Ella Fitzgerald Research Paper

Ella Fitzgerald, also known as “The First Lady of Song” or “Lady Ella”, was an extraordinary singer highly known in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Virginia then moving to New York, Ella grew up during the 1920s and got her breakthrough in the early 1930s. She joined an orchestra and produced her first number one single, A-Tisket, A-Tasket. Ella’s contributions to the Harlem Renaissance included not only her songs, but her appearances in movies such as. Ella Fitzgerald is shaped into the woman that she once was through her background, accomplishments, challenges and hardships; she also leaves a legacy that would continue on to influence many generations to come.

Billie Holiday lived a tumultuous life as she went through many ups and downs during her childhood and into her adulthood. Billie Holiday was only eighteen years old when she was discovered singing in nightclubs and soon found great success as a jazz singer. In spite of her lack of musical training, Holiday’s distinct singing caught the attention of her audience and she became one of the greatest jazz singers of the twentieth century. However, despite the remarkable success Billie achieved, she continuously battled with substance abuse until the end of her life. Holiday may have had a tragic life, but her emotional, melancholic voice made her an imperative presence in the period of jazz.

"I’ve always been a writer. My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved,” says Dolly Parton. Over the years, Dolly Parton has created an amazing image of being a renowned superstar. She has contributed to countless milestones in entertainment world of country music. Spanning from her classical songs such a “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” and her mega-hit “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly). Parton seamlessly defined country music with pop music, while maintaining her image as a country star. Parton exclaimed, “I’m not leaving country,” she said at the time, “I’m just taking it with me”

Eleanor Feagan, most commonly known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter who had a career lasting nearly 30 years. The way she sang had been strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists and introduced a new way of controlling phrasing and tempo. She carried an abundant amount of emotion and character in her voice, in addition to her material. Holiday is one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time and has had an everlasting influence on American music.

Billie Holiday is one of the most influential jazz singers of her time. Her attitude, determination and most of all her music inspired artists throughout time and inspired major social change. Throughout her lifetime she explored the world of jazz, her identity, and how far the limits of her talent would take her. She exchanged her poor life, full of drugs and scandal for a life of performing the arts and showcasing her talents and abilities. Her incredible determination led her to do what she loved regardless of what anyone thought , which led to her inciting major social exchange; moving black suffering into white consciousness.

Loretta Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. She was the second of eight children. Her hometown was a small, rural coal-mining community in which her father earned a living for the family as a worker in the mines. As faith was a major part of her family’s lifestyle, she spent every Sunday as a child singing in church. This is where her love for music and performing was born.

Funicello recorded 15 albums in the late 1950s and late 1960s, which were all a hit. Annette Funicello was the most famous one on the mousekeeper, she got about 8,000 fan letters, all the rest got only about 800. She was in the “Beach Party” movie and her amazing voice just got her everywhere. Some guys even across the world asked if they could marry her, but of course she sent the rings and stuff back.

Billie Holiday’s biggest influences in music were Bessie Smith and Louis “Pops” Armstrong; she admired the power that Smith had to interpret a song, and Armstrong’s music style. “Lady Day” became famous in 1939 when she recorded “Strange Fruit”, which is song that protests against the lynching of African Americans in the United States (The Biography.com website). A year later, in 1940 she recorded a new version of “All of Me”. This song which was written in 1931 by Seymour Simons and Gerald Marks, is one of the most popular songs from the 1930s.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the song that put on her on the charts, Aretha Franklin, one of the most influential female artists of all time is the artist that interest me the most. With her vocals a mixture of jazz and rhythm & blues, Aretha gained fame. Her vocals were so good, that it made her to have hit records over five years, which later on in her career, cause her to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame. Also giving her the title “The Queen of Soul”. Like most artists today, Franklin got her career started by singing gospel, and from gospel to pop and R&B.

She had become the first African American performer to sign a contract with a major studio, but she wanted to accomplish more than that. She wanted to be a voice for African Americans who were also trying to receive equality. “When I went to the south and met the kind of people who were fighting in such an unglamorous fashion, I mean, fighting to just get someplace to sit and get a sandwich. I felt close to that kind of thing because I had denied it and had been left away from it so long. And I began to feel such pain again.

Ella Josephine Baker was born December 13, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). She grew up in North Carolina and developed a passion for social justice after hearing stories from when her grandmother was in slavery (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). Her grandmother often told her stories of slave revolts and how oppressive life was as a slave (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). Baker studied at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina and was elected valedictorian when she graduated in 1927 with a degree in sociology (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). Baker began to cultivate her radical activism by protesting rules and policies of the university that were discriminating (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). She then moved to New York and became an activist in many social justice organizations and worked other jobs to make ends meet (“Who Was Ella Baker?”, 2015). In 1930, still early in

Billie Holiday could be considered one of the most influential women in jazz, if not one of the most influential women in general. She was one of the first to incorporate anti-racist ideals and progressive thoughts through the outlet of music, influencing many others down the road. Her intense desire for equality and change could be due to the immense amounts of hardship during her younger years, which may have very well carried over into her adult singing career. Billie Holiday was abandoned at a very young age as her father was out of the picture and her mother could not care for her, seeing as her mother was only 13 and barely an adult herself (Holiday, 1992). Born in 1915, Holiday was put into the care of her extended family.

Ransby wrote about the complexity of Ella Baker's life. Ransby stated: "for me, in looking back as Baker's life in all of its rich complexity" (Ransby, Pg). In the writing the biography, Ransby brought to life a person in her writing. Her argument centered on the idea of complexity. The complexity of Baker's life leads to the importance of her legacy. Because Ransby wrote of a complex individual creates a legacy just a complex. Importantly, terms like grass-roots, listening, civil rights or educator cannot simply be used to define Baker. These terms where different parts of Baker. Rather, the life and legacy of Ella Baker represent the idea of longevity in political thought. It represents the time and effort taken to create positive change

Marian Anderson was a driven African American singer. "We don't take colored" (Collins 106). Marian was deprived of singing in many places because of the color of her skin. She was always well behaved and never wanted conflict so she never would argue.

Born as Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906, in Saint Louis. Her mother had dreams of becoming a music-hall dancer, but gave them up to become a mother and washerwoman and her father abandoned them when she was an infant. Most of her time as a youth was spent in poverty. To help support her family, she started cleaning houses and babysitting at the age of eight often being mistreated. At the age of 13 she ran away from home, found work as a waitress at a club where she met her first husband Willie Wells, who she divorced only weeks later. It was around this time that Josephine first took up dancing, honing her skills, both in clubs and in street performances, by 1919 she was touring the United States with the Jones Family Band and the Dixie Steppers performing comedic skits. By 1921 she married her second husband, Willie Baker whose name she obtained even after they divorced years later.