In a memoir that is as poignant, lyrical, and dramatic as her legendary performances, Billie Holiday tells her own story. She recalls a turbulent adolescence in Harlem during the 1920s, the excitement of working in New York City's famous jazz clubs with the musicians who brought jazz to the forefront of American culture, and her own dazzling rise to the top. The darker side of the Holiday legend is here too: the men who exploited her, the racial prejudice she encountered, and her harrowing struggle with heroin addiction.

"Little in the striking opening of Lady Sings the Blues is factual, ... And no one who knew her can imagine Billie Holiday, even young, scrubbing steps - a favorite part of her myth of herself. Lady Sings the Blues is a faithful rendition of that myth. ..." Phyllis Rose in The Norton Book of Women's Lives