen McRae.