Billie Holiday Birthplace — Philadelphia

Billie Holiday — Eleanora Fagan — was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though she spent most of her childhood and formative years in Baltimore. Her early life was one of considerable hardship: her parents were teenagers who didn't marry, she spent time in a Catholic reform school after being caught skipping school, and she was reportedly sexually assaulted as a child. She moved to New York in her early teens to join her mother and began singing in Harlem clubs for tips before her talent was recognised and she began recording with Benny Goodman in 1933.

Holiday's voice — not conventionally beautiful but utterly distinctive, with a behind-the-beat phrasing that changed the emotional register of every song she sang — was one of the great instruments in American music. 'Strange Fruit,' her 1939 recording of Abel Meeropol's anti-lynching poem, was the first great protest song in popular music and cost her significantly in bookings and radio play. 'God Bless the Child,' 'The Man I Love,' 'Lover Man,' and 'Don't Explain' are among her finest recordings. She died in 1959 of cirrhosis, under arrest in her hospital room for drug possession.

Philadelphia has a historical marker acknowledging Holiday's birth in the city. Baltimore, where she spent more of her childhood, has the more developed Holiday heritage trail, including the Billie Holiday statue on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Upton neighbourhood. The Apollo Theater in New York, where she performed, and the jazz clubs of 52nd Street are the primary landmarks of her career.