Motown 758
Executive Producer: Berry Gordy
Track listing: The Arrest / Lady Sings the Blues / Baltimore Brothel / Billie Sneak into Dean & Dean’s, Swingin’ Uptown / T’ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do / Big Ben, C. C. Rider /All of Me / The Man I Love / Them There Eyes / Gardenias from Louis / Cafe Manhattan, Had You Been Around, Love Theme /Any Happy Home / I Cried for You (Now It’s Your Turn to Cry Over Me) / Billie & Harry, Don’t Explain / Mean to Me / Fine and Mellow / What a Little Moonlight Can Do / Louis Visits Billie on Tour, Love Theme / Cafe Manhattan Party / Persuasion, T’ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If if Do / Agent’s Office / Love Is Here to St / Fine and Mellow / Lover Man (N Where Can You Be?) / You’ve Changed / Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer) / Good Morning Heartache / All of Me / Love Theme / My Man (Mon Homme) / Don’t Explain / I Cried for You (Now It’s Your Turn to Cry Over Me) / Strange Fruit / God Bless the Child / Closing Theme
April 7, 1973
2 weeks
Billie Holiday never had a Number One album, but she was nonetheless one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time. Her career might have been even more storied had she lived longer — she died of heart and liver disease exacerbated by years of drug abuse on July 15, 1959, at the age of 44.
Thirteen years later, Diana Ross faced one of the biggest challenges of her career. She had found success fronting the Supremes and as a solo artist, but could Ross also make good as Billie Holiday? Lady Sings the Blues was a film biography of Holiday presented by Motown founder Berry Gordy. Ross made her major film debut in the picture starring as Holiday opposite Billy Dee Williams, with Richard Pryor co-starring.
For Ross, singing Holiday’s songs on Motown’s first motion picture soundtrack was as challenging as portraying the singer in the film. “I had to prepare myself ahead of time,” she says. “I had to know when I’m doing this song is Billie Holiday on drugs, off drugs, going off drugs, or is she straight. I couldn’t sing the songs in the normal way, because there were a lot of other things that needed to be considered.”
While preparing for the part and filming the picture, Ross listened to nothing but Billie Holiday’s music, but she wasn’t trying to copy her singing style. “I had decided absolutely and completely not to try to sing like Billie Holiday, because I thought that would be wrong and I would be criticized if I tried to do that. The most important thing that I could do as an actress was to know what kind of pain she was going through at the time when she was singing those songs. I hoped to have the feeling there, rather than trying to sound like her, which I never did.”
Despite Ross’s popularity, there were those who were skeptical about her ability to play Holiday. “There were a lot of people who felt that I couldn’t do it, because I didn’t have enough pain in my life to sing jazz and blues and portray someone as extraordinary as Billie Holiday,” she says.
Ross prepared for the role by interpreting Holiday’s songs. “When she was singing ‘You’ve Changed,’ it didn’t have to be directed at another person. She could have been thinking of herself. To me, the message was that she was looking at herself.”
Although Ross received mixed reviews, she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance. The only single released from the album, “Good Morning Heartache,” stalled at number 34 in March, but by April, Lady Sings the Blues, which also includes score music by Michael LeGrand, fought its way to the top in its 20th week on the chart.
THE TOP FIVE
April 7, 1973
1. Lady Sings the Blues, Diana Ross
2. Don’t Shot Me I’m Only the Piano, Player Elton John
3. Prelude/Deodato, Eumir Deodato
4. Deliverance, Soundtrack
5. Rocky Mountain High, John Denver